Fear

Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them. ~ Marilyn Ferguson

Fear has been a strange, elusive, powerful creature in my life. It has driven me to do things I wish I hadn't, to throw up walls I regret building, to run from anything remotely threatening. Like almost every emotion, I believe fear has its place at times, like when we are in danger and need our minds and bodies to kick into a mode of protection and survival. But for me, fear has mainly been a hindering presence throughout my years, preventing me from experiencing life the ways I want to because of having been hurt or having caused pain to others, being afraid to let go of the past and feeling lost in the present. However, as someone recently said to me: Life is messy.

The more I try to prevent sorrow or anguish, the greater magnet to those things I seem to be. So, I've recently began to assess some of my greatest fears. I plan to face as many of them as I am able to and can withstand, even if it takes me longer than I'd like. Because I think Marilyn Ferguson is onto something ... and while the process may be hard to stomach and difficult to breathe through at times, I know in the end, I will be better for it. Because, what is the point of living life if we're not actually living?

Yes, I experience life deeply in a very intimate and personal way every day, whether by inhaling the air and reveling in its sweet, earthy scent as I leave my house every morning or gazing at the stars every night when I let my dog out before bed. But it's about more than that. That isn't the reason I was kept awake as a child at night, feeling this overwhelmingly potent sense of greatness out there, waiting for me to embrace it. Life, I realize now, is about creating a story, your story. It's about making connections with other people and weaving those strands together to braid your existence on this earth and to nourish your growth. If I hide from everything, if I run from the things that scare me, if I let the scars of my past impede my future, then when it comes to the day I leave this earth ... I'll have nothing to look back on.

~ C ~