Fear....

I start this with a quote from a previous writing because I feel fear is an important subject matter and this quote got me thinking more about it.

"I remember thinking I wasn't important enough or good enough. I even remember simply thinking I was nobody and the occasion when I wished I was nobody. That voice in my head wasn't my truest self, it was fear. Fear is not a place to live, it is supposed to warn us when danger is near, but sometimes fear gets a hold of us and then it takes over. It lies to us and believes that in these lies it protects us somehow. Fear is not truth and we often fear that the truth will be worse but it never is. Fight past the fear and find the beauty that is beneath the unkindness and cruelty that fear believes is protection."

When we are born we are born naked, not only in body but in emotion and spirit. It is those around us who fill us up. It is the experiences in our lives that teach us and clothe us within the emotions which we readily share and express. It is the world which covers us in a blanket and often creates a reality in which we believe that it is simpler to hide who we are rather than show it.
Fear!

Watch almost any child under the age of 7 and you will see almost no fear! They believe they are invincible, that the world is safe, that magic is real. They believe their parents and loved ones will always be there to catch them safe when they fall. They believe the best in everyone and forgive readily. They show love and affection without reservation. They smile and laugh without a thought. They can go from laughing to bawling to laughing again in less than a five minute span of time. Nothing seems impossible, no dream unreachable, no challenge to great. They readily show that all they want is to love and be loved.

Then one day it all begins to change. Something happens to the magic of the world. It can be any number of things but it is in that first moment of fear that the choice begins. The choice of beginning to hide their greatness and beauty in order to protect it or simply continue to BE. Sadly very few make it past that first hurdle in life. Fear takes hold at a young age and often we do not realize it.

For me it was a step father who introduced fear and a neighbors relative to stole the magic. I remember both. The magic I got over and somehow I continued to believe in, although I knew not to share that truth. The fear stuck!

I remember being not much older that 8 or 9 and my favorite two places in the whole world became my bedroom closet, where I would hide for hours in the dark and shake, and my horses stall, where my very best friend lived. They were my safe havens, my retreat from the frightening world, but they were only the beginning of a long twisted road.

My first step-father might have introduced fear but I let it grab hold of me and shape who I became for a long time after that. I learned to hate myself because I feared that everyone else did and I made it worse by doing so. I dared not show the real me for fear of teasing or worse. The fear had grabbed me in a very important moment to protect me but it didn't let go for a very long time. And once the fear had me all my choices became based upon fear without my knowledge. All my instincts were untrustable because fear ruled me.

My children learned fear too. For them it was the loss of a sibling on the most frightening day of all our lives. The magic left the world, fear ruled us all. My choices since that day when it came to my children have also been ruled by fear and looking back I see it and understand it. I am furious that I let it hold me once again in it's icy grasp and that I once again believed that it was protecting me and them from harm.

The day comes for us all when fear, well meaning and often at the right moment, grabs us up like a child within it's arms to protect us. It holds us and cradles us. It shows us how to survive. The question isn't whether in that moment is the fear true because IN THAT MOMENT it is and it is right to protect us. The question becomes when and how do we let it go. How long do we allow our beauty, our truth, and our light to be shadowed by this fear that goes from cradling mother into a shadow that overpowers us?

Look at yourself right now. Are your choices based in a fear that you have not recognized? Did it take hold of you at a young age and never let go? Are you being your authentic self are are you hiding behind the shadow of some long ago fear that lives in your heart and mind? Fear can be healthy in a moment or for a time but if it hangs on to you for too long it can become a disease that eats away at your life.

And fear likes itself. It wants company along it's journey. It wants to know it is not alone and so it often creates duplicates of itself. Many times a person living in fear will create fear within others. Sometimes that is by being aggressive and mean, sometimes it is by causing worry and sadness, and sometimes it is simply by existing in the presence of someone who cares enough to feel. Are you creating fear within another or many others? Is your own fear somehow creating friends for itself? Is someone creating fear within you?

Too many of us live our daily lives enveloped by fear. We base our choices, our moods, our lives upon this fabrication of reality that fear is showing us. Too many times this fear has long ago outlived it's usefulness and it's time to release it. It has become so much a part of us that it is like another person living within us and can be difficult to say goodbye to. It doesn't want to leave because fear itself fears for us. Fear is afraid that without it's arms wrapped around us we won't survive another moment but we have to assure it that we will and send it on it's way.

I challenge you to find those moments in your life where you were obviously and even rightfully in fear. Have you let them go? Have you let the fear that came with those moments go? Are you sure? And if you are not I challenge you to find your way out of that shadow and into the light of LIFE.