February 3, 2010

WHAT MATTERS MOST:  THAT LIFE NOT BE GOVERNED BY FEAR

A friend says, "I don't want to think that hard," when asked what her biggest fears were.  "In fact," she continued, "I don't even want to know what my fears are."

Indeed, the very act of turning around, or inward as the case may be, and facing the wild things that scare us may itself be scary. 

What we don't know about ourselves can be running the show of our lives, directing our behaviors and habits from some unconscious place in us where we are afraid to go. 

What we don't know can hurt us, and that which is buried alive has a creepy way of staying alive.  At the very least, our unacknowledged fears can suck the energy out of our bodies and our daily lives.  Doesn't it make sense to face them and push through them?

"I'm not scared of anything," someone else told me, defiantly, and I was reminded of a day in class when Jim Hollis said that there are people among us who would rather die than admit they are afraid. 

That is a staggering thought to me.

And yet, fear is  common to all of us human beings; to admit it at least gives us a chance at overcoming it.

It's pretty natural to be afraid of a run-away car, a poisonous snake or a gun pointed toward you.  Who doesn't harbor fears of failure or success, rejection or abandonment now and then?  The important thing that Jim teaches in his book WHAT MATTERS MOST:  LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE is that our lives not be governed  by fear.

What about these fears, though?  Which of these everyday, ordinary fears show up in your daily life in a repetitive way?  Does any of these fears govern your life?

--  fear of being wrong

--  fear of self-disclosure (if they know me, they won't like me!)

--  fear of not having enough, knowing enough, being enough, doing enough

--  fear of pleasure, joy, fulfillment

--  fear of feeling what I feel, knowing what I know

--  fear of losing control

--  fear of intimacy -- of knowing or being known

--  fear of being ridiculed, shamed, embarrassed in public

--  fear of losing

--  fear of others' diaspproval

-- fear of those who are different

-- fear of trying something new

-- fear of making a fool of myself

-- fear of authority figures

-- fear of trusting another person

-- fear of setting appropriate boundaries

-- fear of sayiing "no"

-- fear of standing up for yourself

All humans experience fear from time to time, but when life is governed by fear, we become crippled, paralyzed or entrapped in self-sabotaging behaviors that not only do not make the fear go away, but keep it alive. 

Jim says that our fears are about being overwhelmed or abandoned, and that we devise various ways-- he calls them treatment plans --to avoid facing that which scares us or we overcomensate, trying to out-run the fear.  

If you ask a Jungian how to deal with a problem, the answer is often, "consciousness, consciousness, consciousness," and so the first step has to be to become aware of the fear or the symptom that is masking the fear.  We have to ask ourselves hard questions:

In what circumstances does this fear operate?

What physical responses let me know I am afraid?

Is my fear really justified?

What am I losing or missing in my life because of this fear?

Who else am I hurting because of this fear?

In SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION, Carl Jung said, "The spirit of evil is negation of the life force by fear.  Only boldness can deliver us from fear, and if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is violated."

That is pretty clear, Jim Hollis says.  It's pretty strong.

What will it cost you to hang on to your fears?

How does avoiding your fears keep you stuck in them?

Where in your life do you need to assert boldness?  What will happen if you do?  What will happen if you don't?

Grace abounds --

Jeanie

(This is the second in a four week series of reflections based on Chapter One of the book WHAT MATTERS MOST:  LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE,  by James Hollis.

You can order Jim's books from here -- http://www.junghouston.org or from http://www.amazon.com.  You can also order CDs of his lecture from this course from the Jung Center in Houston.

Previous posts from this series can be found by clicking "What Matters" on the home page of this website.)

For those of you who have asked how to access my column, here's the link to this week's Growing Edges.

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/jan/29/home-is-where-you-knock-they-take-you-in/

For those of you who have asked to read the column on Haiti, intended for the January 23 issue of the San Angelo Standard Times, here is is, printed from my computer.   The editor decided to print it on the front page of the paper on Tuesday of that week underneath a poignant photograph from Haiti.

January 23, 2010

GROWING EDGES

                                                                                                                                          By Jeanie Miley

            Last week on a cold, dreary, rainy afternoon near the end of the day  I locked myself out of my house.   I hadn't done such a thing in a long time, but I did it last week.

            "Oh, you poor thing," my neighbor said when I went to her house to see if she had a key to my house.  "That's the worst thing!"

            "No," I said, quietly.  "Have you seen the news about Haiti?" and we both stopped in our tracks, speechless in the face of what is one of the worst, if not the worst, natural disaster in my lifetime.  The first pictures of the earthquake were just coming in as we talked.

            "Locking myself out of my house is an irritation," I told my neighbor,  "but Haiti....."

My words caught in my throat. There are no words to express how terrible this disaster is.  The images of the suffering of other human beings hour after hour are almost unbearable to watch.

            On the afternoon I locked myself out of my house, I was going to get four different meds to take care of an upper respiratory infection that had attacked me with a vengeance.  Standing outside in the cold, waiting for the key, I shivered and shook.  I felt really awful.

            "This is terrible for you, Mom," my daughter said when she brought me a key, and I told her, "No, this is a temporary inconvenience.  I have a warm house that is still standing, food in my kitchen and the ways and means to buy the medicine I need.  And you are alive and well."

            Any of us, I suppose, can work up a sweat over the annoyances of daily life.  There are dozens of things in the course of a week that throw us off-track and off-schedule, interfere with our plans or cause us discomfort, disappointment and even despair.  To be fair, our own hurts hurt, and we must acknowledge that.  Something of the magnitude and  sheer awful-ness of the earthquake in Haiti has a way of putting trouble and trauma in its proper perspective.

            I'm fond of the quote that asks, "If you lose it when you burn the toast, what will you do when the house burns down?"

            Indeed. 

            The tragedy in Haiti is most clearly an enormous and terrifying event.  As 9/11 destroyed our illusions that we in this country are ultimately safe and immune to war or terrorism, so these natural disasters jerk us out of our illusions and fantasies about how the fierceness and force of Mother Nature rain on other people and happen somewhere far away.

            I've awakened in the night with the images from Haiti spinning in my head.  I've prayed for the people of Haiti, the rescuers, the injured and the bereaved.  I've wrung my hands and given what I could to help and  I've come back to what I hope is more and more "home base."

            Home base is a choice to continue to live from a place of love and trust instead of fear and defensiveness.  It is a choice to focus on all that is right, even as I acknowledge the dangers and perceived dangers in my world.  It is a deliberate intention to live the Serenity Prayer that has sustained me for almost forty years. 

                        God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

                                    the courage to change the things I can,

                                    and the wisdom to know the difference.

            "I'm feeling weepy and overwhelmed by this thing in Haiti," a friend wrote to me.  A man of deep faith, he is strong and courageous.

            "I'm glad you can feel the sorrow of it all," I wrote back.  "May all of us feel new depths of compassion because of this.  May we all weep, and may we act on our compassion."

            May this tragedy help us discern what matters most, and may we put first things first.

            May we who are strong and healthy do what we can for those who aren't.