The most amazing transformation has happened in my tennis playing this week.
In my blog last Monday, I logged the death knell of my lifelong fear of not being able to successfully do anything sports related. Well, the payoff this week has been far beyond my expectations.
I’m not afraid on the court anymore!
In preparation for our next big tournament in two weeks, I’ve played against strong opponents these past few days, and I’m not the same player I used to be. I’m more limber. I’m flexible. I’m not anxious, worried or fretting over my next shot. I’m generally free of worry or concern about whether I’ll hit the ball accurately or not. I’m able to focus better, forgive myself quicker and wholly enjoy the game.
I can’t tell you how huge of a change this is, and I never realized, until this week, how subtle fear has restricted my bodily movement on the court over the last three years.
My coach has incessantly told me to loosen up, relax my grip, follow through with my swings and be more limber. I would obey, but in minutes, fall back into a semi-rigid stance. This happened so often, I figured the tenseness was normal, a part of playing the game.
But this week, the tenseness is largely gone. Oh yes, I still get anxious at moments, grip the racket handle too tight and whack the ball out of bounds, but nothing like the past.
The corrosive fear is gone and my thinking, body and playing has been liberated. Not too mention my serves, which are far better.
I’ve thought about parallel lessons for healing of all physical ailments. Its common knowledge in Christian Science that fear is the number one detriment to progress in physical relief.
Fear stifles healthy action of the body, hampers freedom of movement, disrupts functions of the organs, locks up muscles, panics perspective, and prevents progress. Fear is anti-health. Its harmful and the source of great dismay, frustration and discouragement when seeking bodily relief.
I can see the bad effect of fear on the body more clearly than ever after what happened to my tennis playing this week. My body is so much more responsive and liberated with the fear gone. I can do so much more.
For decades, I had let subtle fears constrain my actions and stymie my progress in sports. I never knew what it felt like to be free of fear on the playing field. So, I thought a degree of tenseness was normal. Now I know the difference, and there is no turning back!
The same rule applies to relief for all types of bodily restrictions. Limitation in the body is fear manifest. When the underlying fear is gone, the body releases from the imprisoning effect of that fear. The muscles relax, the organs settle into a proper routine, and one’s overall sense of well being improves. Liberation! Healing happens.
When facing down any type of limitation, it is critical that we conquer fear. Fear is the enemy to be destroyed. Where there’s no fear, there’s no tension, constraint, restriction, stress or strain. There’s freedom of movement under the harmonious Mind-action of God where health is normal and ability unlimited.
Have a happy fear-free day!
Thanks for sharing your conquering of fear and isn’t that cool that the pay off was more than you were looking for………lovely lessons here……….fear is hampering me right now so I think I need to face those fears and call them out onto the court for a game:)Happy tennnis.
Blessings
Karen
I continue to counteract all body complaints by acknowledging that the stumbling bock is fear. Sometimes my relief is immediate, other times, complaints, seem to linger and linger? I thought I had passed the notion of fear long ago.
What am I missing in self treatment.
I do exercise Love in all my treatments for others first, then I am looking for my healing to take place.
Dear Bill,
Fear is often a very subtle state of thought we don’t realize exists until we experience genuine peace.
The old acronym, False Evidence Appearing Real… Anytime we’re believing in something other than infinite God good, there is an element of fear at work.
Fear is the opposite of a God consciousness. A God consciousness is pure peace and Love, pure Truth and Spirit. As we keep metaphysically pressing to have this pure consciousness of Truth and Love, hidden fears surface to be recognized and destroyed. Keep pressing along this line. Keep pressing and possessing a pure consciousness of Love, and lurking errors will surface and no longer cause hidden trouble.
Evan,
This is so cool….
I’ve learned so much from you this last week just by virtue of your practicing what you teach. I can’t thank you enough for sharing!
Thanks Evan-When we have cases that don’t seem to be yeilding to treatment; this was a big help in showing specifically how to handle fear step by step. We’re told to handle it, but the “how to” sometimes doesn’t seem so clear.
Recently, I have been filled with fear of all types. I know about “false evidence appearing real”. If it appears real, it’s as good as real, isn’t it? If you’re in the middle of the nightmare, it doesn’t matter if it’s not real, if you can’t wake up out of it. My fear stems from the fact that life doesn’t seem to be eternal at all; there is death all around, whether in a form of a crazed killer, an auto accident or a terminal disease. I don’t understand how people can say it’s all unreal, if we can’t demonstrate its unreality here and now, always and in every case. How can we say emphatically that death itself isn’t real. This is fine to say, but aren’t we all fooling ourselves about this? Who can say that there is something after death? If life is eternal, why don’t we know what was before this material life, before we were born? And if we’re not cognizant of it, or we have forgotten, then who cares if life is eternal, since we don’t remember any of it anyway. It’s good to have faith, and whatever helps us to feel better to get through the day is a fine thing. But in the end, it seems like there is plenty of reality in death, in evil, and we are not able to prove that good is all. That’s evident in the world around us. So it seems very normal to have fear.
To anon above,
Oh, I certainly can sympathize with your comments. In a material sense of things, evil does appear very normal and real. It’s like standing in a dark room, the darkness is very obvious. But I’ve learned from experience there is a greater hope than what we see materially. There is a spiritual dimension to life that the material sense cannot comprehend or explain. Jesus Christ lived this spiritual dimension out and showed us how to find it too. Other great spiritual thinkers have glimpsed spiritual reality and shared it with others.
I certainly have not demonstrated over all evil. But Jesus did. He conquered it all, including death. He proved that death doesn’t happen. Death of a material sense happens. Yes. But it’s not really death at all when one realizes life continues afterward.
I think the best response to your concerns, doubts and worries is realzing that reasoning out only from what the matter senses take in, does lead to hopelessness and despair. But putting that aside, and learning from great spiritual people who have gone before us and have experienced a greater reality than so-called matter existence, we regain hope that there is something more, something better. As we follow and learn from their example and experience, we too, are able to taste a bit of heaven here on earth. We’re able to overcome evil with good and prove to increasing degree, that yes, evil does not have the final say. It can be neutralized and defeated. Bit by bit, perhaps, but can be defeated.
I find life much more encouraging when I’m engaged with conquering evil and overcoming it, than giving into it and letting it run roughshod over me.
That was a long-winded answer!