post chair carrying day 47
I really do believe Fear is the base negative emotion, the end point, or more precisely the start point for all negative energy. Almost 100 days ago, I embarked on a journey to uncover Fear and unburden myself of Fear. Today I feel the shift that has occurred because of this journey. I may not be incredibly articulate about it yet as the understanding, the awakening to the shift is relatively new.
I feel as if I have shed something. Not a skin. Something deeper. I feel as if I have been cored. Like an apple. But I am not empty. I am open. As if being cored, I have then also been turned inside out. I am not Fear-free, I am perhaps Fear-less. Still human, still feel pulse quicken at the thought of certain things. But am very clear what that is. It is Fear. And the clear, unapologetic, uncluttered understanding gives me the ability then to allow the Fear to be what it is. A response. And allowing Fear makes me as powerful as Fear. And I can choose to be whatever response I choose. A quaking, crumbling victim of Fear or a breathing, courageous companion to Fear, or someone in-between.
This courageous companion to Fear is an interesting image. Let's return to the mountain, you know, the mountain of life. I have faced this mountain quaking and sometimes crumbling in Fear. But today, I realize I am a companion. Fear is with me, beside me as I climb and stumble and get up and glissade and make decisions. But Fear is NOT me and I am not Fear. Courage is my companion as well. But it is NOT me and I am not Courage. Love is there too of course; and the same reality applies to Love and I. Anger, Discouragement, Despair, Hope, Joy, Triumph,... and the list goes on. Every possibility accompanies me in this life. And I am only me. And I am all that I am. And I am enough.
Fear is deeply powerful in our psyches, in my psyche. And it is only as powerful as I allow it to be. Just like anything else.
But I started this entry by stating that I really do believe Fear is THE base negative emotion. I have talked about this before. Today I believe it more than ever because I feel as if in awakening to Fear, to the reality of what Fear is and allowing it, and in doing so becoming free of the BURDEN of Fear; I see and feel as if all that burdened me in life are no longer burdens. There are challenges, sure, life is not suddenly heaven but those challenges are no longer felt to be unbearable weights on my back or chest as I face the mountain. The mountain is simply a mountain, the challenges simply challenges. Beautiful hard work that is in EVERY step worth it ,.. and in every step contains every possiblity ... and every step belongs to me.
The significance of the changes in my understanding of my life and of myself since the beginning of the Fear Chair Project are to me astounding. Certainly many factors play into the events and growth of the past almost 100 days; but through it all, every day, the commond thread of encountering Fear where it lives and befriending it binds all that has occurred to bring me to this new place, this new reality, this new awakening to self.
There is fondness for the FCP, and I believe even fondness for this newly understood companion.