I would like to open up the following post with a question. Why do different situations make us nervous or afraid? When sitting outside an audition room, why does my heartbeat pick up speed, and my palms start to sweat?

This question came to my mind this morning as I waited to have my blood taken at the doctor’s office. I hate needles. I have memories of hiding underneath doctor’s tables as a teenager (15 or 16) to avoid what I knew was inevitable for just a tiny bit longer. Today I decided to skip the “worry” and “fear” part of the equation. I’ve had blood work done before. I know what’s going to happen. I know that it doesn’t really hurt. It’s the “idea” that scares me, but the actual event (usually) isn’t bad at all. With this in mind, as I walked to the doctor’s office I did not allow myself to get stuck inside my head. I just walked there, like I would walk anywhere else. I had an appointment, so after signing in I was immediately directed into an empty “room” (it was more of a corner behind a curtain).  I thanked the receptionist, walked behind the curtain, peeled off my sweater (into my tank top), sat back in the chair, resting my exposed arm on the arm rest. When the nurse came in she verified my birth date, tied that god-awful plastic thing around my arm, asked me to make a fist (which I did), cleaned off the area, took my blood, told me to release my fist, and stuck a band-aid on it. Done and done. I went into that room and I took that needle like a pro.

What was weird was, after she was finished, I felt the need to explain to her (the nurse) that I was forcing myself to get better at taking needles, and that “usually I’m a squirmy mess.” It was actually uncomfortable to not be afraid. Getting needles in the past has always scared me, so the idea of it not scaring me in the present felt bizarre. I was going against something that I’d identified with, and it threw me off balance. “There must be a reason why I was afraid before” I thought, “so maybe something bad will happen because I’m not experiencing that emotion now…” I kicked that thought out the back door of my mind almost as soon as it got there, but it’s interesting that this is where my mind went. That little voice (resistance) needed to rationalize my past behaviour in order to beckon me back to the valley of what’s comfortable. This is one of the ways that we keep ourselves stuck.  For some reason it makes sense to think: “this scared me before, so therefore this will scare me now.” With this kind of thinking there is no room for growth. Just because something was “this way” in the past, doesn’t mean it has to be same way in the present. Your experience can be whatever you want it to be. You do not have to be controlled by your past. You are an ever evolving being, and you have the power to decide how you want to interact with the world.

This change in thinking can include all sorts of scenarios. It requires that you stop predicting the future, and being okay with the present moment. I recently read a book called “Letting Everything Become Your Teacher: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness” by Jon Kabat-Zinn. In the book the author talks about those things that are necessary to successfully partake in a mindfulness practice. One of those things is the “beginner’s mind.” Here’s how he defines this concept:

“Too often we let our thinking and our beliefs about what we “know” prevent us from seeing things as they really are. We tend to take the ordinary for granted and fail to grasp the extraordinariness of the ordinary. To see the richness of the present moment, we need to cultivate what has been called “beginner’s mind,” a mind that is willing to see everything as if for the first time.”

I feel that too often I enter into my life ready to anticipate what comes next, instead of simply allowing myself to “be” in each moment. To just be without judgment and without striving.

Life is meant to have a little bit of mystery in it.