FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 9: “Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” ― Jim Morrison
For most of us, in this Western culture, death is the big, bad Boogey-man. We are so inclined to worship youth, strength and “Pretty” that we disengage socially with the elderly, those who are physically unattractive, and those who are disabled in most ways.
We are afraid, egoically, to associate with these people, because they frighten us and demand that we attend to these frailties within our own lives.
Ego tells us that we are in danger all the time, but also tells us that we have the solutions, which is to remain in denial of our mortality and our frailty.
We spend billions of dollars to look different than we do, with cosmetics, clothing, surgical interventions, and so on.
What if we embraced our frailties, admitted to our innermost selves that we are flawed, and learned to applaud those who have infirmities of body and mind? What if we admired and raised up our elderly and gave them the time and attention we do to an athlete or an actress? What if we worked with the dying to see the beauty of the end of life and celebrated it in ways that do not deny that it IS the only common bond we all share?
Then we could walk free of our fear of these things, because they would hold no power over our day-to-day lives. We could be rid of the BS that we do in the name of fashion or beauty. We would have way more time to attend to our development of spiritual strength and love each other a great deal more. We would lose that need to listen to ego and its crazy demands.
Since this is all about Step 9, perhaps we could see how others are not the problem. Only what we believe about them and our relationships with them. Perhaps we could let go of the insane beliefs we have around what other people “should or should not” do, how they “should or should not” treat us, and what we expect from everyone with whom we have contact.
This kind of self-acceptance leads to acceptance of life itself. That is the goal. We begin to recognize that we are the ones who are seeing this thing all backwards and we can change that any time we want to. It is the beginning of the way of life that some of us have been able to embrace and love so well.
Embrace your darkest fears and your darkest thoughts about life. Accept that there is no such thing as the perfect body, mind, or anything. Be authentic and love yourself for who and what you are. Allow yourself the grace of diving headfirst into this recovery thing and swimming like hell!
There is a tremendous amount of freedom in this life; grab hold and take all you can get!
Dolphin Hug 