March Monthly Theme - Fear, And What It Means For Us

Happy March! I admittedly didn’t post as much as I wanted to in February. Somehow, the month seemed to get away from me. And now, as we head into March, a month that to me represents transition, I’ve decided that this month’s theme will be a topic that I both love and strongly dislike - fear. 

Fear often stops us in our tracks. We fear that we’ll mess up, fail, be rejected. We fear that something will physically difficult or painful. We fear that we’ll be wasting time or money. We fear that we’re not good enough, not worthy. We fear that we’ll embarrass ourselves, or that we’ll be discovered as a “fraud” (aka impostor syndrome). We fear that we’ll prove all the naysayers (including the one in our own head) right. We fear the unknown, and we fear being stuck in the same place (aka the known). Not only does fear latch onto so many aspects of life, but it shows up in numerous disguises - it can look like procrastination, anger, frustration, irritability, self-sabotage (often unintentional), and perfectionism, to name a few. It can show up as a million and one excuses or justifications or reasons why we “can’t”. 

At the same time, fear can help us to understand ourselves, to learn, to grow. At its core, fear can be helpful, when it protects us from actually doing something that could put our safety at risk. Outside of the “fight or flight” type of fear response, fear can show us where we’re holding ourselves back. It can show us the beliefs we hold about ourselves that are preventing us from getting where we want to go. And in doing so, it can create for us a road map of sorts, for where we can take actions, even small ones, to set ourselves in that direction. 

This month, I’ll be posting and sharing about the theme of fear across a variety of topics. Unlike past months, posts might not always so directly address the physical yoga practice as they have in past months, but the ideas could almost certainly be applied there as well. Instead, they’ll be more focused on fear as it shows up in everyday life and in working towards goals and dreams. But as each of us faces fear in at least some area of our life, I felt this was an important topic to address, especially as we move into this last month of the first quarter of 2020, this month where the seasons transitions, where we may be looking at goals (business, personal, yoga, or other goals) that we set in January. 

And as I end, I’ll close with this: what’s one fear that you notice might be holding you back, in any aspect of life (yoga practice included!), that you’d like to work on addressing this month?