Morning had broken, sounds like a song coming on doesn't it! The sky was beautiful with ribbons of pink and orange clouds stretched across the deepening blue. I was still warm and cozy in bed and who knows what I should have been thinking, but I was thinking about fear.
I had a lot to be thankful for including all the family that had spent the previous day with us. We had all ages from 80 plus to not quite a teen. And for the most part we get on well. But the elders all talk about getting old and the pain and suffering it brings. The common phrase goes something like, “getting old is a drag,” and the common fear seems to run along the lines of, “how will I cope in the future.” As I thought about it I realized that fear affects us in small and large ways everyday.
The small fears could be worrying about things like missing the bus for work, worry about the job interview coming up, or not having enough turkey for the Thanksgiving dinner. The larger ones may be the fear that your house won’t sell or your child may not get better. But here’s an interesting thought presented in A Course In Miracles (ACIM). “There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” No fear, worry or anxiety is greater or smaller than another. They are all exactly the same because no matter how you categorize it, your peace of mind has been affected.
Cynthia Reyes in her post Finding Courage talks about how her husband had to take over the management of their business, home and family, not to mention the care she needed when she was badly injured. It turned out to be a long-term process but he did it despite feeling frightened at times. When faced with a traumatic situation you manage it, find the courage to move through it, and somehow move forward. But it’s much harder to make peace with it.
You would probably balk at the thought of letting things be exactly as they are. Especially if what is happening appears to be the worst possible thing. Yet that is how you maintain your peaceful mind. If you are not fighting against what is happening then you must be at peace. It would be like trying to have an argument with someone who is not willing to be in the argument with you!
This is a work in progress for me. You want to give up the fear that eats away at your very core but you don’t want to lose the ‘oomph’ that moves you to make positive changes in your life or the world at large. How do you tell the difference? I don’t think it matters. If your peace of mind has been affected you are fighting. Let it go. Allow it to be what it is. Where you can take steps to make changes in the situation but know that sometimes the only thing that will change is how you think about it.
So much easier said than done, work at it anyway!!