A Balance of Fear and Love
I’ve decided to post some thoughts I’ve written in other places at other times but which still make sense to me. This one is about Fear vs. Love:
Today I was taking a walk and looking at the surrounding natural beauty of this world. I thought of how peaceful it was and then immediately thought in about the danger of kidnappers, rapists, serial murderers, and other nefarious creatures lurking in the minds of women out walking alone.
I did not feel fear, though.
I asked myself, “What do I Fear?”
I immediately answered myself with, “Love.”
I then realized that Fear and Love are just varying degrees of the same element: emotion.
Now, this appears to be a very fundamental concept.
We all know what emotion is, and we all understand the opposing implications of Fear and Love.
But, I propose that Fear and Love are the same emotion. They are each a half of the whole. That whole is called Peace.
Let us consider Fear and Love as weights on a scale:
Fear is at one extreme of emotion and Love is at the other. When the scale is unbalanced, we become steeped in emotion. Both extremes can be dangerous, and are known to cause blindness, irrational thought, uncharacteristic actions, confusion, and distraction.
A few symptoms of uncontrolled fear:
– Withdrawal from previously stable relationships.
– Outbursts of intense emotion.
– Obsession.
– Hyper-vigilance.
– Atypical ideas and beliefs.
A few symptoms of uncontrolled love:
– Withdrawal from previously stable relationships.
– Outbursts of intense emotion.
– Obsession.
– Hyper-vigilance.
– Atypical ideas and beliefs.
So, where is the middle ground?
I believe middle ground is that place where we fear and love equally, and are not ruled by either because they effectively cancel one another out. Peace reigns here. This is the place where every fear is calmed by a love, and every love is stabilized by a fear. This is also the place where we can exist in acceptance of ourselves because every time we feel the overwhelming fears that are ingrained to us, we can immediately respond with love of an equal measure.
I often see people of either extreme in this forum and in my life. I tend to respond in the same way to each extreme: I would like to help the person calm down. When I feel an imbalance of emotion, I want to calm down.
So, my questions to you are:
Can one exist in that place of balance at all times? How?
Have you found that balance in all things?
If not, do you only find it occasionally? And if so, when do you find it?
If you exist in extreme love, do you still feel fear?
If you exist in extreme fear, do you still feel love?
And, on that note – while I do think that love can be a lot more positive than fear, I do not think it is feasible for the human species to be more loving than fearing.
Think about it: What happens when people love their religions too much? Zealotry. What do they do with their zealotry? Cause fear in others by doing and saying frightening things in the name of their LOVE.
I would settle for the middle ground – a balance of love and fear, where nobody is zealous about loving one thing and, in their overwhelming love, causing fear in others.
There is only duality if one tries to separate each opposite out into its own category. What tends to be forgotten is that opposites can only exist if they are matched.
I do think that the balance is achieved by shedding oneself of the proverbial weights and becoming, instead, the actual scale. A scale is always balanced when it is not carrying weight.
And, yes, I am quite curious as to whether or not it is possible for excessive/impulsive people to become balanced. Obviously, this would only be possible if they were willing to give up their “personality traits”.
But, what might induce them to want to find peace?
I’ve discussed this with various folks who also enjoy metaphysics, and most of the people who claim “enlightenment” say that to achieve peace, one must accept the internal dialogue but not participate in it.
For myself, when I completely ignore the internal dialogue, I feel nothing. Not a peaceful nothing – an empty and cold nothing.
When I watch my internal dialogue, I see the both sides of it for what it is: a humorous balancing act. The “positive” side wants everything to be perfect. The “negative” side is superstitious and always trying to temper the positive so that things don’t get “too good” and, therefore, invite disappointment or disaster.
When I participate in my internal dialogue, I become lost in it. I live in my mind, I feel overwhelming feelings that cause me great pain.
So, in this instance, becoming the scale (one who watches) seems like the most likely solution.
I have found that the balance doesn’t need to be achieved.
It just is.
You can see it in the second after you wake up, when you feel absolutely perfect because you have not yet had any thoughts – that is the balance.
You are balanced, but you have forgotten this while distracted by everything else.
And yet, I sit here feeling imbalanced due to love and fear simultaneously.
It is not love, in and of itself, that causes me fear: it is the pain that great love brings me that causes me fear. It is those uncertainties and insecurities and lack of control that cause me fear.
I have learned to accept the love, and I have learned to accept the pain. So, while I accept love, I still fear it. But, to me, the fear is more like respect. I respect that love and its purpose, though I feel pain as a result. I respect the pain and its purpose, because I must feel pain (and fear) in order to feel love.
So, when your fear kicks in, own it.
Say, “Yeah, I am afraid. I’m afraid because I’ve been hurt before, I’m afraid because I don’t know what to do. I am afraid, but I can use this fear as a learning tool. Why am I afraid in this situation, even though it is not the same as past situations? Why did I feel fear instead of wonder? Why am I anxious about an imaginary situation?”
Take that instant answer to your own questions and that is what you should focus on.
But, then, what of those who say that the only solution is to “Give your fear to God.”?
That really only works if one believes that God is a loving being.
I have never felt that, and in fact have thought many times in my life that [the commonly accepted Christian] God must be laughing at me and has specifically targeted me for pain. As a result, I do not believe in a loving and interfering God to whom one can directly speak and receive answers and favors from.
I was raised in a family and church of religious zealots who believe everything was “from God” or “God’s will” or “God’s purpose for you”. Medicine, vaccinations, even doctors were seen as “the work of the devil”. Many people in the congregation died of curable illnesses because they refused medical attention. Women were made to be submissive and not afforded the same status as men. Certain groups of people were ostracized and treated as inferior because of “God’s word”. Many people suffered at the hands of abusers because it was “God’s plan”. These same people believed themselves to be doing “God’s work”, though they were extremely judgmental and close-minded, and some of them were just plain nasty in their superiority.
Basically, people are saying that a loving God purposefully makes people suffer physically, mentally, and emotionally as an exhibition of love.
That makes absolutely no sense.
Alternatively, I will say that from seeing other people’s love of God, I do see human’s true nature. Because those people with an overabundance of love for their God tend to be the ones who act the most human.
And, what of the people who say, “You are your own God.”?
If I am always myself, then I am limited in understanding reality through the lens of my own perspective. This is why I am trying to see other types of perspectives – because I like to learn.
I don’t think there’s no objectivity, but objectivity is difficult to maintain if you are feeling either fear or love – these are both subjective emotions.
Because if this were the case, why do so many people’s prayers go unanswered? Do they not have the ear of the “correct” God? Who is God supposed to be? And why would I pray to myself if I were God?
And, again, I come back to the balance and its difficulty to achieve:
I feel many different types of love. Unfortunately for me, they are not all “good fits” for my current life.
Basically, one love causes pain about another love which causes pain about an additional love which causes pain about the first love. On and on it goes.
Having love does not bring me peace, it brings me pain.
I tried to block it out for seven years and felt nothing. Not peace… just Nothing.
I let it out again and I feel that peace of letting it exist as a whole, all types of love as one. But there is also significant pain in letting that love exist as a whole – I hurt others who love me by feeling and acknowledging all of the love I do feel.
If I try to ignore the pain, I again start to feel my love dimming down to Nothing.
Like I said, I do not feel love without feeling pain.
I guess this is just the nature of my existence.
I am afraid of being lost, drowning, in that pain.
I am finally at a point where I can realize when I am falling down that slope and catch myself from falling… But the fear of being lost again is still there.
I understand now that when I start to feel the pain more than the love, I must remind myself that the love does exist, and the reasons the love exists, and that calms my pain/fears.
I can then exist in love without being bothered by that fear. Because, though the fear exists, it is benign when it is matched with love.
So, I guess this is where I got the idea that Love and Fear must be equally balanced for one to find Peace.
I don’t know. It has always been this way for me – the pain of others causes me pain. My existence as myself causes pain for other people. It’s ridiculous. Logically, to ease their pain I should cease to exist. But, I really do not wish to cease existence because I have a lot to learn. So, I exist in pain because I must in order to also exist in love.
If I do not exist, then I will not feel pain. But, I do feel pain. The pain is a result of me being the true, real version of me. I do not hide anything anymore. I do not lie anymore. I do not pretend any more. As a result, I feel emotional pain. Thus, I must exist, just not in your realm of understanding.
I do face fear and I do own it. I would not be posting so freely about my strange mix of emotion if I did not.
I used to just block it off because my emotion tends to be very powerful and becomes amplified by the emotions of those around me. So, I guess, the “balancing” for me is allowing my love not to overpower and pain not to overpower.
I finally realize that the fear I feel is not actually my fear. It is the fear of those others whose emotions are entwined with my actions. I just recognize it and keep it in mind throughout my daily life because I feel like they are worth consideration. The pain, yes, is mine. It has always been with me, and will likely always be with me.
I remember as child/teenager doing everything I could to so that people around me would love me as I loved them. (It was instilled in me that one must love others, one must turn the other cheek, one must live in service to others, etc.) In reality, most of them saw this as an opportunity to hurt, manipulate, coerce, degrade, and otherwise use me as a means to an end. I continued to love them, but hated myself. Because, why should I waste time loving myself when I was supposed to be “showing love” to others? In my mind, they were the ones who were worthwhile… and I was nothing. I was just there to give them what they wanted. And, they got it. 
That is a source of some of my pain. Some of the memories I have cause me to feel physically ill.
Yet, I cannot get rid of those memories. I can only learn from them.
I remember, for a brief point in time, feeling like maybe I had lived the painful first portion of my life so that I could feel great love. But, that was not so. Because, I then went on to experience significantly more pain. After that, I just couldn’t figure out why I was alive. I didn’t actually want to be alive. It made no sense. So, I went on to live just to live because I hadn’t died yet, so there must have been a reason I was alive, even if it wasn’t actually living.
I see now that the reason I was ever born and survived through years of being nothing was so that my children would be born as something… and that I would recognize that in them.
They are, really, all that matter. My wants and needs and wishes and happiness have never actually mattered, not in this life anyway. But those children? They are perfect. They are pure. I wish to be like them, since I never have been.
It has been a fact of my life that I must work to get anything I think is worthwhile. I do not wait on life to “give” anything to me, because when I cease to live and only exist (wait), then I return to Nothing. I have no trouble making decisions, I just do what I have to do. Now, I do what I have to do for my children.
Likewise, I do not expect anything. I learned long ago that the only person I could depend on was myself. So, I’ve never depended on anyone, never fully trusted anyone, never fully opened myself to anyone. Because, there has never been conclusive evidence that I could do that with anyone.
Love is love and it happens when it does. But, why does its presence and/or absence cause so much fear?