PART
FIVE
Look
for the context of your despair in the larger world around you: in relation to
your family, your community, your society, the earth.
Be
aware of the difference between contextualization and blaming.
Try
accepting how you feel without condemning yourself.
Ask
questions of your despair: what do you want of me? What are you asking of me?
Fear
arises in any situation where there is a threat of loss or harm to body, mind,
and spirit.
It’s
not fear but avoiding fear that leads to phobias. Because we are scared to feel
fear, we avoid what triggers it. It’s the avoidance that locks the phobia in
place.
It’s
not the fear that stops you. It’s the fear of feeling the fear that stops you.
Acting
out is about skipping a step in awareness, moving from repressed, shamed
emotion to an act that expresses unconscious feelings in behaviours that we
don’t consciously connect to the emotion.
Violence
is often a direct consequence of denied fear, fear acted on because the person
has lost the ability to feel it authentically and mindfully, and to express it
without shame.
People
act out because they are afraid to feel, afraid to speak, afraid of their fear.
Being
aware of fear makes you stronger than pretending you don’t feel it.
Giving
voice to fear goes a long way when it’s most needed. It’s a crucial key to the
transformation of fear to joy.
The
heart heals itself when it’s open to pain.
Being
with fear in a state of awareness in which we don’t avoid, cling to, try to
fix, or even try to understand, but are simply present: this is the
precondition that makes the alchemy of fear possible.
When
we master the way of non-action, we hear what fear is asking of us.
