Fear and Love

It's a curious thing, the interplay between fear and love. Take this post for example, I wanted to write about the joys of love and how much love was shared during our wedding weekend (held in our own backyard with <20 guests). But as I started to think about it - all the fear voices crept in 'you can't do that', 'you shouldn't do that', 'that's weird', 'no one on LI cares about your stupid wedding'.

Through coaching and various other programs, I'm learning to push through fear and those inner critic ('The Judge') messages. I know the trick is just starting, so I began to make a draft of this article, then it got real. It took a lot of willpower to get to this point.

So why was this so hard? While it's embarrassing to admit, I think there's still some school-boy version of me scared of name-calling like 'weak' 'mushy' 'mommas-boy' - all that kind of shit that we used to tease each other about if boys weren't talking about sports, Tonka trucks, fighting or simply showing any type of emotion besides aggression. Or as Mark Manson puts it:

"if at any point you come across a kid with far less coolness than you, you tell that nerd to fuck off and stop being such a loser and dragging your coolness level down because the other cool kids might see you"

At 44, it feels a bit overdue to let that shit go...

There seems to be even more at play for me, and I was curious about the quote, "Love is the absence of fear". I like that quote; it is inspiring, like - just live a life full of love, and there will never be fear! Sounds great! but it doesn't 'feel' true...

"Love is not the absence of fear. Like joy and sadness, love and fear are dualities that live in the same chamber of the heart. When we love another deeply, fear will rear its head. Designed to protect the vulnerable heart, fear is the sentry who guards the sacred entrances."

As that quote from Sheryl Paul alludes, I also believe there is duality at play.

Now - as it relates to making such provocations as this on a 'business' platform like LinkedIn - I did debate that with myself for quite a while. But then, on September 11th, I saw this post from Daily Stoic , which made me realize I would be selling myself short to only talk about the things that really matter at the last minute or when it's too late, or worse - never at all...

Ryan Holiday's post recounts a phone call made from the plane of UA 175 minutes before it crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center

This post made it abundantly clear to me - when it comes down to the final hour, the final minute, all we care about is love. It's a paradox; we all seem to know in some sense love is the most important thing in life, yet I and many others are scared to talk about it. For me I have to face a fear either way - fear of what people will think about me now, or fear that I'll unexpectedly reach a final moment in my life and realize that fear held me back from expressing what's in my heart.

This is how the mindworx, it has the capacity to hold two things simultaneously: love and fear, joy and pain, happiness and sadness. As Thích Nh?t H?nh says "This is because that is" up is because down is. If we didn't have fear we would have no baseline for what love is. The contradiction must exist for us to see the contrast. The tricky part is embracing the full range of emotions and then choosing to live out of love and joy more often than not.

Final thought - when I was in college, I loved DMB and would play their CD's (I told you above, I'm 44...) constantly. I still like them a lot but haven't listened to them much lately. As I was writing this, those lyrics were bouncing around my head. I couldn't remember which song it was and had to search for it. "Pig" is from a 1998 album and a track I probably hadn't listened to for over a decade. Another example of how much the mind holds on to...

It's a great song - please give it a listen: