Love? Fear?
May. 28th, 2008 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grim23I've not updated my wonderful visit to CA. I'll do that soon. Still processing. I learned a lot.
Two things: One, I was asked, " When will you stop letting "fear" be the only reason for failure?" An interesting question. When I asked what else there was besides fear, the person felt that it was not their place to say. I respect that. I myself "fail" often - that's the process of learning. For me, fear is often the reason I fail, especially in relationships. I give in. I settle. I don't speak my mind because I fear further damaging the relationship, or hurting the other person. It's not the only reason. Apathy, dissimilar interests, the other person's issues, your own emotional baggage, not taking responsibility for communicating your needs, the timing - there are many reasons. But they can, and often do, boil down to fear.
Tori Amos, of all people, recently said that, "some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover what your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin." Elizabeth Kubler-Ross writes that we can make our choices built from love or from fear. I choose love. Carlos Casteneda wrote that a Warrior never worries about fear - he knows it's there, and looks for it, because that's what the warrior strives to overcome in order to grow. Stagnancy is when you stop looking for it, and get comfortable with the fear, and overlook it instead of embracing it.
Two, a Samurai I'm impressed with, found a quote I'm enjoying:
"When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity, when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity, in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern."
-Anne Morrow Lindberg
I welcome a discussion.
Two things: One, I was asked, " When will you stop letting "fear" be the only reason for failure?" An interesting question. When I asked what else there was besides fear, the person felt that it was not their place to say. I respect that. I myself "fail" often - that's the process of learning. For me, fear is often the reason I fail, especially in relationships. I give in. I settle. I don't speak my mind because I fear further damaging the relationship, or hurting the other person. It's not the only reason. Apathy, dissimilar interests, the other person's issues, your own emotional baggage, not taking responsibility for communicating your needs, the timing - there are many reasons. But they can, and often do, boil down to fear.
Tori Amos, of all people, recently said that, "some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover what your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin." Elizabeth Kubler-Ross writes that we can make our choices built from love or from fear. I choose love. Carlos Casteneda wrote that a Warrior never worries about fear - he knows it's there, and looks for it, because that's what the warrior strives to overcome in order to grow. Stagnancy is when you stop looking for it, and get comfortable with the fear, and overlook it instead of embracing it.
Two, a Samurai I'm impressed with, found a quote I'm enjoying:
"When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity, when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity, in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern."
-Anne Morrow Lindberg
I welcome a discussion.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 11:56 pm (UTC)I think often time people forget the second part of the second commandment that JC gave. He said "Love your neighbor as yourself." It's that whole "Love yourself" part that people overlook - myself included. Loving others is easier than loving myself.
As to Tori - yes...and I'm bleeding.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 06:32 pm (UTC)Yes. Go for love, especially yourself. Thank you.
Re: Fearless love?
Date: 2008-05-30 06:34 pm (UTC)The best things in life involve change. So do the worst. *smile*
Re: Fearless love?
Date: 2008-05-31 08:55 pm (UTC)I was thinking of the Chinese parable about the farmer and his good/bad luck experiences, and I was able to find it online:
"There was once a Taoist farmer. One day the Taoist farmer’s only horse broke out of the corral and ran away. The farmer’s neighbors, all hearing of the horse running away, came to the Taoist farmer’s house to view the corral. As they stood there, the neighbors all said, "Oh what bad luck!" The Taoist farmer replied, "Maybe."
About a week later, the horse returned bringing with it a whole herd of wild horses, which the Taoist farmer and his son quickly corralled. The neighbors, hearing of the corralling of the horses, came to see for themselves. As they stood there looking at the corral filled with horses, the neighbors said, "Oh what good luck!" The Taoist farmer replied, "Maybe."
At that same time in China, there was a war going on between two rival warlords. The warlord of the Taoist farmer’s village was involved in this war. In need of more soldiers, he sent one of his captains to the village to conscript young men to fight in the war. When the captain came to take the Taoist farmer’s son he found a young man with a broken leg who was delirious with fever. Knowing there was no way the son could fight, the captain left him there. A few days later, the son’s fever broke. The neighbors, hearing of the son’s not being taken to fight in the war and of his return to good health, all came to see him. As they stood there, each one said, "Oh what good luck!" The Taoist farmer replied, "Maybe."
Interesting question...
Date: 2008-05-29 05:13 am (UTC)Failure may happen when no fear exists at all. This failure is the most profound of all and the one worth paying the most attention to. Yet, humanity associates failure with the negative and in turn, after the fact, attaches it to fear. In this instance it is not fear that creates the failure it is instead fear that feeds the failure. Fear then becomes the focus and the true lessons of failure are completely lost in fear.
To truely walk the path and live as love, one must accept in the begining that they will fail at love. In so doing, they are failing, without fear.
~TigressSky~
Re: Interesting question...
Date: 2008-05-30 06:40 pm (UTC)However, I don't think one ever really fails, as long as they're open to learning the/a lesson, and willing to keep moving forward. It might be perceived as failure, but maybe it's simply a 'practice run' for what the universe really needs for you to be doing. Failure might be a ending of what you were doing that wasn't in harmony with the Universe, and the start of what is in harmony...and that isn't failure.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-29 06:22 pm (UTC)This journey is really an opening of the door to the individual in his relationship with the world."
--Krishnamurti
no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-29 07:44 pm (UTC)Over time people will listen to your actions over your words. If I ask someone to go to dinner and they tell me they really want to, but they never seem to be able to make the time or the money or whatever (but they'll go if you're buying), that tells me that they don't really want to or there's other stuff they'd much rather do but don't want to actually say that. After a while, one sees they're not sincere, and one stops asking about dinner.
When you're working from fear and trying to cover for it, your actions and your words get out of sync. I know this one - been there, done that. And you can be truthful without being hurtful. In the long run you're much better off keeping your actions and words in sync as opposed to destroying long term trust in order to achieve the short term goal of not saying something because you're afraid of how the other person will react.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 12:06 am (UTC)To keep one's balance while standing on one foot, the foot that hits the ground constantly adjusts. To keep one's balance in life, one must constantly adjust to one's surroundings. If you're not flexible, you will fall over.
To make stability in a relationship, you must decide to commit yourself to constant adjustment. Nothing else will work, even if your partner is not flexible--you must allow that partner to fall over, and adjust yourself to stay standing with your integrity in tact.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 05:31 pm (UTC)I have no words of wisdom for you on fear. Fear happens. Sometimes fear is even fun. Mebbe get your jollies some place else, like beating a hot girl until she comes, walking in ferns and contemplating T-Rex attacks, or drinking coffe and eating steak. It also seems to me that most animals will instinctively move away from things that might harm them and move towards things that fill their needs. So... yeah. Now I'm back to my goats.
Anyways, love you and care about you, Sempai.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 01:38 am (UTC)I'm glad I've got you to remind me about T-Rex attacks and zombies. And. of course, other life stuff that I sometimes need to be reminded of.
Love and care about you, too, Miss Birthday Girl!
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 06:19 pm (UTC)Paris Hilton doesn't think so ... did you see her last video? She is realy NUDE! I saw this video on BBC today!
Crazy people around us!
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 08:57 pm (UTC)