Last year, I spent over 100 nights sleeping in a hammock. My hammock became a place of comfort, refuge and sanctuary. And by sanctuary, I truly mean “church”. It was the place where I spent many hours in prayer, meditation and contemplation. Most importantly, it became a place where I transmuted fear into freedom, over and over again.
This hammock-camping escapade emerged out of necessity in February and March of 2022.
For those two months, I’d rented an extremely rustic one bedroom apartment in Tamarindo, Costa Rica for my three kids and I. The bedroom was the only air-conditioned room in the place, and all the beds had been claimed by my teenage children and their teenage friends.
Our third floor apartment had a huge, covered outdoor space that served as the kitchen, dining room, living room…. and my bedroom. It had a magnificent view of the ocean and Tamarindo’s world-class sunsets. I slept in a hammock strung between the steel I-beam rafters, out in the open air, watching the midnight moon on the water and the pre-dawn antics of howler monkeys.
But despite its obvious benefits to the ocean-side, the apartment’s street-side setting was far from idyllic. With barking dogs, music thumping in the club next door, and traffic noise from Tamarindo’s busy main street, it was impossible to sleep without ear plugs. And that posed a problem: without windows, the apartment was about as secure as a treehouse.
Inserting my ear plugs at night, I worried that I wouldn’t hear a burglar, drug addict or predator if they breeched the premises. Never mind the fact that in order to reach our third floor apartment, this would-be attacker would have to brave three ferocious attack dogs (whose barking was reason ear plugs were necessary), climb a branchless tree, and skirt the treacherous roofline to my patio. As is often the case, fear defied logic.
One night, as I lay awake worrying over the highly improbable prospect of an intruder, Inner Guidance whispered, “The only rational fear is actionable fear.” Hmmm. Fear of something in the future (or in the past, for that matter) isn’t actionable. “If you can take action right now to create safety in your space, do it. Once you’ve taken action in the present to mitigate the object of your fear, release it. If there is nothing you can do to in this moment to alleviate the conditions contributing to your fear, the only logical conclusion is to simply let it go. Your fear serves no purpose.”
I hopped out of my hammock, checked to make sure the heavy metal door leading to our apartment was locked, scanned the roof to confirm it would indeed require an act of supreme athleticism and stupidity to attempt a break-in, and returned to my hammock to sleep.
Fear, my friends, is a choice. We give it power when we justify or defend it. We steal its power when we face it or ignore it. When I re-routed my mind to stay clear of fearful thoughts, the fear itself dissolved like mist in the morning. That night was the first solid night sleep I’d had in days.
In April that year, two of my three kids returned to the U.S. for a Colorado ski trip with their dad. I followed the third to Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, where she had been hired by an Israeli yoga wear company to run a house of Instagram travel influencers. In an effort to make my funds last for another month in Costa Rica, I decided to live out of a rental car and hung my hammock from two trees at the very edge of a beach 15 minutes south of town.
That first night, I was terrified. I even went to bed fully dressed. Surely there, exposed to the elements, surrounded by the colorful assortment of characters (animals, reptiles and humans) who inhabit remote beaches in Costa Rica, I could rationally justify my fear. But the voice of Inner Guidance disagreed. “Conditions that feel perfectly safe in the daylight feel unsafe at night. Your fear is still irrational.” Using a luggage lock, I fake-locked the hammock’s bug netting, which provided psychological comfort if not physical protection.
Through the course of the next month, I was adopted by the residents of a nearby tent-community, some of whom had lived on the beach for more than a decade. After a few days, I felt as comfortable sleeping in a hammock on the beach as I would in my own bed at home.
Returning to the U.S., I was surprised to discover that things that felt frightening before were no longer scary. Swimming alone at night under the full moon was no big deal. Walking alone in the woods at night or setting up camp in the dark, activities that would have made me nervous the previous summer, were now effortless.
I was fascinated to learn that facing fear had a universal benefit. Having repeatedly addressed physical fear, I was less concerned with abstract fears, like finances, loneliness, or the pressure to achieve. The same formula applied to those areas of life as well. The only rational fear is actionable fear. Do something about it, and / or stop worrying. Facing fear is like a game: 1) It gets easier to spot the enemy. 2) You get better at it the more you play.
Fear is noisy. It’s distracting. But here is the good news: Fear is finite. You can actually get to the end of it! That’s where true freedom lies. When you reach that place, the soul of the world rises up to greet you. You begin to understand the voice of plants, trees, stars and animals. In that place of complete calm, alone at night in the woods, nature reveals her secrets.
Interactions with friends, family and even strangers are transformed. Many expectations are rooted in the fear that we’re not special. Face that fear, and suddenly, other people don’t need to behave a particular way in order for you to feel special. There is no longer a need to be seen in order to know you exist. You carry the seed of your worth in your own front pocket.
Then, something magical happens. Like little spiritual lightning bolts, your authentic self begins to shine through. Conversations that would have terrified you become second nature. Barriers come down. The parts you’ve hidden are revealed. In full transparency, you embrace strangers as if they are lifelong friends, laughing… or crying… at the sheer magic, mystery and wonder of this world. This is the form our spirits long to embody. This is the mother-energy of nature restoring our connection with all living and non-living matter. This is the reward for having the courage to transform fear to freedom.
