Fear of the mark

How to drop the fear in our lives? First, allow ourselves to notice the fear of fear. Fear is a pointer, a navigator. It highlights the things in life we’d like to think should not be there, the things that present danger to life and the things we would like to turn away from. Recognise these judgements we’ve made, and we will see that the fear of fear is the running away from parts of life we would like to convince ourselves serve no other purpose than to torture our experience.

They are mostly unpleasant, yes. They don't initially feel good, they are not inherently pleasurable, and they do not imply a peaceful experience. They are, however an invitation for us to face these things and acknowledge them as part of life, as part of growth, as part of experience, as part of our education on Life, its fragility and its humility in front of our misbehaviours that cause us to fear the next act of the one beside us, or the next tremor of nature, or the future of our loved ones, the unknown, the painful and the evil.

Accept the reality of dodging fear – that we avoid an opportunity to grow and overcome, an opportunity to liberate our lives in the lessons of fear, by learning from them instead of running away from them. How indeed can we accept life in us and for us, if we train ourselves to avoid it when we are ourselves an expression of Life? How can we enter in life fully when, by trying to evade it’s course, we evade ourselves as well, and we miss the mark, the moment and the opportunity to be free by stepping away from the reality of how we feel, from the life that is us and the truth that is life?

We needn’t fear the feeling of fear. It is an alarm we keep snoozing and choose sleep, and thus lose the time to be alive and feel this fear for the last time.

Follow this feeling of fear, follow it until it reveals the fear that we fear and see it for what it is. Face it and look it in the eye, not rushing anything, but recognising its significance in our life or the life of another that may require an opportunity to understand. Allow fearful things to exist and accept them as they are, as part of Life’s lecture, as part of existence, as part of a journey, as a pointer to freedom: “Let this be, and we can move on and be free. I am showing you this, so you can know and now see, how these things that you fear grieve not only you, but indeed also me!” – Life whispers to us.

Facing fears means just that – facing them. There is no need to experience every peril, folly, disaster and pain to be free from them, but avoiding the ones that present themselves in our life will surely bring them to us again.

We secretly want to "correct" life's way and recreate it without the things we fear –

an unnecessary act, my dear,

for it is already pretty clear,

that this force that brings all forth, and into being and in light

is one of endless freedom and great might

to overcome, to live through change, through pain, through blight,

through ignorance, impermanence, despair and through fright...

It is also a power of great humility, of great care and great love,

a gentle guide that will let everything unfold until we realise our union with it, until we accept we share everything with it.

No need to fear when we trust in Life to be alive and free.

It wants to show us (can’t we see?) the way through everything that life allows –

it will guide us, love us –

for its vows

are to bestow its freedom unto us,

and that’s the only thing a life desires to do:

free you!

Don’t stay stuck in fear, thus walking backwards into the same pit.

Face the fear and walk forward bit by bit,

step by step, into a life that accepts itself in its totality –

nothing to avoid, nothing to remove, nothing to add, nothing to improve, nothing to fear – its blissful reality.

Don’t fear the fear. Feel it. Follow it. Face it. Accept it. Let it be. Drop it. Live beyond it.

We are life. We are not fear. We are life!