Leaning into what scares you

Debbie Ford often talks about leaning into the emotions that make you uncomfortable. It's never "it will be all right" with her, but rather, "just feel that," "go with that feeling," if you are upset or angry. In order to come to terms and have peace with our feelings we often have to go with the feeling and let it take us where we need to go.

My skiing metaphor is to remember to do that when I ski. When I get on steeps that scare me, I remind myself to lean down into the slope--rather than holding myself back towards the supposed safety of the land. In actuality if I lean back and resist the slope, I'm going to ski faster and with less control than if I lean forward and over my skis and down the slope.

Having found that such a tactic works, I carry this over into my emotional life with the reminder to lean into my feelings. I then remind myself how well this works on the mountain and find that it's that much easier to go with. Next time a feeling scares you or bothers you in some way, remember to lean into the feeling. You'll find that you have more control over the pace of where that takes you and you'll probably have fewer bruises from the experience too!

Hate Talk

I was listening to Air America this morning. They were talking about a pundit who said something very rude. I found it offensive that they even repeated it. I have to wonder, why do we listen to those who are rude? Why do we keep trying to make them listen to us? Sometimes it seems we only give them credibility. I don't mean that we have to allow them all the airwaves and sit back and shut up, but why do we attempt to make these people see reason? Is it not pride or hubris on our part to think that after everyone else that we will be the one to make them see reason?

I think a nice "How nice that you think that," and walk away and restate our case would be appropriate. I realize that they are yelling loudly and it would be nice if their mothers or fathers would set them aside for a time out, but does this mean that we have to yell more loudly. We can only keep working and keep speaking our truth. Let's not fall to their level and do we have to keep giving them more publicity?

There's a reason I've kept this vague. I don't want to give this person more publicity for saying hateful things. Let's settle down and talk about something that isn't so hateful for a change.

A bit Unusual

Okay this post will be a bit unusual. Last weekend I watched that movie V for Vendetta. It was one of those choices that happened because nothing else looked interesting. I've been surpised not to see much about it on the blogs--even the entertainment ones.

We quite liked it. I found it interesting because V is obviously a terrorist, yet he's a sympathetic character. To watch the film, you sort of want him to succeed, even though that means blowing up a building. I think it's an interesting portrait of the individual versus the larger government.

It made me think about what do we fear the most: the men with bombs can only kill us but the government policing our thoughts can cause us to exist inside a box so small we have no authentic self beyond that which the government allows. We seem to fear death more yet, in the latter case aren't we selling our soul for existance? So why do we make that choice?