A New Template

It's been two years since I've been here, and I have returned because I recognize that Fear has once again taken a foothold in a place I thought I had filled with Love. 

I have been self-isolating for 6 full weeks (starting my 7th) because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  I'm longing to get out into society and act confidently again: to be oblivious to distance between me and another; to feel free to cross boundaries and borders whenever I want and for whatever reason I want; to return to a normal work week in my comfortable office, with the company of my co-workers as I need them.

But the daily research I do for my job (including the opinions of health officials and scientists, as well as elected government officials) says the time isn't here yet.  So we wait.  And the longer we wait, the more anxious we become.  And there are those out there in the world who wield significant influence that appear to contradict each other.  And the rest of us are caught in between them, and we don't know what to believe. 

So I am inviting any who need to pause, collect themselves, ground themselves in Love again, to take part in answering a series of questions that might provide a reminder that we will be okay and there is still good in the world.  You can answer all of the questions below - or only those that speak to you.  I would only ask that if you answer the question on sadness/fear/anger, that you also answer one about good things, so that you don't leave this place with discontent in your heart.

THE QUESTIONS

1. What brought you moments of sadness, fear or anger today? (Remember that most anger is rooted in a fear, so if something has made you angry, look deeper.  What might the fear be there?)  What is your solution for these feelings? (This might be something as simple as limiting your social media/news time!)

2. What brought you a smile or a laugh today?  Or what filled your heart with joy or contentment?

3. What did you create today?  Or how did you use your hands or body to express yourself?  (Cooking, cleaning, gardening, dance, meditation, exercise is included here!)

4. What memories did you treasure today?

5. What are you grateful for today?

An Affirmation for Your Future

Did you march today?  Did you protest the march today?  In either case, did you come from Love?  Or is something about your opinion driven by Fear?

I think there is some type of driving force out there that keeps making us feel like we have to be all one way or all the other.  About everything.  But just remember: the world is complex enough to accept more than one solution at the same time...and to make several solutions work as part of the whole.  Diversity is a strength.  And that counts for opinions and solutions, too.

Act on What You Love

One of the most important lessons I learned as a manager flipped all of my natural instincts upside-down.  I was the manager of a person I did not see eye-to-eye with at all.  Few people liked her in the organization and expressed it to me on a weekly basis.

Looking back, I know I was feeling a tremendous amount of pressure - i.e. Fear - to "fix" her, to make her behaviour better- so that their lives were easier and I wouldn't be criticized as a poor leader.  But I was green when it came to managing and she was a tough conflict to resolve.

After one particularly frustrating incident - where she had spoken inappropriately to an external partner that was there to help us with a project - and had absolutely no remorse about the incident, I was contemplating how to discipline her.  A senior manager in the organization could see me struggling and asked if I'd ever tried just taking her out for a cup of coffee and asking how things were going for her.

I thought this advice was crazy!  I was supposed to be punishing her - not treating her like a human being!  People were constantly looking down on me because I wasn't doing something about her and now I was supposed to hang out with her over a cup of coffee and pretend she hadn't done something wrong?

Well.  It took some convincing, but I highly respected this senior manager, so I summoned up my sincerity and took her advice.  Remarkably, it actually went quite well, and I learned that my employee was extremely worried that she wasn't going to be able to handle the responsibilities placed on her with this new project.  She was under her own self-imposed stress of not being good enough and fearing she was going to lose her job.  I was able to reassure her that we would work with her to make sure she understood her new role and would have adequate training available.

Things between us after that were easier.  I wouldn't say we were ever friends or that there was ever warm fuzzies between us, but we could work together without shooting eye-daggers at each other.  And that happened because I acted out of a different impulse than fear of how my performance would be judged by others.

Danger is Real; Fear is a Choice

One of the first things I saw this morning was an announcement that Sudan, the last male white rhino on the earth, has died.  This filled me with an unutterable sadness.  So I explored that because my sadness had a lot of the characteristics of fear: I felt myself closing down, wanting to hide, drawing into myself. 

Perhaps sadness is one of the most subtle forms of fear because it can disguise itself as love. I love animals and all the diversity of wildlife that surrounds us.  To know that a species is teetering on the brink of extinction - especially because of humans - is abhorrent to me.  But when does sadness move away from Love and move towards Fear?  And are there different levels of Fear, some healthy and some not?

I think I've come to the conclusion that fear becomes unhealthy when it turns irrational, becomes destructive.  It's one thing to be afraid of a bat that's gotten into your house when you know there have been cases of rabies in the local population; it's a different level of fear when you see one swooping around outside and frantically begin swinging a shovel to keep it away from you...and in the process knock out a light or hit someone in the head! 

It's one thing to acknowledge the pain and danger a terrorist organization can inflict and strive to shut them down; it's quite another level of fear to mistrust other innocent people who had the misfortune of being born in the same country as a terrorist.

Likewise, it's one thing to be afraid of the loss of a species and use that fear to motivate you into making a change in our conservation efforts; it's quite another level to become furious and vow to go out and kill poachers. 

Taking a life because a life has been lost is not coming from Love.  Love would not do that.  Remember?  Love opens up, it stays, it shares, it heals.

One of the other concepts I've been trying to come to grips with is that we need both Love and Fear.  For one thing, we can't recognize one without the other.  As so succinctly put in the Tao Te Ching:
When people see things as beautiful,
Ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
Evil is created.
I do believe this is one of our main purposes in life: to remember that we are part of a Great Love.  But that is difficult to do if you have nothing to compare yourself to.  So there is a Great Non-Love created so that we can recognize the difference. 

In other words, we won't recognize Love until we recognize Fear.  It has to exist, and it has its uses.  But as said in my first post, things have seemed to tilt too far one way lately.  There is Fear - even Terror - everywhere.  In my own way, I'm trying to inject a little more Love back into the mix.  And I try to avoid spreading the Fear.  There are enough people out there doing it already.  Some days, it seems like such a small gesture...but if enough of us make the small gesture, perhaps we can find some equilibrium again.

Which do you want to choose today?

A Miracle

How did it go today?  Were you presented with opportunities to identify Love or Fear?  Did you interact with someone at work that challenged you to pause and remember Love?  Did you read a headline that washed you in Fear?  Did you recognize it?  Is your perception moving from Fear to Love?

Purpose

We have important work to do here.  The people on this planet have been thrown off-balance.  The Yin-Yang is askew.  The Dark Side of the Force is strong.  Fear is rampant; Love feels like a tiny glimmer of light in a dark cloud of world.  We need to restore our equilibrium. 

What I propose to do here is remind myself every day - every hour - to come from Love.  And I would ask participants to help me in that quest.  In your comments I would like you to come from Love, as well.  And help each other to get back on track.  We all desperately need some nudging.

All the endless, vicious debates that go on in the press, social media, and daily interactions are swirling with hatred (a very strong symptom of Fear).  We all know what the trigger-subjects are - politicians make a career out of them - so I won't list them all here.  But I would like you to pause when you're confronted with them and check your pulse.  How does what that person is saying making you feel?  Is your heart beating faster?  Are your hackles up?  Do you need to defend something?  Do you want to get in there and stir it up?  Did people pay attention to what you said?  Do you feel supported by others who feel the same way you do?  What was just said - what you just typed: Is that Fear or is that Love?

Sometimes that's the hardest thing to do: recognize if it's Fear or if it's Love.  When I first started exploring this idea online, I was immediately confronted with an opposing view.  "I'm protecting my children by wanting teachers armed in the classroom.  Protection is Love."  But is it?  I'm asking for a planet.

So to get started, I thought I would list some reference points of what Fear and Love actually look like.

LOVE
Dictionary definition: an intense feeling of deep affection.  Synonyms: fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment, devotion, compassion, care, regard, solicitude, concern, friendliness, friendship, kindness, charity, goodwill.

Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one.  Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offence.  Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over another's sins, but delights in the truth.  There is nothing love cannot face; there is not limit to its faith, its hope, ad its endurance.  In a word, there are three things that last forever: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love.  (1 Corinthians 13)

The Greek defined it as Agape: "unconditional love".  Literally translated means 'charity.' Loving someone/something on no conditions (no matter what).  Giving for the sake of making the other person happy because you truly want the best for them.  You have no intentions of receiving.

The aim of spiritual life is to lead us to a higher state of consciousness we call divine love.  For true love, the kind that draws us closer to God, is a state of consciousness.  It is impossible to describe it, nor can it be explained to those who are not ready to experience it; all we can do is try to lead them to it gradually.  Those who attain this state of consciousness feel inwardly linked to the whole universe.  They are then like an instrument, the cords of which vibrate in unison with all that exists.  They are inhabited by a deep sense of peace, and above all they feel immense benevolence towards all beings.  They do not know why they feel so well-disposed towards them.  They simply sense that these feelings have entered their heart and soul, causing them to behave with kindness and understanding, and that they are connecting with the deep essence of creation. (Omraam Words of Light)

Additional synonyms: joy, serenity, generosity, bliss, happiness, humility, excitements, hope, faith, forgiveness, trust, optimism, laughter, endurance, patience, peace, abundance, radiant health, vitality, passion (without drama), tenderness, learning, wisdom, kindness, healing, freedom, creativity, courage, commitment, beauty, caring, personal growth, spirituality, balance, oneness, compassion, empathy, tolerance, nonjudgmental, spontaneity, fun, healthy pleasure, gratitude.

Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals.  (Conversations with God)

FEAR
Dictionary definition: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to case pain, or a threat.  Synonyms: terror, fright, horror, alarm, panic, agitation, trepidation, dread, creepy, the shivers, phobia, aversion, dread, nightmare, anxiety, neurosis.

Actions motivated by fear fall into four types: freeze, fight, flight, or fright.  Freeze means you stop what you are doing and focus o the fearful stimulus to decide what to do next.  Next, you choose either fight or flight. [Protectiveness is the urge to fight on someone else's behalf.]  You decide whether to deal with the threat directly or work around it.  When the fear is overwhelming you experience fright: you neither fight or flee; in fact, you take no action but may worry and obsess.  Being continuously in fright mode can lead to hopelessness and depression. (Psychology Today)

Additional synonyms: aggression, pessimism, pity, flight, doubt, arrogance, hubris, violence, jealousy, envy, greed, pettiness, meanness, name-calling, belittling, power struggle, worry, selfishness, narcissism, guilt, rejected, abandoned, anger, hatred, prejudice, vengeance, judgmental, excessive need to be right, holding a grudge, phobia, obsession, compulsion, addiction, self-pity, depression, anxiety.

Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms.  (Conversations with God)

And now...what about you?  How do you define Love and Fear?  What do they look like to you?