Living with Fear

Many religious / spiritual writers are speaking about the presence of fear in our society. There are many examples with the news each day bringing us new stories. But the real relationship with fear for many of us is not the media but the internal relationship with ourselves.

In an interview, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert noted that she should live life with curiosity, not fear. I was fascinated by her comment as so many of us wander through life with fear as the dominant emotion. It comes in many different presentations:

• I'm not really competent at what I do and people will find out
• I'm not pretty enough and people will know that
• I'm not smart enough and I'll look stupid
• I'm not fit enough and the person next to me will lift heavier
• My job isn't good enough and people will put me down
• I'm too fat; too thin; too short; too tall
• I'm really a fake and someone will find out anytime

Fear is driven into us very early in life. It starts with childhood competition. It's not enough to be a good friend, have fun and just enjoy play. Rather, children are introduced to being better than very early on. The problem with that, if the inbred fear that there will always be someone better than you. For many children, there always is someone better but then comes the fear of how many people will be better and how can I be better than someone else. The education writer Alfie Kohn has shown that this is the seed of bullying, fear, failure.

In meditation, we  can begin to feel our own fear and observe it. It is a companion that many of us walk with but try to ignore or even deny its existence. When we just observe it, we can see how our decisions are driven by fear. By narrowing fear down to this moment, we have only the need to decide what to do with the fear now. Or as the Buddhist writer Pema Chodron notes, we can avoid Biting the Hook.

Oh fear, how do I come to know you

Wherever I go, there you are

I cannot escape you

But why should I care

Your are there when I decide

I wish you to go

But you insist that we together will reside

I tell you I wish it were not so

Oh fear, I see you as my enemy

You tell me I am your friend

Why can you not give me clemency

So to you I will not have to bend

© Peter Choate 2016