IS IT LOVE OR FEAR?
WHICH ARE YOU LIVING?
(Will be edited more, but it contains the idea, loud and clear, I think.
It's all about happiness.
Marianne Williamson is said to be the originator of questioning why and for what you are doing something.
The question: Is it love or is it fear?
Key idea: Never let fear decide!
(And your back up question to address any fear should be as "Is it true, really true?"
Is it love or fear - which are you living?
Whatever it is always fits in one of these two categories, if you think about it. We'll identify those later, but for now let's discuss what happens to our thinking if we are in fear.
In fear, as we've addressed elsewhere, we end up with the inability to think clearly, as fear shuts down the higher brain and fills us with all sorts of confusing chemicals that leave us operating in an impaired state. In fear, our primitive brain will cough up every negative thing that is associated in some way with the circumstances - and it will screen it poorly. And then we have plenty more to worry about and fear. OUr focus narrow. Our creative abilities diminish. It makes us weak, saps our willpower.
It should never be tolerated to stay in fear. Never. (Fear is only designed for a temporary life saving purpose, and once it is used, it tends to naturally dissipate.)
LOVE
You must, instead, shift to "love".
Not the "love" of romantic fantasy or in the squishy vagueness of magical thinking.
For the definition of love, I will use my definition in the piece Loving, Being Loved, Appreciation, but I'll apply it to a person in general, including the person that is you and not just others.
1. Acceptance (and appreciation of a person, including oneself.
2. Wanting good for the person (including oneself)
3. Doing what is useful to support the happiness of the person.
It is operating in a way that is for the greatest good.
If you take those and meld them into one, it would be doing that which is good for the person.
FEAR
For the definition of fear; in this context, fear is whatever is not love.
Fear is not "bad". However, in many cases it is unwarranted and causes unnecessary suffering. So we need to find out if we are operating out of fear or not and then do what is appropriate. Running from the tiger is appropriate. Operating from fear of loss of approval is "faux" fear, strictly imposed on ourselves through false beliefs of loss, threat, and such.
Operating out of fear where it is justified and useful is, of course, just fine, for it is for our greater good (= love, ironically).
Fear is a negative feeling chemical to get us to stave off a threat of some sort. It is only appropriate when there is real danger and a real threat (and not just loss of something preferred) .
Check off, in the boxes below, which you engage in.
Most of the day, do you operate out of fear, feeling anxious, trying to avoid or run from, holding self in a protective tensionoperating from loss
You are not "bad" for operating out of fear, you are just doing what you know so far in life in terms of wisdom and knowledge. You don't know better... yet! To judge you as "bad", would be operating from a fear viewpoint, for there is no legitimate pejorative "bad", only correct behavior and thinking that works or incorrect behavior that doesn't work.
WHAT TO DO WITH THIS
Write down your discoveries from this. Write down what you will do and will no longer do (and declare the fear behaviors gone forever).
And then run your life by asking, before going forward further, "Is this love or fear?"
