Tuesday, October 21, 2014

choose peace

Choose peace. I had dinner with a new neighbor and as I got to know her over the 2 hour conversation I was taken aback at the level of fear she exists in. It seems to cripple her. Not an alcoholic nor drug addict, her fear levels exceed even the level I use to exist in. Here is the thing that confused me. She mentioned her faith 2 dozen times and even spoke of specific passages in the Christian bible. She falls into the same catagory that several of my relatives fall in, those who have faith and don't use to to live a fearless life.
What good is faith, why have it if you don't USE IT? My life transformed when I realized that no matter what happened, I would find a way to be OK. I don't have the paralyzing creepy dread that a catastrophe was going to occur it it was going to consume me. Because of this psychic / spiritual change, I don't fear making mistakes or failing at something I've tried anymore. I have proper concerns about general safety, I still lock doors at night.
Fear is a monster. One baffling aspect of fear is it makes it's victims mistakenly crave more things to fear. The most fearful people i know, even those who are faithful in religion, sit around and watch endless cable news broadcast. As if they don't have enough powerlessness in their lives, they consume stories of terror and of viruses without cures like a kid would consume cotton candy.
My good fortune is that I had an issue with substance abuse that led me to a program thought taught me a way of living which eliminates 90 percent of my fears on a moment to moment basis. I have been known to say out loud when my head/fear tries a hostile take over, "This is not real". Fear lies and it lays in wait.
I was taught worry by the master growing up and she has and still does dedicate her life to worrying about things that a) she has no power over and b) that never happened. I'd rather die than to slip back into a world that is filled with blind fear and abject terror. Running from monsters that only exist in my head and in my sleep and daytime nightmares.
Fear is a product of thought. One fearful thought triggers a chemical response that feeds the next fearful though. It is the anatomy of panic attacks. Panic attacks were what led me to anxiety meds which I quickly learned were great fun to take handfuls at a time.
My hope for my neighbor and all those I know who are trapped in the darkness of fear, or terror is they find away to shine some light into their spirits filled with monsters. My advice is first off, turn off the damn news channel, don't read the paper and stop watching hours and hours of crime shows weekly. Some folks can handle it and some like me just can't just like some people can drink and it not consume them alcoholicly. I haven't watched the news in five years and I don't have news channels anymore. I haven't missed a thing and haven't been caught "not knowing" any vital information that could harm me.
There is a little syndicated show that prides itself on stories "you need to know". "AMERICA NOW- They have stories like, "What is living on your hairbrush that can kill you", "Your baby can die if you don't know these tips". All they do is package little fear bites and tease the fear based people into tuning. They run 2 episodes a day in my area.
America may like to call itself "faith based' but its fear based. Politicians and religious leaders take that fear and use it to herd huge groups of people into "swallowing whatever Koolaide" they are peddling. Five years ago i asked nearly everyone I knew, "If you were going to be hit by a train would you want to see it coming?". My truth was I had spent decades trainspotting and it got me know where. My answer to the question now is, "NOPE", I don't want to see it coming, if something is going to happen, I do want to waste the only moment of life I have waiting for devastation. I choose to live without blind fear and I'll deal with the train when it gets here.