Sunday Purrs: Replace fear with love

Let go of fear, embrace change, and move toward joy. – Buckley

This was one of Buckley’s most profound lessons for me. I had grown up being a worrier. I could easily come up with the worst possible scenario for any given situation and turn it over in my mind endlessly, to the point where I often ended up paralyzed with fear. I knew that this propensity to worry was holding me back from really letting myself live my life to its fullest potential.

When I began to understand and really believe that we have the power to control our thoughts and that our thoughts are vibrations that affect what we experience in our reality, I was able to short-circuit the fear and worry cycle more easily. It became clear to me that wasting time being afraid of something that might never happen would only attract the very thing I did not want into my experience. Worrying also made a statement that I did not trust in the wisdom of the universe. I knew on a deep level that things would always work out.  With time, it became easier to redirect my thoughts away from fears about the future and focus on the present moment instead.

Buckley reminded me of this every day just by being who she was. She lived fully in each moment and gave all her attention to whatever she was doing in that moment. There was no need to get ahead of herself and think about what the next moment might bring. She was happy and joyful in the present moment and that was all that mattered.

We live in challenging times, and it’s hard not to worry or be fearful of the future. People worry about the economy, about their security, and about their health. At times it almost seems as though fear is the driving force behind too many decisions people make.

In a recent blog post titled I Am Losing Faith in Fear, Jon Katz wrote “People take pills out of fear, deny death out of fear, vote out of fear, are afraid for their children, their food, their money and security.” He goes on to say: “Fear does not solve problems, it creates them. It is not a warning, but a symptom. It is not reality, but an emotional geography, a space to cross. I imagine there was a time when human beings needed to be afraid all of the time, and perhaps that is why so many of us are wired in that way. And why so many people profit out of our fear, from weather broadcasters to corporate news organizations to pharmaceutical companies.”

This resonated deeply with me, and reminded me once again of my little cat’s lesson. While I don’t have the power to control the economy or the financial markets, I do have the power to control my thoughts. I can choose to be fearful, or I can choose to trust that all will be well.

I made the choice several years ago to not watch the news, and that helps. However, I do spend a lot of time online, so it’s impossible to avoid all the dire predictions. It’s still a constant mental discipline to choose to reject fear and stay in the moment.

Sometimes, in addition to heeding Buckley’s lesson, it helps me to remind myself that fear and love can’t coexist. They’re on opposite ends of the vibrational spectrum. Fear is not truth. Love is. And I’d rather make my choices based on love.

Deepak Choprah said: “Replace fear-motivated behavior with love-motivated behavior. Fear is the product of memory, which dwells in the past. Remembering what hurt us before, we direct our energies toward making certain that an old hurt will not repeat itself. But trying to impose the past on the present will never wipe out the threat of being hurt. That happens only when you find the security of your own being, which is love. Motivated by the truth inside you, you can face any threat because your inner strength is invulnerable to fear.”

Wouldn’t you rather make your choices based on love and your inner truth than based on fear?