LOVE OR FEAR--It's a Choice

What does fear look like:

• over-protecting


• over-consuming


• over-amassing


• over-drinking/eating


• over-organizing


• over-scheduling


• over-distracting


• over-reacting


• over-medicating


• over-stimulating


• complaining


• manipulating


• selfishness


• irritation

What does love look like:

• openness


• healthiness


• willingness


• forgiveness


• peacefulness


• happiness


• service


• generosity

It's a choice about whether we add to the love or add to the fear that is already in the world.

Why would we choose to add to the fear? There is only one reason: we are still reacting to past, unresolved traumas in our history. We still see the world through the filters we have created to protect ourselves from being hurt or humiliated. Our ego is in the business of keeping our fears alive and convincing us that "that's just who I am": a collection of habitual reactions to people and situations.

Every so often, we find ourselves with people or in situations where our fear response is not triggered and we get a glimmer of what it must be like to experience life fully and joyfully. It's not long, though, before the ego kicks in and starts complaining or judging or being offended about something and our moment of peace is gone.

How can we get past seeing the world through the filters of our historical fears? When you truly ask yourself that question, the work has already begun. Eckhart Tolle, in his book titled, A NEW EARTH, writes that just the act of picking up the book sets you on the path to wholeness. I've always loved the image that all we're expected to do is lift our foot and the rest of the step is taken for us--that's how much help there is waiting for us.

In my previous post, I wrote about how books seem to find their ways into our hands. That happens with people and situations, as well. When we hold the desire/question in our minds that we would like healing from past wounds, we can trust that things, people, and situations will appear in our lives: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." Actually, even the people and situations that are already in our lives will begin to have new meaning and will challenge us to learn from them in new and healing ways.

I spent most of my life feeling disconnected and angry with my Mother for not being the mother I thought she should be. One year for Christmas, when I was in my mid-40s, I gave my Mother an empty notebook and asked her to write about her life before she was married. At first, she balked, saying "Oh, I can't do that." Then, a few months later, she handed me back the notebook with about 100 pages filled in.

When I read it, I was stunned. She innocently and without self-pity described her young life during the Depression, where she lost her father at age seven. She was the youngest of five girls and her Mother, after losing their farm, did everything from taking in washing and ironing to taking in boarders just to keep her family together. Even then, the girls had to be farmed out to relatives and friends periodically until her Mother could get back on her feet. Her only commentary was, "Everybody had it hard."

I found myself in tears at how she described her Mother coming home from the hospital and having to tell five little girls that their Daddy was dead. I smiled when she wrote about learning to roller skate on her Grandma's big front porch.

All of a sudden, she became a real person to me--she became Margaret. I felt the anger slip away and I am convinced it was because I wanted it to--I was so tired of carrying around this soreness, tired of maintaining the wall against her.

Our relationship, unbeknownst to her, changed radically for me. When all this happened, she was already going down the memory-loss lane so there was going to be no outward reconciliation, no big heart-to-heart discussion--just the inward act of forgiving both myself and my Mother.

Now, I actually look forward to visiting her and think about ways to make her final years happy ones. I don't have to slog around in that swamp of hurt feelings anymore--something had finally opened up in me, releasing me from fear and into love.

Would you be willing to share your experiences about how you resolved past traumas and how that changed the way you live your life?

BOOK TRAILS

Have you ever noticed that your choices in the books you read follow some kind of path?

Decades ago, when I was raising little ones at home in Blissfield, Michigan, I decided to keep a list of the books I read for one year. What a revealing experience! At first, it appeared to be all over the joint, then I started thinking of the events of the past year and it a pattern emerged.

I tend to have more than one book going at a time and, when it happened that one book I was reading quoted the other, I started to become more and more aware of the threads that wove my book-reading choices one to the other. I also started realizing that there was a distinct relationship to my choice of a book and what was happening externally, wondering which one came first--sometimes one, sometimes the other.

Have you ever wondered how you can browse through a library or a bookstore and come out with ONE book? How does that happen? I've heard people tell stories of how a book actually fell off the shelf and the reading of it changed their lives. Some people have told me that titles actually light up or their fingers begin tingling as they run them across the spines of books.

I started documenting these "book trails" as I wrote my second book, EARTH TRAILS-HEART TRAILS, a journal of our three-month trip around the Southwest in 2002. I found that when I made a distinct daily effort to find the connections between what I was reading and what I was living, a whole new level of seeing opened up. I found myself carrying a notebook down every trail we hiked, stopping to make notes to include later in my daily journal entries.

When I read others' journals, it's like being handed yet another map that I can overlay on my own, seeing where others explored this canyon or that deep green valley or paddled down a river I didn't even know was there. Reading journals, or first person accounts, is like being handed another life I get to live--just because someone took the time to write down their "maps". And then there's the wonderful surprise when you reach the end of a book and there's a "Suggested Reading" list--Oh, joy! It's like following a link on a website--you just never know where you're going to end up.

My Canadian friend, Marianne, publishes e-books about their travels in the west and southwest of the U.S (www.frugal-rv-travel.com). Whenever I'm missing her, all I have to do is start reading one of her books and there she is--her joyous personality, her wit, her gentle humor, her creativity, and her intelligence shines brightly from every page. I feel as if we'd just had a cup of tea together. Don't you feel that way when you hear that a favorite author has a new book out? You rush out to the nearest bookstore because you can't wait for the paperback.

Are you , like me, one of those people who check out the book titles at people's houses? More often than not, I have been pleasantly surprised and it has led to some giant leaps over the sometimes laborious territory of getting to know someone.

How do you select a book for someone else? Sometimes when I'm reading a book, I'll think, "Wow, I bet Josh would love this book." And, thus, a book finds itself going down yet another "trail".

Would you be willing to share some of your "book trails" experiences?

POWER PLAYS AND DRAMAS

Do you ever find that, contrary to your best intentions, you have once again gottten drawn into someone else's drama or power play?

Do you realize it when it's happening or not until later? Do the types of power plays that draw you in have a pattern?

How do you feel while it's happening? How do you feel later?

How does the interchange affect your relationship with that person and how does it affect your relationship with people you are with afterwards?

Do you divide your relationships into "easy" ones and "difficult" ones?

How often do you instigate the drama or power play? How do you feel when someone jumps right in with you as opposed to those who don't engage?

What do you think is the relationship between your pattern of engagement in power dramas and your stress level? How often you are ill? How often do you have a headache, stomachache , backache or just low energy?

Do you hang on to power dramas after they are over (I shoulda said...")?

How often do you catch yourself enacting a fictional drama in your head? How do those fictional dramas affect your relationship with that person(s)?

Do you find yourself wishing that you could see situations and people more clearly--not have everything filter through your history (prejudices, biases, past traumas, immoveable opinions)?

Please share your thoughts and dreams and goals--someone out there could benefit from your wisdom.

This is a blog for people who know their souls are calling to them for a deeper experience of Life. You have become more conscious of not only the chronic disorders (mental and physical) of those around you but also of the deteriorating condition of our earth. You want to find the source of the pain and not just put a band-aid on it. You are willing to do what it takes, even if it means transforming yourself first, to bring love and healing and compassion into our broken world. I invite you to make this blog a place to share your soul experiences and to find soul companions who are doing the same.