In the 1970s I began studying A Course in Miracles. Rich with a spiritual depth I longed for, I found a home for my heart. Although complex (and at time I found myself arguing or in disagreement with the course) I also found one concept that drew me to its simplicity. Still, it would take a lifetime and the study of many other texts and teachers to come to understand the complexity of that one concept that stayed with me – the concept that every emotion we have is one of love or fear.
Love or fear, I still love the simplicity of that, of having two choices. Whatever emotion I’m experiencing at the moment, I can ask myself whether this emotion is coming from love or fear. Is this thought that is creating the emotion coming from love or fear? Is this action I am taking coming from love or fear?
It’s pretty easy to figure out which emotions are fear based and which are love, but some emotions are more complex, and may take digging a little deeper into. For me, I use my heart as the diving rod – if the emotion warms my heart, chances are pretty good that it’s one of love; if it doesn’t warn my heart, but instead takes me deeper into the emotion or into an alternative emotion that doesn’t feel good, chances are it’s a fear-based emotion.
Let’s look at a few common emotions and their complexities.
Fear. Whenever I post a political comment on my social media, I can expect those in disagreement to argue with me and everyone who agrees with me. I do my best to catch any nasty remarks or name calling, but it still hurts my heart to even read these comments.
It’s easy to pick up the writers who are coming from a place of fear, fear of dying, fear of not everyone believing as they do so everyone else is wrong, fear of being caught in a storm, etc. We are seeing fear all over the world but especially in the political scene in the US.
Anger. This one’s easy to spot on the surface. Anger is usually fear based. I’m not getting my own way. I remind myself of this every time I get frustrated because my computer refuses to do what I want it to or the line at the market is moving too slow or you’re not listening to me, or . . . well, you get the point.
But anger can have a positive side. It can be a motivator to take action. There are things in this world that do need to be healed and changed, and anger at injustice can get our attention. But, if we stay in the anger and act out of that anger, we leave the space of love, where we are propelled to speak out strongly and calmly and take appropriate action against the injustice, and instead of yelling from our ego, angry, wounded self (Look at me! Look at how great/right/strong/smart than you, etc. I am!, or This is so scary! We’re all going to die; they are wrong, and we are right, and so on) we need to pause, breathe, and ask ourselves if we really want this for our lives.
Bottom line: anger is fear based. Let it spark you, and then move into a space of love where you can really make a difference.
Grief. This too is a complex emotion. Grief comes because we’ve lost someone or something we love. Grief doesn’t warm our hearts, but thoughts of loving that which we lost does. I find with many of my clients that if we can separate that which comes from love in the grief and that which comes from fear, grief can be purer and actually warm the heart. This is not to say we stop thinking about the loved one or even stop missing them. It is to say that love helps to heal the hole in our heart and gives us the courage to live.
How do we separate that which comes from love and that which comes from fear? Wondering how we will take care of our lives without that person is an emotion that comes from fear, for example. Thinking we will never love again or that we will never heal or being angry because the person is gone or grieving to the point of being unable to honor the loved one enough to live our greatest life are all fear based.
Opening our wounded heart to make room for greater love for ourselves and the world is love. Love is creating something that honors our life and that of the loved one, as well as all life.
It is our human self that must grieve, and it is healthy to allow ourselves to go through the healing process. Too often, however, we get stuck in the grief, afraid that if we let go of our grief, we are also letting go of the loved one. If the loved one has died, it is much easier to communicate with each other once we let go of the heaviest grief. In my practice as a psychic medium, I see this over and over. This is true if we are grieving for a loved one who has left our life through a broken relationship or if the loved one has left us through death of the human body. Moving out of fear of loss and into a state of love helps us let go for purer communication with the other and with ourselves.
Like magnets, our thoughts are drawn to, and draw to us, more of the emotions we experience, and in doing so strengthens both our personal emotion and the collective emotion. Why then do we so often choose fear instead of love? It’s easier to follow the crowd, which tends to be fear based, then to think for ourselves. Look at our movies and television shows, even the daily news. We are bombarded with tragedy and horrific events – and possible horrendous occurrences – every hour of every day. Even before the world of technology, there were dangers in the world that we had to be aware of to survive. Fear is inherent to the human existence.
So is love, which is drawn from our deeper spiritual selves and lives through our human selves as much as we allow it to. We underestimate the power of love because we often misunderstand love. We think of love in human terms and what we gain from it rather than understanding that love is the highest of emotions that asks us to give all of ourselves to it.
Fear fights to make things happen, asking us to make value judgments according to our personal world view.
Love ask us to become love, holding ourselves and one another accountable while allowing the creation and unfolding of life that expresses greater compassion, understanding, respect – love – for all life in all its expressions.