The only thing you have to fear is fear itself. – FDR
Yeah right. I don’t know about you, but I fear a lot of things more than fear: The Economy; The Fire Ants; The Death of People I Love; The Future of the Herbs I Just Planted; The War(s); The Allergy That’s Invaded One of My Sweet Dogs; The Pirates; The Weight Watcher Points; The Sudan …
UGH.
Sometimes my fear faucet seems to get stuck on FULL BLAST. Other times, it’s just a leaky distraction. And then there are (THE WONDERFUL) times it’s completely closed.
I’ve been trying to pay attention to these different experiences with fear – trying to notice what, if anything, I’m doing to adjust the level of fear in my life.
One thing I know for sure is that I don’t like the knot fear creates in my gut.
I am also learning that since my brain usually creates my fear, it can adjust it too. So I ask myself IS THIS REAL or FEAR? If it’s real – I sit with it until I can decipher what parts of this reality I can adjust and then I make the adjustments. If it’s just fear – I sit with it until I figure out where it’s coming from (The Past or The Future). Then I track my quickest route back to The Present – where the real stuff is. And then I go back to how I handle the real stuff – rinse and repeat.
How do you adjust your fear faucet?
Lisa’s Cheap Therapy blog 
lisa dear~
what great subject matter for the times!!!
last summer, i encountered a brand new “fear experience” i’d like to share~
end of june, 08., i was (as usual) working into the night at my studio, when i “audio witnessed” the murder of a young artist, which happened across the street from my building. i also heard 2 of the men involved, (after they ran to the side of my building) discussing what was occuring.
i didn’t actually know what had happened until the following day. soon after that, the press started coming out with reports of this which were 180 degrees different than what had actually happened.
i’d like to give a quick (personal)background here: i’ve been involved with civil rights, 1960 on, kids rights, mid 1980’s on, human rights 1970’s on. i’ve devoted a large part of my life toward advocating for the right of fair and equal treatment/justice for all of us. i was in my 65th year when this incident happened, and as the case evolved, i didn’t hesitate to step foreward with what i knew. i’ve often thought since then, if this young innocent unarmed and barefoot irish lad was destined to be murdered in his lifetime, at least he died close to where someone was maybe not ready- but nonetheless willing- to witness what had actually happened. i never knew him before he died, only his countless friends and his family told me about his amazing spirit, and how much he was loved.
my first instinct (the night of his death) was to go to the police to tell what i saw and heard, except none of the 6 officers i talked with wanted a statement from me. subsequently, not even the d.a. wanted a statement from me. this repeated itself throughout the community, then i started noticing small instantces of police harrasment. this is common, when one “stands up” for whatever one believes to be true, but i kept waiting and hoping for others to also come foreward, and a few did, but briefly… from the beginning, the ones involved with this murder saturated and swayed public opinion (through every type of media exposure) toward their version of what they convinced both the public and the grand jury had happened. they invented what happened, in order to justify the killing of an innocent victim.
a few weeks after this boy was killed, i recieved my first of two
death threats. the original one came via email. it landed in my “spam folder” and the subject line said: “execution order for j.stone shipped out today” my first thought was “i didn’t order anything from ‘execution’ what’s going on here???” then i “got it” and that made me laugh, but i knew straightaway i wasn’t about to open this sucker with a stick… a few days later a death threat was tucked under my windshield wiper where i found it on leaving work around 2:a.m..
fear almost set in on that second one, until i got into my car and realized i was being chastized because i’d spoken out for what i knew had happened, but to have not spoken out for what happened was antithetical to who i was or ever would be. there wasn’t a chance of changing who i was at this late date and besides, i didn’t want to. so…. i reasoned: i’d already had a long and beautiful life, full to overflowing with miracles and goodness, and if the ones involved with this senseless murder wanted to kill me too-that was theirs to deal with, not mine. as for me, i refused to be fearful (or hopeful)of whatever the outcome.
i came to walk taller during that time (and probably afterward too) because i wasn’t about to let the bastards make me open up any more of their “fright packages” or threaten my truth. i hope if even one person reading this (who may not have experienced this particular type of fear before) might come to believe that external fear cannot tamper with the core of ones spirit and that our soul can never, not ever be diminished by anyone else, but only “made more so” by our own personal knowing of that which really matters…
once, a long time ago~ i wrote these words: “what shall i carry today? will it be faith or fear…”
thank you dear lisa my forever friend, for letting me tell this story. jstone
dear Jane,
thanks so much for sharing this story and lesson with us. what a faithFULL and loving witness to life you are!