While this is just a movie, there is some aspect of truth in it. Our fears are fuel. They tend to feed the worst in ourselves and in others.
From what I have seen, abusive personalities thrive on watching their victims squirm. It never satisfies to the point that they stop though, so more abuse ensues, with them constantly seeking that fear and terror and dread in the eyes and behavior of their victims so that they obtain the fuel they want to maintain their feeling of power and control.
Even when a bully or worse is not around, a person who stays “stuck” in that feeling of fear and dread is very challenged to be at their best in that state. Fear consumes a lot of internal sources without delivering much benefit.
Numerous world religions denounce fear and/or encourage peace. Christians point out that the Bible has over 365 “Fear Nots,” enough to have one Fear Not encouragement every day of the year. Buddhism teaches calm, detachment, and mindfulness. Judaism holds fast to the supreme truth of an All Knowing, All Powerful, Most High G-d who has done numerous miracles through the history of His chosen people to show both Jews and all of humanity that He alone is G-d and there is none to fear/awe but Him.
According to 1 John 4:18 in the Bible, the antidote to fear is Love: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” I think the stronger the grasp each of us has of what love truly is, the stronger the insight we have to love ourselves, to love others, and to overcome fear.
Thich Nhat Hahn shares his profound Buddhist insight in his book Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm, “We have a great, habitual fear inside ourselves. We’re afraid of many things — of our own death, of losing our loved ones, of change, of being alone. The practice of mindfulness helps us to touch nonfear. It’s only here and now that we can experience total relief, total happiness… In the practice of Buddhism, we see that all mental formations — including compassion, love, fear, sorrow, and despair — are organic in nature. We don’t need to be afraid of any of them, because transformation is always possible.”
Fear is such a dark place, but love brings so much light and insight and beautiful color to our world, both our internal world and to our perspective of the external world around us.
“Darkness will recognize when you are present because you are full of light, and it is nothing but a fading shadow.” – John Paul Jackson
It takes an effort to seek and maintain connection to what love is and what it means to live it out in a wise manner in our daily lives. It can be difficult to intentionally figure what love is instead of just continuing to give in to familiar patterns of fear. A lot of people equate Love with “nice” or “doormat” or allowing yourself to be continually taken advantage of or other unhealthy notions lacking any personal boundaries whatsoever, but love is a far more intelligent wisdom than these deceptions.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” – Sun Tzu
There is much agreement that fear and love are opposite natures – you cannot have a great capacity for love if you are in a routine state of fear and you cannot maintain a strong state of fear if you are grounded in love. We have so many encouragements to be fearful, including individuals’ mean spirited behavior, limiting beliefs we may have been raised into, cultural pressures, our own hearts and suffering, and even just lack of mindfulness of positivity and gratitude and love. Do you want to fuel an existence where you choose your own Destroyer or where you choose an intentionally crafted goodness rooted in Love? You’ve got this!
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
