My dear friend is in a new relationship. It is her first in nearly a
decade. It has been only a short
time, but she is positively head over heels in love with this new man. We went out the other night to
celebrate and it was a delight to listen as my friend sang her new boyfriend's
praises and expressed her deep joy and gratitude for having met him. But then something happened that
saddened me.
My friend began to express fear, specifically, fear that her
new relationship would not last, that this man would end up rejecting her or
that it would turn out not to be the amazing union that she had hoped. It wasn't the fear however that
saddened me, but rather her response to that fear. Within seconds she had shifted from feeling confident and
reveling in her joy to attacking herself viciously--for being afraid. She told me that fear was her worst
enemy--always sabotaging her life.
If she could not get past and rid of her fear, she was certain that she
would destroy this relationship and lose her chance at happiness. Put simply, she--like most
people--despised her own fear.
In this culture we are taught to believe that fear is the
enemy; if we are afraid, it means that we are weak, that there is something
wrong with us. We believe that if
we allow our fear to be heard or considered, it will prevent us from getting
what we want, that fear is bigger than and separate from us. Furthermore, if we let fear win--we are
losers.
After my friend had finished attacking herself, I asked her
a simple question. Does she love this man and does she want this new
relationship to last?
<em>Yes and yes</em> was her answer. I then asked another question. Could
she be certain that it would work out, that he would be the one?, to which she replied, <em>Of
course not, nothing was ever certain.</em> I then asked a final
question. Given the answers to the
first two questions, how could she be angry with her fear, and at herself for
having fear?
With the invitation to consider the validity of her fear, to
hear from the fear itself, she immediately broke into a smile. Fear's experience was not something
that she had ever imagined she could welcome into the dialogue. She had never had a relationship with
her fear that was made of anything other than anger, never been anything but
furious at and afraid of her fear. I was suggesting the rightness of the
enemy--not that fear was right that the relationship would fail--but rather the
rightness of how scary it was to want it to work and not know if it would. Indeed, I was encouraging a handshake
between lifelong opponents.
It is not my friend's fear that has hindered her, but rather
her relationship with fear. Our fear is actually on the same side as we are. My
friend's fear exists precisely because of how joyful this relationship actually
is. Her fear is born out of wanting to hold onto all that joy. It is present
because it knows that the future is unknown and not entirely up to her or in her control. In truth, fear is the ultimate joy
protector. When seen through its
eyes, fear is in fact is quite sensible.
We must stop judging, blaming and shaming our fear. It doesn't mean that we spend all day
negotiating with it, listening to its worries--we do not let it run the
show--but we must have compassion for its wish to protect us from loss, to hang
onto our joy. What could be saner
that such a wish? When we
stop rejecting and running from fear, we disarm it, and remove its power. Fear
stops being frightening and disruptive.
What we reject becomes fiercer and scarier; what we welcome eases and
lightens.
How can we experience deep joy without also considering its
potential loss. Are they not two sides of the same coin? Taking a walk with my 9 year old, I
feel the deepest gratitude a human being could feel, for getting to have this
blessed time together with my child.
And yet interlaced in that poignant sweetness is the knowing that it
won't always be this way, that we won't always get to have this. Fear is the flag that reminds us of
what we cherish and want.
The path is in offering fear a seat at our inner table,
understanding its place, its side.
To befriend fear is to wrap our arm it--let it know that we are on the
same side, that we too do not want to lose what is precious to us. Rather than yelling at our fear,
we can reassure it that we we are doing everything we know how to do to keep
what it fears from happening.
Fear doesn't like the unknown and doesn't particularly care
for the certainty of change either.
As I stroll through the park with my little girl, her blond head still
thirteen inches south, her rainbow-painted fingers intertwined with mine, I
can't say that I disagree.
