Freedom

I've been thinking a lot about fear.

Over the years, at various times, fear has held me captive. It has dictated certain behaviors and it has curtailed others. Sometimes this has been good thing, but mostly it has been detrimental to myself and to others.

I think that I have lived in fear for most of my life.

Fear that I am unloveable.
Fear that I will never measure up.
Fear that I will make mistakes.
Fear that _________________.
(You insert the word, and I bet that I've been afraid.)

After all of these years, I have finally come to the conclusion that fear is not my enemy.

In fact, I have come to believe that it is vitally important to know how to properly experience and to live through my own fear.

I suppose you could say that I had a little epiphany where my fear is concerned and you might be surprised to learn what prompted this deeper thinking and ultimate conclusion within me.

I was reading a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Yes, that's right. I was reading a fairy tale to my five year old, when it all clicked into place.

The story is called, "The Boy Who Went Forth To Learn Fear" and if you enjoy fairy tales and have a few minutes, you may want to read the story for yourself.

In our modern culture we have so inundated our eyes, ears and hearts with grisly images of violence and hatred for the sacred, that we are inured to fear. We no longer even know what it is to experience healthy fear; hence the sickliest of fears can hold us captive, while the most serious of fears completely escape our notice.

Yeah? So what's my point?

I suppose if I have a point at all, it's that I have discovered a new freedom. I no longer need to control or struggle so hard to eliminate the fear within me. Instead, I choose to embrace this part of myself, to pull it deeper within, and to integrate the fears with the hopes and the joys.

I no longer need a "freedom from", for I have discovered a "freedom within"; and this my friends, is perhaps the greatest secret for living a contented life.