How the curiosity overcomes the fear

When I was younger I said I will never do yoga. I am not that kind of person. When I started yoga around 2009 I said I cannot never learn meditation. It is impossible for me. I also had said many times I will never travel to India. And see what happened. I have been in India three times (only three times so far), I have done yoga as daily practice since 2016 and nowadays it is a tool, knowledge understanding, practice, way to live for me. I also teach meditation in small groups and some asana practice occasionally. What happened? How did I brake my own mental prison and let things happens which I doubted so much?

This is my journal about yoga and life with kriya yoga guru, spiritual master. I am quite normal mother of a teenager, entrepreneur working on art and wellbeing wondering where I am and who am I and why? Slowly reducing the word I from life. Life has offered me plenty of surprises and every day I feel privileged to be here. Even in the peak of the pain.

Let me introduce you my fear

Fear. What is it? Fear is reducing you to something you are not. Fear is making you doubt yourself and others. I was about 17 years old when something dramatic and traumatic happened in my family. On that day I decided I never fear anything again. Guess what happened? Fear moved inside me and I didn’t even notice. After so many years I realized that in the moment I decided to NOT FEAR ANYTHING I started to fear everything.

Fear moved inside me and I didn’t even notice. After so many years I realized that in the moment I decided to NOT FEAR ANYTHING I started to fear everything.

-Maa shambhavi

I decided to study in the city next to where my family lived. I never thought going to bigger cities. I didn’t know what to study either. I just went with the flow. I thought I’m not good enough, I’m not welcome, I cannot go further and it is comfortable here with familiar people and surroundings. Comfortable is the main word. As being comfortable many many years I lived a life of someone else’s. Something was eating me from inside many years. I studied very shortly just to get a job as soon as possible. I was not from rich family, I did not afford to study long (don’t get me wrong, studying is free in Finland but expenses are very high). So I throw my ideas to study many things in garbage and started to work. I worked all the time always looking for new jobs because on cultural field there are no permanent jobs (or not existing when I applied). For many years no holidays, no good salary, working hard extra hours and feeling like complaining all the time. I complained how hard it is and got many burn outs.

On 2008 I got a son and lived family life but it was difficult too. My son had special traits, he had sensory integration problems which means he is extra alert to every senses. He didn’t sleep at night, crying and pain. I did not sleep properly in many years. In 1 hour sequences. In my family there was also much alcohol abuse and stress. Lack of money. Lack of support. Lack of love and respect. I didn’t have courage to separate from child’s father because of the fear. Fear of being alone, fear of losing other parent, fear of losing home and fear of losing a child. Fear of shame. Fear of losing family. Guilt. Abandon.

I got very sick from fear. My heart was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and it needed operation as quickly as possible when I was 32. I had overweight something about 40 kg (=88 lb) and I did not feel ok any time. I had migraines sometimes three weeks. One day when I was cycling from work to home I felt I don’t want to go to work again and I don’t want to go to home either. I was in a trap of my own life and my own choices. I didn’t know what to do. When I see my pictures from that phase I wonder who is that sad woman? No spark, no life in her eyes. Just fear and tiredness. Have you ever felt like this?

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My fear drove me to heart operation (twice in fact) and during that operation I felt very calm. Suddenly before operation I felt like everything is present. No hurry, no problems, nothing. Just present mind. Before operation I had time to make my will (yes of course I needed to fix things) and I sold about 3/4 of my material stuff, mostly including books, films and cd´s. So dramatic I was. I wanted to make sure everything is ok if I don’t come back from the surgery. Trying to control everything.

Something very interesting happened before the operation. I went there at the ward with my mother and we accommodated to the hospital hotel. Suddenly lights went off from the whole area. And after half an hour I got phone call to the room saying sorry, your operation needs to be postponed, our hospital got electric shock and every machine needs to be tested again for security. And this has not happened in 20 years. And I knew this will happen. I felt it when I was there in the hotel room so I was just smiling. My gut feeling said it is not going to happen now. And while we were coming home by train, the train stopped suddenly. There was electric shock on that train too. One drunken old man came next to me and said are you the jinx here? And I replied I think I am. I was thinking in my mind oh God if you are there what are you playing with me? I have electric problem in my heart and you shut down the hospital and the train to make me see something? Here I am, you got my attention!

How the curiosity awakens when there is nothing to lose

This is how my curiosity awakened. I had been spiritual thinker before this, but this was the turning point when I realized I cannot shut my eyes, heart and ears anymore. There is another way to see life and I just need to listen.

What happened after the first heart operation was finally done? On the operation table I decided to leave from my relationship which was not safe for me and my son anymore. I decided what ever happens we will survive. There started my black year, the dark night of the soul. I lost everything. My relationship, my health, my finance, my family as I experienced it, my work changed, I lost friends too. I lost trust in men, I lost my other family, I lost hope for a while.

But after losing everything I started to gain. I was at the bottom of my life. I didn’t know who I was and how. I found out that the life I had lived was a fake one. Everything I had believed was not true. It was my illusion. I was living in an illusion created by myself. I had lived with someone else’s expectations. Was it the society? Everything I had feared came in to my life in materialistic way.

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Healing started with curiosity. I fell in love with life again. I realized everything I have dreamed I can attain. But not so quickly. There has been ups and downs for sure. Good vibes and bad times. Hope and lost again. First of all I decided to be alone and find out who I am and what I want. I realized I can go easily again in this illusion of partnership but something had changed in my life so permanently, that luckily I realized I have to walk alone this path for a while. It was the best decision I made in my life. Now I am not afraid to be alone. I’m not afraid to say I manage my family and home just by myself. I also know I am not alone in a sense of loneliness. I have something very precious in my life. Do you want to know what is it? Well, this blog is about yoga so one answer would be I have my sadhana, my practice. I am never alone. I had to surrender to something which is far beyond of my own imagination. I really cannot know everything and control everything. Also I have peace in my mind MOST of the time. Losing fear guided me in the world where curiosity grows every day and fear is just a companion, like a small bug sitting on my shoulder and sometimes biting my ear just to keep mind alert.

I still have fears of course. It hits sometimes like a wave. I’m learning to observe. But I recognize it better nowadays. When I realize this is just my fear it reduces it’s power. Fear is not making decisions anymore. I know many stories about rishis, yogis, yoginis, saddhus and spiritual masters who are not afraid of anything. They just take what is coming as it is.

“Do you want to know what my secret is? See, I don’t mind what happens “

-KRISHNAMURTI