The Fear

No, not as in the Lily Allen song (which is a great song, let's be honest). But fear in general. Marianne Williamson says that "Love is what we are born with, fear is what we learn". I couldn't agree more greatly.

The list of my fears is endless. From the somewhat normal fear of spiders, snakes and heights to the slightly more unusual fears of eating my yoghurt tub with the peel off lid completely removed (this may be just an obsessive habit, rather than a fear but oh well).

Then there are the more profound fears. The ones that keep us up at night. Fears about money, jobs, school, family, health, weight, appearance, romance, friendship, acceptance etc. etc. etc. We are completely bombarded by all of these fears, every single minute of the day and at times (ok, all the time) it can seem completely unbearable. But where do these fears come from? We're not born with them, we didn't come out of the womb scared shitless about which university course we would get into, or if we would be accepted by the people at our work. We learnt fear along the way. We're told what and who to fear by society. I definitely don't think it's deliberate but rather we subconsciously are influenced by the pressure of everyone and everything around us. At the same time I think we also subconsciously contribute to the fears of others.

If no one ever told us we couldn't fly, would we still be afraid of falling? What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail?

And seeing as though these thoughtless ramblings are not really reaching an end point I'll finish it up neatly with another great quote. Williamson perfectly sums the whole fear thing up in this killer quote from her book A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

"“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

- Kate