Today I’ve learned more about this fear. I wonder if it’s something to do with sadness. Is what I fear on the surface really the feeling of sadness inside? If I go for this… and I fail… I’ll feel sadness. In searching for happiness, I feel the sadness of not having it yet. Melancholia is perhaps showing us another side of ourselves. What if this side was something to appreciate (think how much we’d save on the psychology bill) rather than something to avoid or fix? What if the fear of death was sadness at the idea of leaving this all behind? When we have this thought in our heads we may see that perhaps the issue of fear is really one of sadness. Maybe then we can be more gentle on ourselves. If i’m afraid of success, say, am I not anticipating the feeling of sadness I’ll have if I don’t reach my goals? With this in my mind I share an engraving from the German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer – Melencolia 1. So sad, frightening and beautiful. Maybe that’s what life’s about. Now I start to see my fear in a softer light, things are changing perspective and I yield to the feeling of fear like I do the feeling of gratitude. Happy to be alive to feel it.
fearphobe 