Misneach
The Irish Word for “Courage.”
Courage is facing our fears, going into them, and being able to face what frightens us. When we are in periods of change, our fear can keep us from moving into our potential. We will feel anxious when we are growing. It is so important to know this is a normal feeling in the body when we are moving into change, to make space for it, to support yourself with it, to breathe into it.
Fear can become overwhelming in the body, so freezing and shutting down can be a common habitual response. If that is the body's habitual response to overwhelm, shutting down can often last years. This is a pressing down of feeling. It becomes a deadening, empty feeling in the body, where joy and contentment have no space to exist.
Interestingly, that empty feeling is paradoxically teeming with the energy of our potential. There is so much tension in the body below our conscious awareness. It is teeming with potential and unexpressed emotion, even if it feels like a deadening emptiness. Wonderfully, in physics, scientists could detect vibrational energy in molecules at absolute zero temperature. I always found this fascinating. It reminds me how our own energy below the surface of things is vibrating with potential.
How can we tolerate our discomfort and step into that potential? How can we let go and grieve what we are leaving behind and step into the unknown, thereby into the discomfort of anxiousness and who we are becoming?
What often helps anchor us in this “in-between” time and place is to journal. It acts like an anchor, a “conscious container”, helping you to bridge the crossing. If you are now in the process of change, invest in a journal and create a ritual of support for yourself. Rise early, have your tea or coffee, light a candle and bring out your journal. Let it be your friend in the darkness. Go kindly in this time of your life, trust and hold the tension until the energy shifts and a new level of self is revealed. Have “misneach”. Hold a light for yourself in the dark.
Focail Gaeilge | ‘Irish Words’
In this series, I share words in Gaeilge (Irish) and explore these words through a Depth Psychology lens, allowing us to begin exploring our inner world— our psyche, and deepen our understanding of our place in the world around us. When we embrace our native language or become curious about the languages from our ancestral roots, we can embrace our sense of place, our speech, our imagination, our psyche, and the song of the soul...
