Is your life ruled by love or by fear? Love and fear are opposite emotional attitudes that shape our life in very different ways. The psychoanalyst John McMurray describes the difference like this:
“The fear-determined have no sun in themselves and go about putting out the sun in other people. The love-determined have life in them, abundant life. They are the people who are really alive, of whom it can be said that they possess eternal life as a well within them perpetually.”
Life is a lot more beautiful and vivid if it is determined by love and not by fear. I’m sure you can imagine that someone determined completely by love would be a kind of saint. In contrast, most of us ordinary human beings are determined by both forces, love and fear. However, in my experience, even a tiny shift towards love—and away from fear—can bring a lot more happiness.
Here are 7 tips that you can move towards love and away from fear.
1. Cultivate gratitude
Gratitude makes us feel happier. If you remember to be grateful for the blessings of your life, you start to feel more connected to yourself and others. When you let go of niggles and embrace gratitude instead, love springs up.
2. Reality-test your fear
Sometimes fear can be like a cloud that keeps out the sunlight. Then everything feels huge and oppressive. A simple way to deal with fear is to test its reality. Write down three things that you are afraid of. Then look at each point and ask yourself, “Is this fear really grounded in reality?” I know that when I do this, I often find that my fears are unfounded. It’s like living in a shadow-land, peering into the future and expecting bad things to happen.
3. Take action
Fear is often born out of inaction. For example, if you get a sense that your health is impaired, but you don’t check it out with a doctor, you may start to imagine that you are heading for a major health crisis. (I could fill a whole notebook with illnesses I once thought I had – but never actually got!) Once you’ve been to a doctor and reviewed the problems, the steps towards renewed health may seem much more manageable.
Taking action is the best antidote to fear. Once you start to address the issues one by one, fears shrink and may even disappear.
4. Cultivate friendships
Good friends are important because they teach us to love. It’s often much easier to love a good friend than it is to love and forgive our partner. Friends are lasting companions in life. It’s good to talk with them when we feel afraid. They can give us a fresh perspective on what is troubling us.
5. Be generous
In the quote above, John McMurray points out that fear-determined people have no sun in themselves and “go about putting out the sun in other people.” Fear makes us narrow-minded and we tend to put down others. Here is how I deal with that: when I notice I’m getting negative, I put a small pebble into one of my pockets. Each time I catch myself using a put-down, I quietly shift the pebble into the other pocket and say to myself kindly, “Well, maybe I can say that differently next time.”
6. Practise kindness
Kindness is ‘love-in-action’. It’s good to make a habit of it. The trick is to notice what people need. Here is an example: yesterday I was talking to a stall-holder at a farmers’ market who fashions wooden spoons. He saw that I was carrying a bag of luscious, fresh corncobs. He said, “Oh, they look nice!” Then he sighed, “Oh well, by the time I’ve finished selling at my stand they’ll have all gone.” I offered to get some for him. It was a small action but it made us both feel good. Try and spot one occasion each day when you can be of help.
7. Open your awareness
Fear tends to make us focus inwards. A way out of is to do the opposite and open your awareness to include everything around you. For example, if you notice anxious thoughts, open you mind and listen to sounds around you. Maybe you can hear birdsong, or traffic noise, or children playing. This has an instant calming effect and fear wanes.
If you follow these 7 tips, you’ll move towards more love and less fear in your life. Soon you will notice an upsurge of happiness and contentment, instead of fear and anxiety.
What is your experience of living with love or with fear? Maybe you could share your special way of inviting love into your life and saying ‘good-bye’ to fear?
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This guest article was written by Mary Jaksch from http://goodlifezen.com. She is a psychotherapist, Zen master and author.
Image by Jonrawlinson.
I liked the generous part! You know, I’m gonna be rallying a few friends out for a good dinner meal cos I have this voucher with me that I wouldn’t be spending all alone in the first place.
It’s a great time to be generous while having to build up stronger friendships.
A generally great post…
Although…
It tends to paint fear as entirely negative, which it isnt. Feeling fear is perfectly natural, useful and even beneficial in some cases.
Feeling fear isnt the problem, holding onto it unquestioningly is
I’ve been thinking recently about opening awareness and specifically about listening to the sounds around. I’ve just started reading a book called “Across the Nightingale Floor”, book 1 of Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn and the main character in this becomes naturally silent during a grieving period. The book describes how he learns to hear everything around him and how his hearing improves as a result.
I thought this was really neat, and it made me realise just how much richness I miss in the world around me by not concentrating more on the sounds around me. I love colour and the visual, but have not explored fully sound. Thank you for your great article and for the further reminder of different ways to make life more of an interesting discovery and adventure.
Most of the things that used to worry me never happened at all. And the few that did happen either didn’t last very long or were nowhere near as bad as I thought they would be.
My approach is simply to take life one day at a time. I’ve been through enough to know that whatever happens, I’ll be okay. As long as I surround myself with good people, have faith that things will work out, and have fun along the way, I’ll be just fine. More than that, I cannot say.
(From Work in Progress)
Mary,
Fear, as you say, stops us living life to its fullest. Perhaps, we’re afraid of taking risks, fearful of being rejected by those around us, or frightened of what the future brings.
Whenever we let fear take over, we limit our ability to enjoy life itself.
You make good points about ways we can tackle fear- especially by not letting ourselves give in to it through inaction. If we don’t try to do something in a situation, then we can never achieve anything. Similarly, becoming aware that the world around is not something to be automatically fear, but to be relished, helps lessen its effects. Life is for living, not for fearing!
The key for me was realising that worrying about a situation had absolutely no positive benefits. It really helps the way I approach life.
“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” (Henry James)
A five star post!
Unselfconscious intimacy. How often are we afraid of that?
I love seeing articles like this, it says tons about the direction that consciousness is heading.
I would say the biggest step is: Unconditional love.
What is unconditional love? Simply put: walking in the shoes of everyone else, treat others how you would like to be treated, making the people around you as comfortable as possible.
Can you imagine if everyone had the focus of unconditional love? That is the definition of world peace.
The How to: Lead by example
“When I notice I’m getting negative, I put a small pebble into one of my pockets. Each time I catch myself using a put-down, I quietly shift the pebble into the other pocket and say to myself kindly, ‘Well, maybe I can say that differently next time.’”
This is the idea behind the anti-complaint bracelets at acomplaintfreeworld.org. It works wonders!
Nice Post!
As Neil said earlier, fear isn’t always a bad thing. It can be an appropriate emotion. As you said, you can test your fear to see if it is grounded in reality. The challenge here, is that knowing your fear is ‘groundless’ doesn’t necessarily get rid of it. Fear is an emotion, and as such, isn’t subject to the laws of logic (it has been around a lot longer). Many phobics know that the object of their fear is irrational, but this doesn’t stop them from getting the physiological response.
Breathwork, bodywork, and dehypnosis are some of the most powerful tools I have found for accepting and managing ‘negative’ emotions, while amplifying ‘positive’ emotions.
Fear is a neuro-somatic response, and should be dealt with as such. Once we understand this, we begin to gain power over it. This is the beginning of true freedom!
keep smiling,
ben
Thanks Mary for the post. We tend to get out of life and our relationships what we put into them. All of your tips are really investments in a happier life.
Thanks again.
Really great post. Very true, especially about having gratitude and testing fear.
I think one of the main problem is many people never define their fear. They just have a vague idea of it, and that’s what makes it seem even more scary. Try defining the fear, what would possibly happen, what is the worst case scenario, how would it affect you, and what you would have to do to overcome it if it really happened. Often times, we discover that the fear is not as bad as it seems. That we are still able to handle it even in the worst case.
What a great article and as I read through I found the sort of sound wisdom I could ever hope to find amongst all these thousands of self-help “gurus”.
Everyone needs goals and direction in life and without a dream or something to focus on working towards then we drift around aimlessly, half finishing projects with no real purpose.I definitely believe that if it’s not working then there’s something wrong – if you don’t have the motivation to keep you going then you need to look at just what it is you’re trying to achieve.
I’ve just finished reading a book on a very similar subject. It’s called Live What You Love by Bob and Mel Blanchard. They are two people who one day decided to actually see what it would take to achieve their dreams. They followed a guide that involves Deciding what you want to do, Researching your options, Evaluating your goals, Acting to make your plans a reality and finally Maintaining your dream to make it last. Yes, that all spells D.R.E.A.M which is a bit gimmicky but the book is full of sound advice and well worth a read.
@Daniel
I like your idea of inviting friends for a meal. When we are embedded in a net of deep friendships we definitely are less fearful of life.
@Neil
I agree that fear can also be a positive emotion. Fear can be an early warning sign of danger. If you’re walking through a lonely, dark alley in a strange city and feel afraid it’s important to heed that feeling and act on it!
@DweezelJazz
You make a the point that listening to sounds is important and brings richness to life. That is so true! It always surprises me how sounds reappear the moment I come back to awareness of the present moment!
Eugene
You suggest taking life one day at at time. I agree with that thought but get a bit tangled up because I think it’s also important to set goals in life. Do you have a suggestion about how to reconcile these two ideas, Eugene?
@Scott
I like your point that fear limits our ability to enjoy life itself.
@Peter Knight
You write, “Unselfconscious intimacy. How often are we afraid of that?” I think intimacy triggers fear because it means really being known deeply by another and having to drop the facade.
@Hunter Nuttall
Thanks for pointing out the anti-complaints bracelets!
@Ben (Want Freedom?)
I think there is maybe a difference between irrational fears and phobias. I agree that dehypnosis (and maybe some other NLP techniques) are excellent tools to combat phobias.
@ Garold
Your idea that we can invest in a happier life is very interesting. Maybe we could see every action as either an investment in happiness or an investment in sadness?
@ Peter:
Thank you for your encouraging words, Peter.
I’ll have a look at Bob and Mel Blanchard’s book; it sounds very interesting.