Do you ever wonder where your particular fears come from? I’ve a thought about this and it’s come to me in different stages of my journey.
My fear of water comes from not being able to express my emotions because of my childhood conditioning. Let’s explore this…
Fears and Water
I love the coolness of water and how it carries my weight and my troubles. I love the therapy and relief it brings to my body. I’m amazed and fascinated by different waters; clear waters, back waters, canals, waterfalls, lagoons, cenotes… the warmth of the surface layer of the sea after the sun has spent the morning warming her up… the coolness underneath.
And at the same time, I’d probably avoid signing up for a PADI certificate any time soon. Whilst I’ve done a few intro dives of up to five metres down and have dived off a boat into caves and in the open sea and zip line jumped into a cenote, jumped from a rope on a tree into a lagoon… I have a love-fear relationship with water.
Fears and Childhood Conditions
Water, as an element is related to our emotions and recently, it became clear to me that my twofold relationship with water comes from my inability to express my emotions as a result of my childhood programs.
My family and friends have always made a point to indicate that I’m not ‘very emotional’ and for years I agreed with that, because as children we were raised in a household to get on with things, rather than communicating or talking about our feelings and emotions. And it’s a generational pattern, so inherently, that’s the way my siblings and I were raised.
Naturally, I’m logical, practical and am a planner – so being labelled ‘like a guy’ and not very ‘emotional’ was fine. The reality is, however that even though I may not be typically ‘emotional’ as a woman (whatever that means), it doesn’t mean that I don’t have emotions or empathy for others.
Emotions and Communication
The difference between being emotional and being able to express my emotions are two distinct issues, where one is the being and feeling and the other is the inability to process and communicate the ‘being and the feeling’ of it.
The inability to express my emotions (which I do have although I struggle to communicate them, because it’s a challenge to process them and I’m used to them being pushed aside when I was growing up) fell easily to practicality and logic because of my nature and also my lack of understanding that emotions can change.
The block was never the emotions – it was the understanding of the emotions, the space to feel and then to develop the ability to express my Self and communicate. It also relates to my worth and value, as I neglect my needs to accommodate for the lack of the generations before me.
Conscious Choices
The patterns are ongoing unless we decide to make a conscious choice to change… To understand our fears, to understand ourselves, to accept and forgive and create a path for ourselves through our fears (instead of living within the confines of our fears).
George Eliot said, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
As I learn to express my emotions and what I’m feeling, without being in the moment of the feeling of it – I open up and surrender to the deep waters that activate a fear in me.
The practical side of it, is my understanding that emotions change just as water flows and therefore, all I need to do is keep practicing communicating my emotions. Who knows… maybe one day I’ll be free-diving! Although the thought of that right now freaks me out.
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With Love,
Divya
My mission is to be of service to our community, future generations and our environment through conscious living.