Fear
May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk. Ancient Egyptian Blessing
Gregg’s Reflection
The embedded audio is an Introduction to Fear, with Stories not in this post:
What is fear? Merriam Webster defines it this way: an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.
When I studied with Robert Fritz, one of the structures we learned was fear based. This structure is characterized by imagined fears. I have found these structures amazingly persistent. One time, I was talking to Rosalind Fritz, and said to her, “It seems to me the fear structures are the hardest to overcome.” She replied, “Of course they are, because people walk through life waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Sound familiar?
When I do structure sessions with clients, I picture the structure like the monster under the bed when I was a kid. “I’m not looking under the bed, there’s a monster there.” Structures, like our fears, grow in the dark. We can spend decades not wanting to look in the shadows, not wanting to own our own darkness. When we expose them to the light of day, they shrink And we move towards wholeness.
Dan Allender says, ”Whenever anger shows up, fear is underneath.“ What I thought for years was my ’passion,’ others received as anger. I was in denial for decades. When I delved into it in my years of therapy, my anger was rooted in my fear of being exposed as ’not good enough,’ my own structure.
Journaling Prompts
How might anger in your life be covering up fear? What is your monster under the bed? What would it take for you to look into the dark corners of your life, and bring fear out of the shadows into the light? How might overcoming your fears make you truly free as Aristotle said?
Scripture
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4
The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 27
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
Psalm 46:1-3
Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God.
Isaiah 41:10
For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you.
Isaiah 41:13
Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
Luke 12:25
It is God’s way to come cloaked, and for his greatest promises to come cloaked. It is his way to come when the storm is peaking or fear deepest or when hope is almost gone. It has always been his way.
Notes from Renovare Bible on Luke 24: Road to Emmaus
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
For God has not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:18-19
Ancient Writings
May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk.
Old Egyptian Blessing, Sandra Maitri, Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram, p. 283
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
Modern Writings
I am not alone in my tiredness or sickness or fears, but at one with millions of others from many centuries, and it is all part of life.
Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork, p. 157
I surrender myself to God without any conditions or reservations. I shall not bargain with God. I shall not make my surrender piecemeal but I shall lay bare the very center of me, that all of my very being shall be charged with the creative energy of God. Little by little, my life must be transmuted in the life of God. As this happens, I come into the meaning of true freedom and the burdens that I seemed unable to bear are floated in the current of the life and love of God.
Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart, p. 174–175
Why should I fear anything that cannot rob me of God, and why should I desire anything that cannot give me possession of Him?
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 159
Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid. Having courage and showing courage mean we face our fears. We are able to say, 'I have fallen, but I will get up.'
We are fearful people. We are afraid of conflict, war, an uncertain future, illness, and, most of all, death. This fear takes away our freedom and gives our society the power to manipulate us with threats and promises. When we can reach beyond our fears to the One who loves us with a love that was there before we were born and will be there after we die, then oppression, persecution, and even death will be unable to take our freedom.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 10/1/20
To those who are tortured by inner or outer fear, and who desperately look for the house of love where they can find the intimacy their hearts desire, Jesus says: “You have a home . . . I am your home . . . claim me as your home . . . you will find it to be the intimate place where I have found my home . . . it is right where you are . . . in your innermost being . . . in your heart.” The more attentive we are to such words the more we realize that we do not have to go far to find what we are searching for.
The tragedy is that we are so possessed by fear that we do not trust our innermost self as an intimate place but anxiously wander around hoping to find it where we are not. We try to find that intimate place in knowledge, competence, notoriety, success, friends, sensations, pleasure, dreams, or artificially induced states of consciousness. Thus we become strangers to ourselves, people who have an address but are never home and hence cannot be addressed by the true voice of love.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 2/16/21
The secret opening through which we pass into wholeness is hidden in the center of those wounds we are most afraid to approach.
JamesFinley, The Healing Path, p.ix
Welcoming Prayer when you are overcome by pain or an emotional reaction that drains interior silence: Focus and sink into the body sensation, say: Welcome, welcome, welcome. I welcome everything that comes to me at this moment because I know it is for my healing. I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations and conditions. I remain in the sensation and say welcome, embracing Spirit in and through the sensation.
This practice might take a few minutes. Welcome the experience, and it can move you to the Great Compassion. Don’t fight it. Don’t split and blame. Welcome the grief and anger in all of its heaviness. Now it will become a great teacher. If you can do this you will see that it is welcoming the pain and letting go of all of your oppositional energy that actually frees you from it! Who would have thought? It is our resistance to things as they are that causes most of our unhappiness—at least I know it is for me.
Mary Mrozowski, “The Welcoming Prayer.”
Let Go: while experiencing and resting in the sensation, repeat the letting go sentences: I let go of my desire for security, I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval, and pleasure, I let go of my desire for power and control, I let go of my desire for survival and security, I let go of my desire to change the situation. Letting go means passing through the experience, not around it, not running away, or stuffing it back in the unconscious. I am open to the love and presence of God and God’s action within. Amen
Thomas Keating
Only people who have moved beyond their wounded ego and the need to control all outcomes, only those practiced at letting go, can see fear for the impostor that it is. To be trapped inside of our small ego is always to be afraid. Great religion tries its best to free individuals from the tyranny of their small and fragile selves. It always points toward a larger identity that we call the Godself, the True Self, the self “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), the trustworthy Lover. Healthy and true religion, like Jesus himself modeled, tells us there is Someone we can trust.
Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder, p. 163–164.
When you listen, the soft coo of the mourning dove reveals the beauty of life. Drops of dew on blades of grass sparkle light into your soul. Water lapping on the lake slows your pace, restores your rhythm. When you listen, dawn reveals the answers to your problems. The crow’s caw speaks wisdom and you know what you need to do. When you listen, silence becomes your friend.
You no longer need to run from yourself. You understand life’s wisdom can only be learned in the silence. When you listen, the Creator whispers, you are good. In the silence, your soul is fed with endless gifts of love. When you listen, you realize something deep and mysterious. Something sacred is taking place in your life right here, right now and the more attentive you become, the more you see and understand it. When you listen, your heart and soul lead the way. Your feet catch up to the One Life you’ve only imagined could be yours.
We fear nothingness. That’s why we fear death of course, which feels like nothingness. Death is the shocking realization that everything I thought was me, everything I held onto so desperately was finally nothing. The nothingness we fear so much is, in fact, the treasure and freedom for which we long and which is revealed in the joy and glory of the Risen Christ. We long for a space where here is nothing to prove and nothing to protect where I am who I am, in the mind and heart of God, and that is more than enough.
Richard Rohr, Yes, and, p. 308
