🐍🗝️💡Why Face What We Fear
Embracing Uncomfortable Truths for Growth
Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well and with the courage to face what you fear.
Consider how the dragons we run from can grow in our imagination - becoming phantoms too big to face.
Have you ever wondered why the medical symbol is a snake wrapped around a pole? There is a deeper, more ancient message in the visual - that to get better, we must have the courage to look at that which we fear because facing and overcoming our fears will bring us healing and rebirth.
Recently, on a hike in the Rockies of Colorado, my guide suddenly leaped backward into me visibly shaken - I was like, what, what? He said, did you hear it? I said, no, what? He said, The Rattle!
After composing ourselves, we looked to see and found a rattle snake about 8 feet in length - the first I have ever seen in the wild and the largest Matt Walker, my guide, had ever seen. We watched it as it slithered away, grateful to not have been bitten. The experience made the rest of our hike to a climbing area all the more anxious, as I’m sure you can imagine.
It is said that human vision may have developed primarily to help us see snakes. They find their way into the nicest of gardens, no matter how thick our walls - of course, even the Garden of Eden had a snake. Notice how we sometimes refer to those who are particularly sneaky and dangerous as snakes. Yet, the medical symbol has us looking at a snake? Why?
Because to become better, we must look at what we fear.
The stories we tell ourselves regarding our encounters with the malevolent, can leave us all the more anxious as we move through our days unless we take charge of our thoughts. In my case, looking for, and actually seeing the source of the rattle - and watching the snake move away from us - was more comforting than the ignorance of its location and plan of sparing or attacking us. While ignorance may be bliss, we were more prone to a painful bite.
How may we be both realist and optimists? By facing more of that which we fear. By acknowledging more, the presence of malevolence and by developing our courage.
To be clear, the snake wasn’t being malevolent, it was just doing its thing, protecting itself, I’m just leveraging the experience as a metaphor.
That which has happened in the past may be difficult to reflect on today - but there is likely something we missed, something our wiser, older self may glean from remembering the experience- at the very least to better assist someone today who may be going through something similar.
Remembering that snake on our hike may raise my pulse, but it’s through the reflection and learning that I will be all the more cautious on my next hike. Higher ankle leather hiking boots, for example, are beginning to feel a wiser choice. The most powerful point to be made here is to fear nothing from your past - we must look at what we fear to get better.
Ignoring a pain in our body, that may be signaling something serious, because we are afraid that it is serous - is to live a lie, to deny what may be real, and what may need attention NOW. While most people prefer a comforting lie to an uncomfortable truth - it is the truth that sets us free - free from the lies that can limit what is possible for us. The medical symbol does make us face the fear: a venomous snake’s bite can be fatal, but the snake’s venom is also used to treat a variety of conditions like heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
Maybe the thing we least want to do is the thing we most need to do.
When the Knights of the Round Table set out to find the Holy Grail, they were instructed to enter the forest where it looked most dark and dangerous to them.
We all have our own dragons to face, another reptile of foreboding, but what do those ancient tales of dragons seek to teach us? That the gold of life is found beneath the dragons we have the courage to face.
Consider a coach to go with you into that darkest area of the forest, to be with you as you face the dragons and snakes from your past. Be courageous - learn what more there may be to learn. Become more empowered as a result of your bravery - and who knows, you may even find a higher calling for your future.
Be Not Afraid
Make it a great week!
Steve Luckenbach
