Bracing For Impact

This week's question comes from a yoga student who is feeling scared of seemingly everything. They write:

Dear Yoga Therapist,

I am literally afraid of every shift or change that comes. This is unbearable, and all the doctor wants to do is put me on meds. Are there any yoga secrets to deal with this?

— Bracing for Impact

Dear Bracing,

First, let me say: you are not broken. You are, in fact, paying very close attention.  This current climate gives us much to shudder at.  The nervous system that fires up every time something shifts? It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's just doing it a little... enthusiastically.

I'll tell you what I've found in my own life, after many years on this path: there is a peace available to us that is greater than fear. Not a peace that banishes fear, or pretends it isn't there, but one that's large enough to hold it. Fear gets to be present. It just doesn't get to be the only story being told.

That's what we're cultivating with every breath on the mat. A peace within.

In Sanskrit we call this bhāvanā — often translated as "cultivation" or "becoming," but I think of it as practicing a feeling into existence. We don't start at the hard part. We pick the low-hanging fruit — a breath that's a little longer, a shape that asks us to trust our own strength or rely on a prop. On the mat we are simply giving our nervous system opportunities to be elevated, to self-soothe, to remember that it already knows how to do this. 

 Let me be clear: bhāvanā is not escapism. It is not a practice of looking away, of floating above the difficulty, of pretending the world is other than it is. It is the opposite — a turning toward, with more steadiness than you had before. We are not trying to feel less. We are learning to feel fully without coming apart at the seams.

The mind cannot argue a frightened body into calmness. But the breath can lead it there. A long, slow exhale is not a coping trick — it is your nervous system's built-in signal that the danger has passed. A restorative shape held with patience is not rest for the lazy, it is training the body to trust stillness. A mantra or affirmation returned to a thousand times is not superstition, it is building a handhold for when the floor shifts beneath you.

None of this is magic. All of it is practice.

I want to address the medication conversation — please don't hear it as either/or. Medication can quiet the alarm bell enough that practice becomes possible. Practice can build the inner architecture that gives medication something to work with. Your doctor isn't wrong to consider it, and your instinct to also tend to this at the level of breath and nervous system and relationship with uncertainty? Also not wrong. Both can be true. Both can be part of the same act of care. I am not advising either way on medication. That is a conversation between you and your trusted healthcare provider. 

You said this is unbearable. I believe you. And I want you to know that unbearable things have a way of becoming, over time and with the right support, the very places where our capacity deepens most.

But I also want to offer you this: if you are afraid of everything, you must also be very, VERY courageous. Because it does not seem like you have let your fear win. You are still here. Still asking. Still looking for a way through. That is not nothing. That is, in fact, everything.

Come to the mat. Breathe out slowly. Let the ground hold you.

Fear can come too. There's room.

Your YT

*****A note from your yoga therapist: The practices and perspectives shared in this column are offered as a complement to — never a replacement for — professional medical and mental health care. Please do not stop or adjust any medication without consulting your doctor first. If you are experiencing new or worsening symptoms, reach out to your healthcare provider. And if you are ever thinking about hurting yourself or someone else, please contact someone directly. You can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline anytime, day or night, by dialing or texting 988. You don't have to carry it alone.