FEAR

I went for a run tonight. Unfortunately I should have listen to my wife who warned me that I just finished having injections in my neck and perhaps running is not the best idea. Now I am suffering with both neck pain from the run and an upset tummy from the pain meds I took to ease my neck. Life is certanly bleak.

It is this experience that leads me to my next point, fear. As I ran I began to notice without mistake the growing tension along the side of my neck. It wasn't the pain that got my attention though, it was fear. Please understand that for the past four months I have come to understand the vast limits of my life. There are wrinkles forming around my eyes and on the back of my oh so soft hands. I have a hamstring injury that will not heal. My knee, neck and head often aches. I also have to get up in the middle of the night to pee, sometimes more than once! What does this translate too...fear. I am becoming an old man, now destined not to live but die.

Fear is a captivating phenomena. In my practice without question, fear is what limits life to the largest degree without fail. Fear is also the self resurrected boundary placed on self. Understand this? SELF resurrected. I, we do this to ourselves. When we create this fear we create the non-possibility to experience life. One can say that the opposite of life is not death but fear.

With this understood, then can I also see that the fear I have inhibits me from knowing me fully. Fear becomes the focal point of my existence and everything I do is in essence to avoid that which I fear. Life, love, and peace are crowded out and I become more about what I do not want than what I want. I can no longer express self in this manner.

It must also be said though that there is a healthy fear. This fear does not dictate our life but how we manage our life. I know that should I choose to run out on the road a car may in fact hit me. Should this occur I will lose the fight and I, not the car, who will suffer. This knowledge limits me from where I choose to walk but does not limit how I choose to live. Fear that takes over limits our choice to the point that I no longer am living but surviving.