Fear, Logic and Discipline
I was reading the news, I was texting with friends, I was eating a muffin and then I wrote THIS:
What could be bigger than ME!
For many of us, fear is the first force we have the chance of admitting to being larger and more powerful than ourselves.
Fear of a towering parent, stay small. Fear of close, loud thunder, better hide.
We learn that fear can be more powerful than our own ability to get things done. Like get sober for good or finally start your own business making those cute knitted animals you give all your friends.
And as we lie quaking and shallow breathing in bed, the mountain left unclimbed for yet another season, we squeeze our eyes shut against the harsh, bright possibility that fear might even be more powerful than our ability to control our own bodies and outcomes.
Okay, then what’s bigger than fear?
People hope that logic is the force bigger than fear. It isn’t “logical” to be afraid of your dad anymore, he’s shrunk to the size of a walnut and has cancer. It isn’t “logical” to be afraid of the stage, nothing bad happened last time you sang. It hurts me to write those mean words. Logic never works! We’re still afraid of that angry, tall man. We’re still bent over nauseous in the shadows of the bright lights on stage.
So let’s stop using “logic” to layer on shame when we’re dealing with fear, okay?
Another force people think is more powerful than fear is discipline. “If I never eat cheese then I’ll never get fat”
Which is the same as, "If I stop spending money//make all the money, I’ll never go broke.”
Which is also the same as, "If I can do 200 push ups, I’ll never be weak."
The amount of discipline you need is directly proportional to the amount of fear you’re trying to kill. The bigger the fear gets, the more discipline you impose. When you stop eating cheese and you're STILL afraid of getting fat, soon you’ll decide to stop eating bread. When you realize that didn’t make your fear go away, then you’ll stop eating sugar, then you’ll stop drinking juice. Then you will live on water and air and somehow still be afraid of your vastness, your own human flesh.
🔥🔥🔥 Is there even a way out of this hell? 🔥🔥🔥
Believe it or not, there are other forces we can summon to help us work with fear. Love, acceptance, submission, asking for help, kindness, humor, joy and relationality are at the top of my list.
Sure, a lot of you will give lip service to the power of love, like, “yeah, yeah, the unconditional love of my cat is the best thing that ever happened to me,” but nobody wants to believe that submission (purposefully turning over ourselves to something more powerful than ourselves), for example, can change our fate to the same degree that fear has stunted our “progress” or our “thriving” or whatever else we think we “should” be doing with our “one wild and precious life.” (thanks for the pressure/no pressure mary oliver)
Nobody wants to take seriously that afternoon a well-timed fun little joke-y poke-y at your sorest misery from your sister/lover/bff that sent you into waves of manic, heaving laughter that popped your bubble of perception and solved your two-ton problems for 24hrs at least.
Nobody wants to describe their fearsome demons in enough minute, sacred detail they end up falling in love with those sad little monsters…👾👾👾👾👾
Except, I want to do that with you. I want to sit down and hear that long, long list of “logical” reasons you should have already done X and I want to hear about all the 10,000 healthy habits you’ve tried to integrate to keep yourself from going mad, yet you’re still totally batty just more mad at yourself. I want to hear them all, I want to see the grim picture your dark fear has painted, then I want us to laugh a lot and talk about Love.