One day while living in Lake Tahoe I was exploring my favorite trail along the Truckee River. It is an absolute slice of heaven and any time I am asked to envision my happy place I go directly to that exact spot. The beautiful Truckee River flows from stunning Lake Tahoe, meanders along Highway 89, passes through downtown Truckee, then peacefully flows along gorgeous banks of grasses, sage, pine trees and mountains along my favorite walking path. It was that day walking along the river path that I learned a valuable lesson about stored emotions while witnessing a stranger floating by.
During a small window of early summer, conditions permitting, people float on their own devices along that stretch of the river. It is often shallow and slow moving in a few stretches, surrounded by gorgeous views of nature all around you. It was there that I saw an uncle and two children, or that was my guess as they were calling him by his name. It was an older brother and his younger sister, floating with the presumed uncle, each on their own inner tubes. The younger sister, about age 9, appeared quite calm and enjoying her time, floating along quietly and peacefully. The older brother, about age 13, was having another experience entirely. He was constantly getting stuck in the banks, constantly asking questions about what was happening next, constantly asking them to wait, constantly asking what was happening step-by-step and moment to moment. I’m surprised I still don’t recall the uncle’s name because I must have heard his name twenty times. This boy was absolutely witnessing his float trip from a fear-based perspective.
What struck me the most was that I did not think he was fearful of this experience, floating a shallow, slow-moving river on his floaty and with an adult nearby. Nor was the experience itself necessarily scary as his younger sister appeared quite peaceful. What I witnessed was that this boy had fears within him that were coming out uncontrollably at this moment. His little sister did not have the fears that he had inside of him, and her experience was far different. They were never in danger and could have even stood up at any moment on this float. This young boy was having a far different experience due to his stuck fear-based emotions in his body coming out on this river.
It was such an “aha” moment that appeared to me so clearly in witnessing this young boy, and thinking about emotions, fears, or feelings that I have felt at points in my life that may not have been only related to that specific moment in which they arose. It started my thinking about how we may be expressing an emotion that may be something we buried from the past, that inexplicably comes out at another time. Could it be that emotions may be surfacing from within our body that may not be related to that specific experience? Could feelings like imposter syndrome, anger, rage, fear, anxiety, and more, be old emotions bottled up from past events, coming out when we are least expecting them or in ways that even surprise us? Could triggers really be moments of those old emotions surfacing and are not related to that specific event?
That brings me to the story of how my fears almost killed me. The event occurred before I had done any of my above-mentioned shadow work, before I had faced my dark knight of the soul, or truly witnessed what had been buried deep within me for years. I was in the middle of my illness, while still only focusing on how to heal my gut unaware of how much the mindset, thoughts, emotions and patterns were playing a part in my illness, still deeply disconnected from my body, still fearful of my body and with a mindset that it had completely let me down by limiting my physical abilities. I had so much residual fear in me that one night they were absolutely getting the best of me. I was completely in my head, with worst case scenarios running rampant like an unstoppable loop of a million terrible scenarios playing over in my mind, when I fainted.
I was at home, had been juicing as I was at the point of being fearful of what I would eat that may trigger inflammation, starving myself into “health” and not addressing any of these fears. I was working extremely hard to keep my job to pay the mortgage, barely making ends meet as usual. I was also dating to be rescued, I had later realized. I was just trying to get through the day to day in hopes that I would be saved, and someone could finally take care of me, not realizing at the time that it would be safety, trust, courageous choices, and self-love that would end up rescuing me.
That night after juicing then having a cocktail or two, I fainted trying to make it back to my bed. The only thing that saved me from my head landing straight onto the hardwood flooring was my aiming for my bed frame, which happened to be fabric. I graced my chin on the far edge of that fabric bedframe, and it saved my life. I have a scar to prove it that I will never get rid of. That was one of my big wakeup calls, or rather, my best friend’s. She would later drop everything with her three kids to take me to face one of the biggest fears I had at the time and take me to Italian to make sure I had a hearty meal. She saw my struggling and knew I needed help, and I will never forget what she did for me. I had been feeling so alone that I truly needed her by my side to not feel so alone. I still cry to this day knowing the impact that this huge gesture had on me.
What I realize now with both the boy floating the Truckee, my fears on a chairlift, and those that led me to faint had one thing in common; I do not think they were necessarily of that thing causing those fears in the moment. They are residual fears that have been left unaddressed and unattended to in the body, wreaking havoc and coming up at times that may not necessarily make any sense. They are old stories, old trauma, old emotions, old energy, old imprints stuck within the body. As the saying goes, what goes down must come up, and boy will they come up.
So how do we address these fears? There are so many methods, and it really may just depend on what feels right for you. I have tried everything from talk therapy, tapping, energy work, journaling, quantum tough, shamanic healing sessions, brain mapping, hypnotherapy, subliminal messages and more, with my favorite being shadow work. They say you need to face the darkness to see the light, and now that on more on the other side (though admittedly still have more work to do), I can safely say getting to the other side is incredible. Facing the darkness, the past fears, trauma, and stuck emotions, is not easy nor a quick process, but the reward is a life with less fear, less pain, less stuck emotions, less old stuff lingering in your body, and less triggers that arise. You are not faking it, pretending it did not happen, and pushing these feelings farther down inside of you, and therefore no longer wondering where the fear, anxiety, or other emotion may be coming from. You are finally releasing it from your body.
Stepping onto the other side of it all is like an entirely different world; one filled with hope, peace, love, trust, and absolute joy. You faced your fears and past rather than keeping it bottled within, and it is no longer in your body eating away at you. Your biggest fear is the place where you have the biggest lesson and growth. Just being able to witness it and acknowledge it is part of the key to letting it go. You can look at that part of your past, see how that emotion may have served you in that moment, decide it is no longer part of your current story, and finally let it go to help you heal. It is worth going through to be able to float down that beautiful river with a sense of peace, serenity, joy, wonder, and amazement of nature. So let go, release the fear, and enjoy the beautiful ride.