Fear, the shout by the door
Just like western culture has ingrained consumerism into our systems, it has also created a culture of fear. We only have to turn on the news to see how fear permeates everything. Fear is the voice inside that tells us not to take a risk, trust, grow, learn, and often receive because something horrible will happen. Fear stands at the threshold of the doorway into the unknown and shouts, “Don’t do it, it’s a mistake, you’ll get hurt!” Fear isn’t evil. In fact, paying attention to our fears can teach us so much. Fear is the part that tries to keep us safe by keeping us small. It’s the wounded inner child we all carry around inside or it’s a warning from a well-meaning relative or even the years our ancestors spent being oppressed.
Fear is related to a desire to survive. In some cases fear is intuition warning about a very real threat. The point isn’t to make fear wrong or evil. Instead it’s possible to learn how to listen for the underlying message fear communicates in order to respond rather than react. Ambrose Redmoon says, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” There is an art to learning when to listen to a fear and when to stroke it on the head and gently tell it to sit down.
Once when I was struggling, a wise teacher Maggi said, “Honey, the pattern is already here in your life. You can either work with it consciously or unconsciously. But it’s here.” By identifying how unhelpful patterns have been undercurrents in our lives, we can begin to study them in a different light. We can see how they help and hinder us and begin to make conscious choices about how to incorporate these patterns into daily interactions.
Left as an undercurrent, a pattern is free to roam and potentially wreak havoc. By allowing a pattern to surface with gentleness, it loses some of its power to hurt us. In this way, we navigate the unknown of a pattern, comb out the benefits and challenges into a life lesson and bring meaning into daily life: Practical Spirituality.
Tags: courage, fear, patterns, practical, spirituality
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