Love? Fear?
May. 28th, 2008 02:18 pmI'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.
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.