Category Archives: Fear

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: Confidence is the antidote to fear. It is medicine for the poison of anxiety and worry. And it doesn’t mean being cocky or puffed up about yourself. It means open-hearted faith in your own capacity for natural wisdom and compassion, belief in fundamental, basic goodness. It means resting in the knowledge that everything is unfolding exactly as it should be, and that everything presents an opportunity to love more, to learn to practice and get stronger.

2. Truth: I will know what to do when the bad stuff happens. It will be bad, hard, brutal, and maybe even terrifying, but I will be able to handle it, make the right decisions, do the right thing.

3. Truth: I don’t have to live in the someday moment of terror right now. I don’t have to actively reject it, plan for it, worry about it, or anticipate it. I can surrender, let go and be present in this moment. This moment when he is here, I can see him, reach out and touch his physical form, a body that right now is surprisingly healthy and strong, alive.

One wish: That everyone suffering from physical illness, whether it be chronic, temporary, or terminal feel some relief, experience love, connection, and joy in this moment.

August Break: Day 23

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I’ve heard fear described as “False Evidence Appearing Real,” and also as “Fuck Everything And Run.” However you choose to look at it, most of the time it isn’t helpful. The anxiety, anticipation, worry, tension, and stress I’ve felt in the last week has caused my hair to fall out, upset my stomach, disturbed my ability to eat and sleep in a healthy way, depleted my physical energy and health, triggered strong emotions, and shook my sanity. None of these things has been useful, none of them altered the outcome, changed reality in any way, other than weakening my ability to deal with it.

So I am trying to stay in the moment, stick with what’s really going on right now. I am trying to stay open to both the tenderness and the terror. When I stick with that, I can take a long walk with Dexter in the morning, and in those moments, he doesn’t have cancer and isn’t dying. I can watch him resting after and know that he is happy and well, in this moment. That’s all I’ve got right now, and I am trying my best to stay with it–to know what I know, to touch what is right in front of me.

There’s also a watermelon growing in our flowerbed. We didn’t plant it on purpose. It’s probably seeded from one we composted last summer.

The squash growing in the same flower bed, ones we planted on purpose, have huge blossoms.

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction.

On the other hand, wretchedness–life’s painful aspect–softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose–you’re just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple.

Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together. ~Pema Chödrön