Confronting the Diamond Demon (or Why Your Fear is a Gift)

A good friend asked me this morning if I could share with her a great fear that I had confronted in my life. As I sat and thought about how best to respond, I realized that I had so many examples to draw from. I never realized I had such a fear-filled life!

I noticed, too, that these experiences of fear fell into 2 categories – those that I consciously chose and those that just seemed to happen.

For example, when I decided after two years out of full-time higher education caring for my 3 very small children to return to get my masters degree. Or when I had to defend my phd thesis. Or when I co-hosted my first goddess playshop. Or when I travelled to Bangor to Boston to Montreal on the greyhound bus by myself. Or when I launched Bloom by Moon…

Those were all challenges I set myself and where I have experienced a huge sense of achievement alongside a deep well of fear. They were profoundly transformative as they called me to step outside my comfort zone and, in so doing, my comfort zone grew. I suppose we could say that they called me to be a bigger, bolder, brighter version of myself.

The other kind is a lot less predictable and tend to tap into those deepest fears we hold so close to our heart that we often don’t realize they’re even there. They get us to pull that fear out into the open and question its presence in our lives.

Examples of my own are when I put myself in danger while rescuing my son after he fell over in the middle of a road. Or when I had to call an ambulance for my husband when he was suffering from severe flu. Or when I had to deal with aggressive customers at the pub I used to work in. Or when one of my kids got lost in the supermarket.

You know that second kind of fear, don’t you? It’s the kind where you feel as though your stomach has just dropped, your heart beats double-time, and a sheen of sweat coats your brow. It feels out of control, chaotic and completely, terrifyingly unfamiliar.

It’s very easy to find good things to say about the first type of fear, and a lot harder to praise the second type. However, all fear comes bearing a gift – a gift to explore an aspect of your essential self.

Imagine a beautiful diamond. It’s so clear and perfect in every aspect. The sun glints off its surfaces casting rainbows all around. It is multi-faceted and utterly resplendent.

This diamond is you. The you that exists beneath the layers you’ve built to protect the tenderest parts of yourself. The you that longs to shine brightly, that wishes to share its radiance with the world, and which, instead, is filtered through the layers until it becomes a dim glow.

The gift that fear gives you is an invitation to explore one of the facets of your diamond self. And this invitation is the same if the experience of fear is one consciously chosen or one which you perceive to have happened to you.

I was recently reading about the Hindu goddess Durga, and her narrative really spoke to me of the gift fear offers us. Part of her story tells of a great battle between her and a shape-shifting demon…

Every time one of Durga’s arrows flies at him, the demon changes form from water buffalo, to tiger, to man until finally she grabs him, pins his neck down with her foot and sends a spear through his heart. ~ Laura Amazzone

I think of this demon as the Diamond Demon, because each time he shifts into a new shape, he reveals another facet, another opportunity for us to access our true self.

So, in the examples that I gave, those experiences of fear helped me access the part of myself that is a fierce mother, a loving wife, a competent traveller, an articulate intellectual, a confrontation diffuser, a holder of magical spaces.

You see, our challenge lies not in overcoming our fear, but in learning to sit with it and accept its gifts with grace and with gratitude. The Diamond Demon is not comfortable. It’s not cosy. It’s not there to make you feel warm and fuzzy. It’s there to focus your attention on those aspects of your self that you are being invited to reclaim.

It’s there to help you reveal another facet of your diamond.