The doors that frighten us and invite us

Everything is waiting for you

The title is a line taken from David Whyte’s poem, ‘Everything is waiting for you’.

It’s a poem that seeks to describe how we might allow ourselves to trust in the inherent universal movement towards integration and wholeness that is always asking to guide us home. It speaks of the loneliness we feel as we disconnect from self, and urges that all we need to do really, is learn again how to listen.

A howl in the wind

We can of course continue to live at a distance from ourselves, but it’s painful and fearful. The call to wholeness is like a howl in the wind, it pricks up the ears, it frightens us but at the same time calls to us, back to something more basic and wild, to a birthright of integrity.

Each block, contraction and separation we made within ourselves to protect the innocent heart, we can visualise as a doorway, which we must pass back through, in order to regain the confidence to open to our lives.

We are so good at distancing that it takes some time, practice and light, to even coax these doors out of the darkness. And then there they are – a thought, a belief, a bodily contraction or an emotion. We know them when we sense them, there’s an instant recognition, like a moment of insight and clarity.

Stepping through the door

And now we have some space, the frontal cortex engages and some presence, understanding and context can be held. And we can hope to entertain the trust and courage to walk up to a door and step through….

The ghosts…

Maybe one thing that the poem didn’t describe, was the dancing that needs to happen as we move through the threshold. Because what we’re going find through the door for sure, are the ghosts of past experiences. And what ghosts are really good at, is the haunting thing. Even though we made the doors to blunt it, the racket within, drifts into our lives under the radar.

What these ghosts are made of though, is nothing but fear. Their fear terrifies us, and our fear of fear scares them even more, so we have a situation whereby everyone is scaring everyone else about something which is actually no longer happening.

…and the dancing

Here’s where the beauty of the dance weaves it’s magic. Through the work we’ve done to gain the faith to even approach the doors, we have created enough space within ourselves to allow our own adult self to step forward, and with that maturity comes strength, empathy and self compassion. Now as we step into the haunting, we are able to no longer feel consumed by the fear of it, we only see the pain behind it.

Now we can do for ourselves what we always needed – we witness it, hold it and understand it. We welcome it, validate, and offer unconditional love – we meet it and dance.

Turning towards

We must, of course, be prepared to feel the pain and the anger behind the fear, but this is now different. Instead of turning away we let go and dance a loving duet and meet it with an open heart. This transforms the experience into a ritual that releases the enormous energy held in fear into something liberating, expansive and life affirming.

This post describes a hypothetical journey we might take in the course of finding your own healing and integrity using the framework of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. As ever, we start from where you are – wherever that might be.

Please get in touch if you’d like to do some work together.