Let’s move right into a quick deep dive. The question that I’ve been pondering is: “What am I afraid of?” I’ve been asking myself this question for a while. All you need to do is have a conversation or two with any random person on the street and you’ll realize how prevalent fear is in our world today. It’s a question not many address but it is undeniably floating around in the air waves. It’s not floating that is a too light and fluffy feeling; better put, it’s a thick permeation. What am I afraid of? What are you afraid of? What are we afraid of?
It seems as if fear on so many level flows out of us as well as surrounds us. Why are we such a fearful people? (As a side note, we’ve been watching the Lenten reflections called FEARLESS put out by our dear friend, Chris Stefanick. If you don’t know about it, look up Real Life Catholic and his Lenten series will pop up for you. Food for your soul.)
What am I afraid of? Rejection. Being judged. Being alone. Losing control. Not knowing what to do. Showing my weaknesses. Not being seen. Being misunderstood. Loss of human respect. Making mistakes. Being a failure. Being a disappointment. Not being good enough. Not being smart enough. Not being pretty enough. Not being received. Not being accepted for who I am. The list goes on for each of us.
Fear causes us to step back, to disengage, to guard, to put up protective barriers that are not healthy, to shut down. Fear can make us impenetrable. It’s the journey of delving into the deeper layers our external fears point to that counts. Moving into the deeper spaces in ourselves that we don’t want to penetrate because we’re unsure of what we’ll find. Too scary. However, to do so will change the trajectory of your life from what it looks like today to what it could look like tomorrow. Keep asking yourself, what am I afraid of?
To step into our fears, to lean into it, to look around, to sit in it, to see it literally face-to-face is what propels us into places within ourselves that we would otherwise never know.
It’s hard to clearly name what we’re afraid of and why. If we do so, we’re admitting to weakness and recognizing places in ourselves that we do not like. However, if we want to discover depths in our soul that we did not know, if we want to grow in self-knowledge and love of neighbor, if we want to become an open door and vessel for the Lord to use, if we want to be Christians who by their very lives draw others to the Light, this is a space that we cannot avoid. What are we afraid of?
We can only really know and love ourselves if we’re willing to accept all parts that make us, US. In being honest with ourselves, we are choosing to stand before God as we are. Innately something inside us recognizes the alignment of our inside and outside and the congruency signals to us that there is unity here. And where there is unity, there is peace and harmony. We come to places of deep interior freedom. All of this from entering the dark places of our fears and bringing it to the light.
Entering the dark places of our fears means first identifying them. Next, bringing it to the light can be something as simple and practical as asking yourself the next question which is, “and then what?” For example, you’re afraid of being misunderstood. Alright, well, you’re misunderstood. And then what? Well, then that one person or a group of people don’t understand you. Great. And then what? Well, I feel uncomfortable for a while and can be hard on myself. Great. And then what? Well, I’m reminded that life moves on and that I can learn from all things and become stronger by these kinds of hardships. Great. And then what? Well, that’s just a small group of people who don’t understand me. But then again, I don’t even understand myself sometimes. Great. And then what? Well, I know God always understands me. GREAT. And then what? Well, my struggle in this area helps me be more compassionate to others in listening to understand when they’re coming from a different perspective. GREAT. Do you see how it moved from a locked position to a wide-open place?
It’s quite practical, isn’t it? Sometimes it takes something as simple as this to re-align ourselves to our purpose, to remind us of why we are here on this earth. To love God with our whole heart and soul, mind, body, strength and our neighbor as ourselves. And if God says that perfect love casts out all fear, He meant it. Which means at the end of the day, we can sleep in peace. 🙂 And then what? HEAVEN. 🙂
