Today I want to speak about fear.
So many of us grow up in environments where we constantly hear expressions like,
No,
Or don't do this,
Or be careful,
Or you can't do this or that.
So as the years pass by,
We keep on facing other contexts in which people reinforce those ideas,
Describing how hard life is and how impossible things are.
All of that take us to a place where we believe we have to live in a certain way,
With certain limits despite our inner will.
And that place is dark.
We can't really see much,
No matter how much we open our eyes.
And while we are there,
We sometimes may feel or hear something that elevates us,
And for a moment we genuinely smile at life.
But then we go back to our automatic routine of actions.
And at this point,
We are not humans anymore.
We are more like robots.
We get suspicious of the good,
Saying things like,
That's too good to be true.
And we reinforce the bad by saying things like,
I knew this bad thing would happen.
We develop a huge resistance to everything that comes from our hearts,
A resistance to our inner being,
A resistance to us.
And we completely live through our minds and our intellects,
Following judgments,
Perfectionism,
And competition.
We get stuck in this misrepresented truth by believing that life is so predictably hard,
That no matter what we do,
We won't go too far.
And that happens because we are living in fear,
And that leads us to nowhere.
The only thing we get from it is a list of impossibilities for the rest of our lives.
What if that story we've been telling ourselves over and over again is only in our minds?
Does fear belong to us?
What if it's all an illusion?
The reason we fear is because we put ourselves in a position of resistance.
I don't want this,
I don't want that.
What if this changes my life?
What if that happens?
We resist to ourselves.
We so desperately want things in a certain way that we constantly fear the opposite realities.
When this happens,
We can't be free because we will,
Whether be afraid of being miserable or afraid of being happy,
We will always be concerned about losing the good or facing the bad.
We then depend on external conditions that we can control.
We insist in being afraid,
And we believe that by being like that,
We live in a safe environment.
In the end,
All we do is attract more and more cycles of fear.
What if we wake up from that mental dream and finally feel free?
Do we fear to be free?
What could be so bad or wrong about it?
Nothing.
We are supposed to be just as we are,
Free.
Fear takes us away from our true selves.
Every single moment,
We choose to be in a place of fear.
We give up on ourselves,
Stepping back,
Copying others,
Looking down.
In my personal experience,
When I surrender to fear,
I deprive myself of doing the things that expand me.
Years ago,
I decided to work as a macrobiotic vegan cook.
I became so passionate about it that I could feel a deep smile inside of me just by thinking of it.
Considering that at the time I was working as a psychologist,
You can imagine how my entire life changed.
Did I feel fear?
Yes,
Of course.
Did I have people telling me a million reasons not to do it?
Yes.
I could even feel my smile almost becoming sad and angry for the things I've heard.
But that was just a superficial reaction because my inner smile could never end.
Did I push away fear?
I probably tried,
But it didn't work.
I ended up looking at it and saying,
Let's face this together.
You help me warning me of serious dangers,
And I allow you to be part of my freedom.
If I had stopped myself due to fear,
I would probably be still in the same job,
In the same house,
With the same relationships,
And blaming myself and others for being so frustrated because I chose to do it anyway,
Despite of all the obstacles.
I could live it and learn from it and experience my inner freedom.
How many things do we refrain from doing because of fear?
The fear of disappointing or going against others,
The fear of not being loved and appreciated,
The fear of being alone,
The fear of starving,
The fear of living,
Actually,
The fear of just being with all of our imperfections.
We fear.
I fear.
So what can I do?
I can dive inside of me really deep and look for that big star that I am.
I am a soul ready to shine and express myself.
I don't even know the real meaning of fear,
But I feel it's necessary.
Otherwise I wouldn't know what is to enjoy life as a whole great creation of unconditional love.
And what else would I be doing here besides feeling joy?
So next time I fear,
I will embrace it and smile at it,
Just like a child smiles at a lizard that tries to climb up the arm.
And then I follow my heart.
