by Robert Wilkinson
Because of the current global uncertainty, I’ve been in a few conversations. The recent article Overcoming Fear, Heaviness, and Dread As We Move Through Uncertainty came out of one of those conversations. Today’s offering comes from another conversation.
Chaos and upheaval are familiar to me. I know the rudeness of the unexpected. I know the annihilation of an old life in the blink of an eye. It leaves us in shock, since there’s nothing to go back to even if we knew how. While that happens to individuals at key life transformation points in time, it also happens to nations and to our world. These are dividing lines between past and future in the NOW.
We have all just seen the end of a way of life. Millions feel that we have just been hit by a proverbial Mack truck, and are stunned. Our collective subconscious is outraged that the worst instincts and behavior of humanity, racism, sexism, vulgarity and violence, were just approved of in very ugly ways.
Sadness, sorrow, fear, and other strong emotions are coming up and out in everyone. This is part of the grief process, and yes, we are all going through various stages of the grief process. Some are in shock, some are angry, some are bargaining, some have accepted.
Many have been unexpectedly thrown into their own private hell they share will millions more who also were unexpectedly thrown into hell. As one who has known abrupt and profound losses of several types, I know what it’s like to live in the underworld. While it’s not a very “light and bright” place to be, there is enormous power and clarity to be found there.
We all have to learn how to process these deep frustrating feelings despite the brutality and usualness of the worldly noise. That’s why it’s important to go inward, to find a point of inner equilibrium, so that the dualities don’t distract from a reconnection with our eternally loving Self. As we withdraw into our Soul/Spirit, we find a measure of peace, understanding, and equipoise.
I’ve written a lot of articles over the years about death, grief, and how to deal with unimaginable loss. We all go through many deaths throughout our lives, and one of our spiritual tasks is to learn how to grieve in healthy ways, learning coping skills to navigate through our underworld so we can become strong, courageous, and a guide for others shipwrecked in hell.
4 years ago I wrote an article you may want to revisit when you’re done here. It was titled We Will Not Pass This Way Again - Reflections on the End Of A Way of Life. It was written in response to the coronavirus, but many things I offered in that article perfectly apply to the political “coronavirus” which just struck our nation’s capitol. Every public health problem in that article applies to our political problems.
While some degree of fear is a natural response, as I put it in the linked article at the top,
It is natural to become jittery in the face of potential chaos, whether personal chaos, collective chaos, or both. And we are programmed to be fearful of many things. Our task is to remember overcoming the fear response is one of the most important things we can do in our lives.I learned to keep in mind that regardless of what provokes fear, fear is a dangerous disease and a useless response. All fear does is generate more fear. When we face our fear and confront it directly, to quote a great Sage, “it will cease to trouble you.”
The antidote to fear is love. It takes courage to reject fear and regard it as an illusion which is not to be encouraged. Whatever makes us afraid, whatever makes us feel dread, is a perfect opportunity to discipline our mind to focus on what strengthens our resolve to love, to be aware, and to understand what we have to understand.
We cannot control the apparently chaotic circumstances we now find ourselves in, but we can control our response to the chaos. No one likes uncertainty; we are now collectively facing an uncertain future. This is a time to think outside of our normal assumptions and routines.
Times of chaos which create fear are testing our ability to find “forms of effective action in the fog” and “not fear the confusion.” Again, by staying on our Soul-referenced center of equilibrium, we find the balance between compassion and clarity around boundaries. This helps us not be hooked into the fear in the collective atmosphere.
Be firm at every turn that you will not give the illusion any more power than it deserves, which is none at all. You are an eternal who is learning to express positive thoughts, feelings, and actions by using times of crisis to turn away from lesser things and lower responses and instead be your highest Self.
Release any fear you have about the uncertainty of the future. Let it go. We’re feeling an archetypal pain far greater than any of us. But fear is a useless response. Kill it out and you will prevent a thousand problems, and can navigate hell itself until you find the other shore.
When things are craziest, it’s time to get centered and “breathe and love and breathe and love and breathe and love and…..” So if you’re having a hard time wondering what to do, how to do it, if and when to do it, step back a minute and take a breath. You have time to consider possibilities.
If you can continue doing what you do, then there’s no need to fear anything. If you cannot continue doing what you do, then you need a plan more than you need fear since fear won’t get the job done. If and when a way of life is threatened, being thoughtful about options and how to prepare to make the jump is more helpful to your cause than fear and confusion.
We’re here to use our intelligence in times of crisis, learning to think on our feet and adapt as needed. Every time in the past when I was confronted with the inevitability of making a jump, I got out my scratch pad and put down ideas, considerations, and what I wanted or needed to accomplish a new life in the future.
No matter how much your mind is panicked right now, fear won’t accomplish anything. If there’s nothing different to do, then keep on keepin’ on and don’t let the noise bring you down. If there is a need to do something differently than in the past, get a plan to see where to jump where your skills are needed and you are on a growth trajectory.
I’ve also found that the clearer I was about what I wanted to see come, or where I wanted to go, the more it showed up at exactly the right time in the right form. I just had to be willing to put my vision on paper and hold that vision. And be willing to wait for as long as it took, and make changes to the vision as new realizations came up.
We are one with Life, and Life cares for its own. We learn to fear a lot as children, and then have to learn not to fear that which may never come. Our power comes in overriding the fear response and shaping our mind so it’s receptive to hearing signs and signals of what we need. A receptive mind can hear a signal despite the noise.
So take heart. You are an Eternal watching the passing drama. This is a perfect time to detach from fear, confusion, doubt, and all the other unhelpful places the mind wants to go. Learn to feel, with compassion for the human condition. Learn to understand that in this impermanent world, all forms pass away. That’s why we can’t get too attached to being negative about what is, nor whatever seems to be.
In taking the high road, you will cultivate productive future responses and be a Light and strength to those in your life who are struggling. Sometimes the best we can do is persist, keep remembering we’re Eternals having a human experience, loving “All That Is,” and being compassionate toward others and ourselves as best we can.
Banish fear, and allow your light to shine into the world.
© Copyright 2024 Robert Wilkinson
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