Sunday, March 4, 2007

Fear - a philosophical perspective

Ok, my philosophy roots are coming back as I was reading Emerson and the following came to mind.

We've become fearful as a society. Fearful of 'living' our lives. In living, we have the entire vibration of life. Not just what feels good or looks right to the societal standards. In living we get to actually try things out, play with them and find our way through practice but somewhere along the way practice got lost and the demand for perfection became a prerequisite and it's scary to think you aren't allowed to learn something unless you are in school. There is no way we can know everything without trying things out. To say you do means you are actually simply taking something for granted, either you are taking anothers words as truth or you are guessing because the only way you can know something is real is to experience it and in experiencing something for the first time, while you can estimate, you cannot KNOW the outcome until AFTER the experience. Allowing yourself to experience this process of experience allows you to LIVE instead of trying to control life.

In living a life there isn't fear because what is there to be fearful of if you allow yourself the time to experience something and THEN make a decision. When that occurs even challenges become opportunities. Each challenge becoming a learning.

When we try to stop things to make sure everything is perfect we end up in stress because life is moving whether we want it to or not. Like water, life will flow and if we try to hold it tight in our hands, while at times we may be able to create a damn to temporarily hold it up, eventually it will overflow and then we will be faced with all that pressure that has built up when we could have chosen to swim in the river of life and allow it to lead us. It's so much less pressure.

Also, when we allow life to be lived, we realize that we are not beings in one time, but beings in all times. What I mean is we are not our past, our present or our future. We are in fact all of these and when we realize that, we get to see the multi-dimensional life. We get to see how our present is affected by how we experienced our past and choose whether that works for us or not. We also get to craft our future and change it when we see our view isn't what we really want, or what we want anymore as we get to be flexible in our lives and stop holding to one way. As life flows, we can change as well. What I liked yesterday may not be what I like today and instead of fearing that, I get to explore it like a scientist endeavoring on new behaviors that I get to choose.

So lets learn to release the fear. The fear that searches for control in an uncontrollable world. The fear that leads to the insatiable cravings for an unerred existence when life IS learning, therefore, there will be times when things aren't perfect. Actually, perfection in itself can become imperfect :). The clutching to a perfect life means pushing away illness and emotions as only controlled passions can allow for a sense of control and sickness is scary as well. Where is the LIFE in that? And what happens when things fall apart? Where is the existence in that?

This month I challenge you to choose to LIVE!

Instead of trying to hold it all together, what if you let things happen and watched your life unfold? What if you enjoyed the experience of choosing each day a new and releasing the need to make sense of life, or of yourself. You just might find some new aspects of YOU that you find interesting to explore. Explore away!

I wish you freedom. The freedom to laugh, freedom to embrace the Self and all it's quirks and temperments, the freedom to be human - and enjoy the ride.

Blessings, Jenifer