When we are on top of the world, feeling generous, expansive and expanding, when we are inspired and our hearts are overflowing, when we are in a mode where we experience abundance and generosity and want to share, we are coming from love.
But when we are experiencing the opposite, when we recoil because of a sense of danger to ourselves and our loved ones, when we choose to make our world contract and get smaller, when we make decisions that close the door to opportunities for growth, when we are stressed out, depressed, angry, resentful – we are living in fear.
On the surface, it seems very simplistic. I can imagine readers shaking their heads dismissively, or even sneering, "Oh, yeah?" in their minds. For years now, I have been watching myself, trying to be aware of my own feelings and the motivations for my actions. What I have learned is that it is true – at any given time, we come from either love or fear in their many subtle nuances. And it becomes more evident and palpable when we pay attention and try to understand the fine print that rules our actions – especially those actions that go unnoticed every instant we are not in the here and now of our decision-making.
Three years ago, my wife Lydia and I were in our bedroom watching TV when our eldest daughter Erica suddenly entered the room, in tears. I thought for a moment that she was still reacting to the news we had broken to our children three days earlier that their mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. But Lydia knew better. Immediately, she wrapped her arms around Erica and asked her if she was pregnant. Like the little Erica of her childhood, our daughter nodded, her tears streaming down her cheeks.
I was stunned! I could not believe what I had just heard. These things only happened to other people. Was it possible that this was happening to our family?
I went up to my daughter, looked her straight in the eye and asked her some hard questions. After my initial attack, I caught myself and I remembered only the voices in my mind, where I could hear an argument ensuing. One part of me was angry and self-righteous and wanting to throw the book at Erica. Here was an opportunity to stand high and mighty and vent my wrath at her for what she did. I felt I could speak with great moral authority and scold her and make her suffer for her mistake. All her previous shortcomings came rushing back to me and I was so tempted to "correct" right then and there what Lydia and I must have done "wrong" in the past.
But there was another voice in my head. It was calm and it had so much pity for my daughter. It expressed an outpouring of love and understanding and, most of all, compassion for a loved one who was clearly in pain. I knew then that all the spiritual readings and Zen sessions I had been doing and all the insights I had learned over the past few years were building up to this moment.
I pulled Erica and Lydia close and I stroked our daughter’s hair like I used to do when she was little. I told her as calmly as I could that we would stand by her and help her in any way we could. I remember telling her that I would not even scold her since I was certain that life would do that to her anyway.
What I learned from this episode was that we really do have a choice if we live every day in full consciousness. My choices were quite clear. I could have chosen to make my daughter’s pregnancy one of the biggest traumas we could experience as a family, or make the moment a great bonding opportunity like no other. I chose the latter and it has made all the difference.
When we consciously embark on any action, we choose either to expand the space in our lives for love to enter or make our world smaller with fear. Love and fear, I imagine, are pretty much the way the Universe works. Love is like the Big Bang in the sense that it seeks to expand forever into the unknown and inhabit it until it makes everything part of itself. Fear, on the other hand, is like a black hole that devours and contracts endlessly until it has no space left inside.
Depending on where I am coming from, I have at least two options that can be as different as night and day. One frees me and allows life to come in and give its gifts in any form it wishes. It is open to opportunity, abundance and yes, pain.
The other keeps me "safe," but it also imprisons me in my own world of what I know – the sure, the predictable, the cocoon of my unchanging opinions, views and limited vision where nothing changes. There is also not much experience of abundance since reliance on the comfort zone is all there is. There is no God or Universe that can come in and add its blessings. My vision is miserly, my options are limited and my growth potential is small.
But isn’t there a proper place for fear in our lives? There most certainly is. I believe that at times, we need caution and we must act on our fears. It is not always a safe world out there. It is foolhardy to ignore the signs of danger.
But just knowing that we can consciously choose where we want to come from – fear or love – can make us more autonomous in living our own lives in a richer, more meaningful way. Having said that, I still believe most of the time in the crazy adage that says, "Jump and the net will appear." If it doesn’t, we may just suddenly grow wings.