by Lisa Alpine

In many shamanic societies, if you come to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, depressed, or fearful, they would ask you one of three questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? —Gabrielle Roth

Fear keeps us from expressing ourselves. From moving forward—from traveling to the Amazon or taking a salsa class or telling a story at a bonfire gathering. 

When I was a very young child, I lay under the blankets at night, sheets pulled up to my eyeballs, terrified to reach under my bed and turn on the electric blanket’s thermostat. Even as my teeth chattered from the winter chill, I was absolutely convinced that there was a hand—a strong, greedy, pale hand with string-bean-thin fingers and opaque nails—that would grab me and pull me under the bed. 

Why did I not place the blanket thermostat on the windowsill within reach instead of suffering? Because my little child mind was frozen with fear. I had allowed an iceberg of intimidation from an overactive imagination to rule my world. What was I so afraid of? Who were the real monsters in my life that crept into my vulnerable sleep world? Who was under the bed? Fairytales, dark movies, midnight visitors?

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. —Anaïs Nin

When do we give a voice to our unfounded fears? Or to our real dreads, boiled up from past memory? 

Even beauty scares me sometimes. Still, as an adult. It is not the shadow in the alley or the autocrat with a nuclear button. It might be a beautiful man, absolutely terrifying in his gorgeousness. A monster ready to destroy me with his magnetic appeal. 

Funny, huh? Afraid of beauty. 

Even my own beauty. As a younger woman, I hardly ever looked at myself in the mirror. 

This is not so true anymore. Now I find beauty in the dark and in the light. And in the mirror. The grabbing hands I imagined as a child have faded away. I’m able to appreciate all shades of reaction, attraction, and perception. I’m especially entranced by the weak, silly parts of myself.  The best stories are hidden under the bed!

The most beautiful of the beautiful are the particles of vastness that shimmer behind the eyes, under the tree bark, dancing on the dangerous curves of the sea. But you have to be brave and look to see the shimmer. 

This story is included in my latest book Dance Life: Movin’ & Groovin’ Around the Globe (Life Series 3) Available in:   Amazon print, Kindle digital,  Audible (audio)