January 27--Making Peace with Fear

The worst thing is to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love. 
--Joyce Carol Oates

    Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of January 26 really spoke to me. It described perfectly my lifetime of fear, primarily related to the fear implanted at a very young age of losing my mother. 

Author Cole Arthur Riley describes how she has faced a lifetime of fear, ultimately praying to God for restful steadiness.

More than most things, I’m afraid. When I say this, people always seem to want to assure me that it isn’t the case. But we know. Since I was little, I would always find a way to imagine the worst possible versions of the future. Maybe on some level I’ve grown to believe if I prepare for it, it will hurt less when it comes. But it makes for an agitated body and mind. When you always expect a demon around every corner, your most mundane moments still feel like a risk….

What do we do when our fears are in fact rational? When fear and wisdom are enmeshed? When we would be foolish not to fear? More often than we realize, fear is a protective intuition. It is what stops you from driving with no headlights on, from touching your hand to flame, from going outside to meet the coyotes. We don’t have to demonize our fear to survive it. For this reason, I have an aversion to language of “conquering” our fears. We are not at war with ourselves; it is better to listen with compassion.

As a child, maybe you were told there is nothing to be afraid of. As adults, when we’re most honest, I think we know we have everything to be afraid of. This world, which has been so unsafe to so many of us, cannot be trusted not to harm us again. This isn’t pessimism, it’s confession.

Still, to live in a constant state of fear will keep you from the rest you were meant for. They are near opposites, fear and rest. It is not likely that you’ll relax those shoulders if somewhere within you feel the house is on fire. I want us to honor our fears without being tormented by them. Sacred intuition without restlessness.

This quote from James L. Farmer is at the front of my journal: “Courage, after all, is not being unafraid, but doing what needs to be done in spite of fear.” The implication, of course, is that if you’re not scared, it’s not courage. If there is any bravery in me, it is in my refusal to let fear eclipse my imagination for anything other than pain. To maintain imagination for both the beautiful and the terrible is to marry prudence and hope.

Arthur Riley offers this breath practice:

INHALE: I will not be silenced by fear.
EXHALE: A quivering voice is still sacred.
INHALE: God, my soul trembles.
EXHALE: Steady me in your arms.
INHALE: I will meet this fear with rest.
EXHALE: God, steady me in your arms.

Onward,

    Leta

"Consider the lilies of the field..."