Constructing a fearless life
What would have to happen for you to never feel afraid?
To not get sick? To not lose your job? For people to do what you think they should? To not feel anything uncomfortable? To have the perfect situation? And on and on, ad infinitum.
People, places and things
It’s an impossible task to try to fix into place ‘out there’ for ‘in here’ to feel okay. Yet we attempt to achieve it all the time; trying to adjust and control other people and circumstances, as well as our own thoughts and feelings, to avoid feeling afraid.
Thinking about thinking
The relieving truth is that nothing ‘out there’ (including thoughts and feelings) need be a certain way for us to experience endless peace. It’s only the thoughts we have about life manifesting, howsoever she does, that scare us.
It’s only the thoughts about your anxious thoughts that cause you to suffer. The scary thoughts you cling to and look at ever more closely. This becomes the experience of your life.
The fearless now
Look about you now: Is life actually frightening in its essential nearness? Without thought, in only the immediacy of now, what is there to fear?
If something’s currently frightening you, you’re only noticing your frightening thoughts (unless you are actually in a burning building, in which case you won’t be dwelling on feelings of fear, you’ll be in action to remove yourself from danger).
Pure fear is necessary to motivate protective action, but it lasts only briefly, in response to a direct threat to our safety. All other fear is created. And is essentially meaningless. Let it go. To construct a fearless life, you need only remember how this all works.
