Use Love To Conquer Fear

 

This chapter contains quite a bit of first person narrative. The reason for this is because I feel that it might best be understood if I talk about this subject from my own learning experience and perspective. So I begin by letting you know that I am one of those people who have suffered a lot from fear and worry. Fear and worry have influenced my choices in so many ways over my life, and I can only wonder where I would be now if I had learned this insight at a younger age.

Fear and worry are deeply influential to our outward behavior and should be recognized as life changers. If you are being honest with yourself and have a moment of truth, you may realize that fear and worry have been pushing your buttons. The ego may resist accepting that there is an element of worry and fear for it does not want to be seen in a negative way. However, for this insight to be truly known, we must use honesty and truth as our guide.

 

The path to managing fear and worry requires a high level of self awareness. Only in self awareness we can be honest with our recognizing our fears and worries and bring them to the forefront for examination. I also advise that you should not overreach in your discernment of whether you worry too much or not. It can be as simple this; do you feel stress and anxiety from fearing something? Or do you worry about some aspect of life so much that it causing you to suffer? If you are suffering, you will know. If you are not suffering, fear and worry is being managed appropriately.

 

Being self aware [this is the true self], we can become mindful of fear as it arises and then take steps to not be overcome by it. In the beginning, I believed that the way to overcome fear was to raise the spirit (hope) and find courage. But as one of my mentors pointed out, this is just the surface level of understanding. Often courage does not last and you will probably find yourself right back in that dark place of fear and worry.

 

The deeper understanding that I have come to realize is that courage is good but it needs something to support it. It needs a strong foundation. I would never have found this wisdom on my own, fortunately, this deeper insight was shared with me by a wise Taoist who has helped me in many ways of understanding.

 

What he helped me to realize was that there must be a foundation for courage to rest on. That foundation is love. I have found love to be unique in its nature. By that, I mean that love is different in its nature by being able to be present in two places at once. It is the eternal bridge between the spiritual and the physical. As my mentor pointed out, Love is different than other motivating forces in that it [love] is its own counterpart, it is its compliment.

 

As he explained it to me, the first notion about love and its compliment is that we mistakenly think that the compliment of love to be hatred. But that is not understanding at the deeper level. The deeper insight is found in contemplating the source of love. While we can appreciate that ego is the source of hatred, one then has to wonder “what is the source of love?” The amazing insight and answer to this question is this: “love is the source of Love” and “the pure essence of love is the source of the manifestations of love in our lives”.

 

I did not readily understand this. I quite literally had to spend some time in contemplative meditation and then holding to this concept while observing it during my own periods of fear/suffering. What I eventually and gradually came to realize was that fear and worry is or can be yet another self serving aspect of ego. While fear can serve as an important notice or red flag warning for us that something is not right or something might go wrong, when it is out of balance, it creates suffering. When we become obsessed with worry and fear, we are stuck in the physical domain of ego. We are in a self serving loop that we must transcend this mental construct and return to spirit, the true self. Too little fear and we might run head on into danger and trouble. Too much fear and worry we suffer and harm our well being. When self serving ego has control over our mental state we allow fear to dominate.The ego feels “I don’t have time to listen to your problems, I’m too busy with my own fears. Please let me obsess in my fear”

 

Where does love fit into all of this? We must transcend the self serving ego so that our love of others becomes the motivating force to seek balance. Self aware we realize we are suffering from fear, or worrying too much. We then seek the wise and spiritual solution. The Tao cultivator will let go of ego and find the love we have of others and the serve them. When we love others, we put their needs ahead of our own in a balance way. When we love others, serving them can become the foundation for courage. For me, it was the realization that I was just letting ego serve itself.

When I turned my consciousness to those I love most, my family, courage rose and energy came forth to serve them because I love them. This love empowered me to keep on trudging, to not give up hope, and to keep their needs in the forefront. Not only does love give courage but it also and importantly gives purpose to life.

 

Because love can be the foundation for courage over fear, we can keep returning to it. When we slip and allow ego to get back on top, we may feel discouraged again. Yet, by being mindful of our thoughts and feelings, we can realize fear rising and redirect through spirit to remember to love and serve those we love. Then as the obsession of fear loses energy, we can raise our heads, and fill our hearts again and again.

 

Here is the 3 step advice that my mentor gave me:

 

1. Balance fear with love before you do anything else.

2. Balance the look into the future (fear) with a retrospective of the past.

3. Bring it all back to the present moment (right here, right now).

 

To implement these steps, one must be able to become present and self aware. This is case of any of the Tao teachings. We must learn to become awake and aware, which is best learned through meditation. We must remain mindful and pay attention to our inner mental landscape and spot ego and its aspects as they rise. Then, self aware, as the true self, the spiritual self, we can choose wisdom of the Tao to practice and follow.

 

There is the old saying “love conquers all”. Importantly, love conquers fear. Fear leads to hatred, so we must balance the fear with love and build a foundation upon it. We can access our wisdom by understanding our experiences of the past. Wisdom is not repeating the same mistakes but learning from those experiences. Fear arises when we worry about a future now. Wisdom of the past experience can balance our expectations of the future. Balance the future with the past and reside in this now. In this present moment, find love and with it let go of self serving to serve and love others. If life is a journey of a thousand miles, the first step is right below your feet. Right here, right now. Let love be your compass. Let love give you the power to take that next step and balance fear with wisdom. Free your self from fear, with love.