Recovery Matters: Don’t let fear sidetrack you from moving forward

Patrick Kempfer, Staff Writer

A hero and a coward have one thing in common… FEAR.

The difference between the two is that a coward will do whatever they can to hide or mask their fear, whereas a hero will face it, knowing that regardless of the outcome, they have done the right thing.

I want you to know that it’s perfectly all right to be afraid, or sad for that matter. We make too much of a point in our society to “keep it together” in times of great despair, and it’s almost all based in our egoic thinking that we’re being judged somehow. Well, I encourage you all to let go, completely, and allow the pained love you feel for your loved ones to flow freely; to not refrain from falling to the floor in agony; to not stifle a single tear! Because you have nothing to fear in letting yourself go in this.

Ask the God of your understanding for the courage to express your feelings honestly, and have faith that you will regain your composure once your moment of grief has passed, and not put a time limit on that grief; it will last as long as it has to, and you will then feel the relief wash over you, as it did in their presence, once again.

Never waste time and energy on things that lack substance. Sure, we have to have jobs, pay bills, find transportation to and from… wherever, but none of that stuff is as real as the feelings we feel; whether we have love or hate in our hearts, we carry it with us everywhere.

However, love is more real, much more than hate, which is usually a manifestation of fear, and can move through walls, move across continents, surpass time and space, and is what brings us comfort in the most devastating of times in life. It can be very hard at times, of course, when things like wars, disasters happen, and we find the fate of a nation hanging in the balance, and each one of us feels absolutely powerless to change anything.

We can often feel as if our world is about to smash into a million tiny pieces. We can get so caught up in our drive to be on top of everything that we can easily forget that we are part of something so much bigger.

It is too easy to allow the things we feel bad about in life, whether it’s something done to us or by us, too easy to keep us from moving forward with our lives, our relationships, and our spiritual selves. With all the room we reserve for pain and confusion in our world, I think we can set aside some space for love as well.