Upside Down Thinking

I had an epiphany while standing on my head earlier today in yoga class. You see, this headstand was a first for me and was a pretty big deal.

Forty plus years ago when I was in high school, I used every possible excuse to get out of performing a variety of physically challenging exercises, and headstands were on my taboo list, along with cart wheels, tumbling and the uneven parallel bars.

Since I was afraid of a myriad of results which included breaking my back as I fell to the ground and the fear of getting stuck upside down and being left to die because my class mates were always up for a laugh, I never expected my head would give the mat such a long kiss. Okay, so it wasn't more than a moment or two (not sure how long a moment actually is), but it was long enough to have an inspiring thought.

What popped into my inverted brain was that if I could overcome a fear that was 40+ years old, I can surely overcome the fears that were more recently developed. In fact, it makes sense to me that those fears from long, long ago have more time to expand to reach a higher than normal fright level.

If I could actually look that fear in the eye, then it must mean I can do it again. In fact, I bet I could knock off two or three fears a day if I put my mind to it.