Facing Fear

Fear

is the most powerful enemy

I have to face.

Confronting it
is the most difficult thing I do.

Why is fear so powerful?

I can’t see it,

touch it,

taste it,

feel it,

smell it,

or hear it,

yet I perceive it to be

very much alive,

and it is very real to me.

What is the source of my fear?

Of what am I so afraid?

Being wrong?

Looking bad?

Bondage?

Death?

What is the face of the fear

I am afraid to face?

The unknown?

The unfamiliar?

Being out of control?

How easy it is to forget 
that no future exists 
in the present,

about the reality

within which I will live,

other than the story 
I create about it.

Is not the corresponding fear 
nothing more than the concern

that I might not be in control?

Fear is an abstract concept

existing only in proportion

to my belief in the role I play 
in the story I project about me 
in the future.

The greater my fear,

the greater my projection,

the greater the story.

Diminish the story,

by being present 
in the here and now, 
recognize the fiction for what it is,

diminish the projection,

diminish the fear.

 There is no fear in love,

Perfect love casts out all fear. 
1 John 4.18

Love only exists 
within the present moment,

Fear is only experienced 
when outside the present,

by congering, anticipating and projecting 
what might be,

while being in that story I project,

while entertaining the myth 
I adopt about the future,

in the role and the circumstances
within which 
I choose to be trapped.

The more outside the present I am,
the more I am inside a story that is not,

the more convinced I am 

about the truth of my role 

in a story about my future,

which is really but 
a forward reflection of 
past precedent.

My inward resistance 

toward that mythological future

is the measure of my fear.

The truth is

my fear is nothing more than

me being concerned that 

I might be out of control 
of the outcome of my story.