“Be fearless and pure; never waver in your determination or your dedication to the spiritual life. Give freely. Be self-controlled, sincere, truthful, loving, and full of the desire to serve… Learn to be detached and to take joy in renunciation. Do not get angry or harm any living creature, but be compassionate and gentle; show good will to all. Cultivate vigor, patience, will, purity; avoid malice and pride. Then, you will achieve your destiny.”
—Krishna from The Bhagavad Gita
Remarkably, this quotation from Krishna, the Hindu supreme god and eighth avatar of Vishnu, in The Bhagavad Gita, is him counseling Arjuna, the warrior prince, as he heads into the Kurukshetra war against his own family. Krishna analogizes the war as the internal human struggle between virtue and vice, good and evil. The deity urges Arjuna to seek out the virtuous and good.
In this last post of the Overcoming Fear series, I am covering overcoming emotional and spiritual fears. Just as Arjuna finds himself struggling for moral clarity on his impending battles ahead, we too seek clarity in extinguishing our most deeply inward fears. Thankfully, once we understand emotional and spiritual fears, we can do the hard work to combat each in their own right.
Emotional Fears
The first step in this process, I believe, is understanding emotional fears. Plainly stated, emotional fears are usually absurd. That’s right. They simply don’t have to make sense. And, that’s why they’re so scary to us!
As humans, we seek naturally to understand abstract concepts, and emotions are a whole lot of senseless thoughts to us. They may mean something to us on an unconscious level, maybe even on a conscious level after much contemplation and reflection. But, by and large, emotional fears are a queue for a fantasy and not reality. So, what are you to do?
The answer lies in Stanford professor, Carol Dweck, PhD, who also happens to be a leading world expert on motivation. In her book, Mindset, Dweck details how we can effort makes one stronger. If you consider emotional fears as a workout for your spiritual well-being, you can conquer your emotional fears.
As she asks in Mindset, “Do you work harder at things in your life or do you let them go? Next time you feel low, put yourself in a growth mindset—think about learning, challenging, confronting obstacles. Think about effort as a positive, constructive force, not as a big drag. Try it out.”
Emotional fears not seen as a challenge will simply become a boogeyman in the closet. If you’re not in actual, physical danger, they represent mole hill masquerading as a mountain. And, it’s your challenge to emotionally shrink the mountain back down to size.
In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD explains a great method for dealing with emotional fears. “Write down your [emotional fears], and then consider ways to reinterpret [them]. In the process, ask yourself questions like… What else could this…mean? Can anything good come from it? Does it present any opportunities for me? What lessons can I learn and apply to the future? Did I develop any strengths as a result?”
Emotional fears can be a great opportunity for growth, but it comes at the risk of not considering that they are not yet real and you can become stronger by thinking constructively about your emotional fears. Once you have challenged emotional fears, then you can take on the next-level challenges of overcoming spiritual fears.
Spiritual Fears
Spiritual fears come in many shapes and sizes. And, they represent the gamut of big fears about why you exist, what will happen after you pass away, and how to manage with others while you are here in this life. None are answers easily attained. Some you will never be able to ascertain. Yet, we seek out answers to these spiritual unknowns like the missing end to a chorus line in a familiar tune.
However, we can look to every great sacred text humankind has come into contact with to learn the sources and solutions to spiritual fears. The Buddha explains that the root of all life is suffering, and to ease suffering we must reach enlightenment through following the Middle Way. Jesus Christ teaches us to embrace love unconditionally to crowd out the hate in our lives. In Islam, Allah translates to All Loving. So, you can imagine there’s agreement with Christ on the matter.
For spiritual solace, there are many complex ways to think about it all. But, I tend to think there is a simple answer that’s profoundly difficult to practice. (That’s the hard work I talked of in the first post in this series.) And, it comes in understanding the difference in a simple phrase with a storied history.
It’s found in Bessie Anderson Stanley’s first line of her poem, Success.
He achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much [emphasis added]; Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it; Who has left the world better than he found it, Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; Whose life was an inspiration; Whose memory a benediction.
From this 1904 poem, much has been said of live, laugh and love in literature, film and pop culture generally. But, what is most profound is its wisdom for overcoming spiritual fears. To live life to the fullest, to laugh often, and love as much as your heart can are the essential elements that extinguish spiritual fears. No spiritual fear can wrestle away from those activities.
Your heart cannot have fear when you are living, laughing and loving passionately. I know it sounds trite. That it can’t be so simple as that. From my experience, it is. If you follow these passions, your spiritual fears dissipate and you can find peace with life’s great questions, whether answered or not.
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Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual fears are plenty in your life and in the lives of those you care. You can do this hard work and overcome those fears, and by doing so help others overcome theirs. I leave you and this Overcoming Fears series with wise words from the Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi.
“There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. Human beings come into this world to do particular work. That work is their purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you forget everything else and not this, there’s nothing to worry about. If you remember everything else and forget your true work, then you will have done nothing with your life.”
—Rumi
Live well, laugh often, and love much.