Head, heart, gut, back, soul?
I can’t say that I have fears. Not sure why. At least for myself. I worry about family and friends, their safety, their health. I also worry about the safety and well being of well, humans. That manifests in the form of anxiety for me. When does the next shoe drop. Guess I could have developed worse things. It’s annoying. Don’t fear it, but the conversation in my head tries to fix it before it happens and it’s exhausting. Cause, for the last several years, those dropping shoes have been and are completely out of my control and I know it. Good thing control isn’t really an issue for me. Never had it, never wanted it. Yet it arrives often.
A tenant of my beliefs for a very long time is that people are inherently good. So when I started my Buddhist studies a few years back I landed at Shambhala, it was alignment. “Shambhala is a path of awakening through meditation. And it’s awakening, first to our own basic goodness?~Shambhala Member.
Everyone has basic goodness. And our hope, which I firmly believe we all hold and that we can work together to create a better world harnessing that goodness.
Except for right now. Division and difference reign and we are killing each other and disenfranchising the already disenfranchised.
Pain.
-physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury.
-cause mental or physical pain to.
Fear.
-is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat.
Perceiving.
-become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand.
-interpret or look on (someone or something) in a particular way; regard as.
“If people didn’t feel fear, they wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from legitimate threats.”
Legitimate.
-conforming to the law or to rules.
-make legitimate; justify or make lawful.
Think about that for a bit. Rules, laws, lawful, legitimate. You believe that there are certain laws or rules that should be in place. I am certain, you also have rules and laws that you feel should not be in place. So why do yours win?
Is your fear grounded in actual experience or assumption? Someone said something that feeds an unrealistic or even unknown fear you had locked inside that all of a sudden is real. A bias awakened and realized. Base on what? Any actual factual, verifiable experience?
Look carefully at that fear, what is it or where does it come from? Is it old trauma, wounds or experiences? Or is it what you want to believe, because it feels right?
If you encounter someone who it appears lacks basic goodness, why is that? Fear, fight, flight or freeze. Why are they fighting? Why did they flee or freeze? Did someone maybe take something away from them they thought was theirs? Did someone physically or verbally abuse them?
We don’t think be for we speak much anymore and entitlement is at an all time high.
Okay, then I ask, what does amplification of that fear, your fear, do to the person or people the perceived fear involves?
Immigrants. Who among you has been physically harmed or directly abused by an immigrant?
Drag Queens. Who among you has been physically harmed or directly abused by a Drag Queen?
LGBTQ+. Who among you has been physically harmed or directly abused by any L.G.B.T.Q.+ person?
Color, size, nationality, economic, who has been harmed by someone from a different demographic?
And I mean DIRECTLY. Not, ‘someone said’. Because my questions is, why are you not questioning what has been said if it actually harms another. How is it that you believe one, but not another? You don’t want to be harmed. So why do you get safety? What makes you special. What is your privilege that affords you the right to, wait.
Privilege.
-a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.
The have’s and the have not’s this is a place you want to be? Being disrespectful to another is a place you want to be? You can push your belief’s, but no one has the right to push theirs? Or even just have them.
My religion. My gun. My job. My, my, my, my, my my.
When you hear or read something and that feeling of fear rises, what do you do? Are you curious to find out if it is really something you need to fear? Is it an agenda that will change the very fabric of a life that you perceive you have that someone will come and take it?
We don’t have to have all or nothing here. How in the world would we accomplish that? Kind like my Mom used to say about the bible, you either take the WHOLE book literally or you use it as a guide to live a life of service, human decency and goodness.