Fear of falling

A few years ago I was doing some research in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. A lot of the people I wanted to talk to lived in remote areas where roads were more like trails and walks were more like hikes. I remember walking through the woods along a beautiful stream. The water was clear and cold, I was tempted to drink from it as I might have when I was a child drinking straight from Lake Pend Oreille. However, among other nasty diseases, leptospirosis is known to run in those waters. I would have to settle for hopping across the stones and over to the other side of the stream where a woman half my size and twice my age was selling commercially bottled water chilled by the stream. My travel companion, in nothing more than simple leather sandals skipped lightly from one stone to the next until she arrived on the opposite side of the stream. I - dressed in supposedly skid-free soled hiking boots (i.e. the so called appropriate footwear for this terrain) - found myself slipping and sliding from one stone to another. I did exactly what I should not do, I went rigid, resisted falling, waved my arms around and...by some miracle did not fall into the stream, but rather stumbled gracelessly up the other side.

As I sat drinking my cool water, I thought about what had happened. Why had Caro been able to skip across so lightly while I struggled to stay out of the water? It wasn’t the shoes, that’s for damn sure. The difference was inside. She was not afraid to fall, I was. But we all know that the worst thing you can do in a fall is to try to control it. Going rigid is the worst thing to do if you want to regain your balance.

Of those who’ve sought to bring Buddhist thinking to westerners Pema Chodron is among my favorites.  She often reminds her readers that control is an illusion and that one must aim to relinquish control, or rather, the idea that one can be in control. I was trying to keep myself from falling because I am afraid of it, but by actively trying to prevent it I was making it happen. Balance is related to flow and fluidity, trust in the body and in finding your own center. It is not about control.

Over the years I’ve learned that when a desire to be in control gets the better of me, things don’t work out so well. A dunk in the stream would not have been the worst outcome I’ve brought on myself.  

So, if what I want to achieve leaping before looking without falling, I am going to have to stop being afraid of falling, aren’t I?

Lesson learned: No leaping and fearing. The only way to leap is with trust that you can land on the other side, or at the bottom, in good form.