#422 – What happens when your fear is justified?

Ego-driven fear, I've maintained, is never justified. What about fear of real death?

Yesterday I had a weight-lifting accident. I was doing squats with a 45-pound barbell, and two 25 pound-plates. During my last set of five repetitions, I felt wobbly and I tried to re-rack the bar on my fourth rep. I wasn't able.

I screamed because I wanted help taking the bar to the rack (it was too high). The weight of the bar on my back pulled me back and down.

I screamed because I was falling. The plates hit the floor, the base of my skull hit the bar. All went black. I was paralyzed (not because of the shock: it was real paralysis).

I screamed because I saw my death. On the ground, my whole body felt like a thousand ants were crawling under my skin: from the base of my tongue to my toes.

I screamed because I saw my son, sleeping, home alone––who would tell him I was dead?

Two people came to me. They said, "breathe, breathe." When my eyes finally produced tears, I knew I would live.

The paramedics arrived in two minutes (there's a fire station in the next block), checked me out and said I was fine. Yeah, I felt fine. They gave me an ice pack. I stood up and all was ok. "But the workout's done for the day," they said.

Once home, I decided to feel the lingering feeling of fear all the way through. It was like a rose of the desert, pointy and hard, its petals shooting out from the center of my chest. I looked at it. It was dark green.

But I couldn't study it for long because 15 seconds later, it was, poof, gone.

Later, doing my morning pages, I found my hand writing, almost maniacally, "all I want to feel is love."

And that's what happened when I, for the first time in my life, faced my imminent death.

What do you want to feel instead of fear?

Love,

Carolina