Fear

This quote from James Thurber keeps coming back to me in many forms:

“All men should strive to learn before they die; what they are running from, and to and why.”

This was painted on my bedroom walls as a teenager, along with about 30 other quotes.  It has remained one of my top favorites that I never seem to outgrow.  As I listen to spiritual leaders and move through life… this basic quote,  or something like it, keeps coming back. 

We must not run away from fear and stick our heads in a hole singing our favorite songs loudly.  The stimulating world that we live in makes this SO easy and convenient to do!

When you feel fear – sit with that emotion.  Give it your time and patience.  This is not an easy practice, nor a comfortable one… but you may find that the fears you sit with don’t actually exist!  They are about a possible made up future (not yet here and not yet living).  They are ‘memories’ or our past that also no longer exist.

We can shine the light of presence on fears and show them gently that they do not belong here, because they do not actually EXIST.  Therefore, as I have heard many times, it is a grade of insanity to be fixated and fearful of something that does not exist.

Are we all living on a spectrum on insanity?