Love and Fear – Part 1

Dear Reader,

Love and fear are perhaps the two most powerful forces in our lives. How we navigate with them determines our quality of life and the very direction we take on our journey. Sometimes, love and fear are considered the two root emotions. I would go one step further, and argue that there is only one root emotion, love, and that fear only enters the picture later.

I’ll explain how that works in a minute, and why it is one of the most important insights you could understand and master. But love is so fundamental to our existence that I want to introduce a few universal truths first, to add perspective.

Five universal truths

1. All is one – The idea that all things are part of the same thing, sometimes referred to as the All, or Oneness, is common to Western, Eastern, and indigenous mystical traditions.
2. Love is an aspect of Oneness – Love is a part of the very Ground of Being, of Oneness itself.
3. We are all connected – If all really is One, that includes each of us, all living things and our planet. I often say that we are all in this together, and we literally are. We are not separate.
4. We are made of love – If it is true that we are part of the All, and that an aspect of the All is love, then love is also an aspect of who we are. Love is part of our true nature, closer to us than the air we breath.
5. Love is an unfolding flow – All of life is an unfolding flow, from pure true nature to the manifested forms that include us and that we see around us. Life is the All, unfolding. So again, if love is an aspect of Oneness, then love is unfolding as well, in and through each of us, in a never-ending, beautiful, fountain of fullness.

Making sense of universal truth

Do these truths resonate with you? Please don’t just take my word for it. If they sound a little abstract, I understand. We can’t prove these truths in the traditional sense. But we can prove them experientially. Each of us can explore, inquire and feel into them, over the course of a lifetime.

We can also study the teachings of the masters – Buddha, Jesus, Allah, Lao Tzu and so many others, from ancient to modern times – and compare their insights to our own experiences. We can look around and see the evidence of their teachings.

After you have finished reading the article, you might return to these five truths. Sit in silence with them, and see how they feel. Ask for truth, and see what comes to you.

Where does fear come in?

Love is eternal, ever present.

I wrote at the beginning that fear comes in later. Here is a working definition of fear for you:

“Fear is the illusion that love could ever be absent.”

Think about that for a minute. Fear is a response, based on the belief that love has left us, or will leave us at some point. Somewhere deep inside, in our soul awareness, we know that love is a part of who we are, and can never be absent. Ever.

Wait. What about biology when it comes to fear? What about the impulse that made our ancestors run from the sabertooth tiger? Was that an illusion that love was absent?!

No! That’s a healthy dose of self preservation. Pretty loving, isn’t it? Universal truths don’t negate science, or evolution; they work in partnership. They are all part of Oneness.

Where would such an illusion come from?

The illusion that love is absent comes from being born. It comes from the soul taking human form. Sometimes we call that “forgetting” our true nature. As we grow, we develop a whole new awareness on the human level rather than a soul level. We develop a concept of self, (our ego) and all the other distinctions needed to live in the everyday world. This sense of self is not bad; it is simply a necessary part of a bigger unfolding.

We start to experience ourselves and everything we see around us as separate. Something seems to be missing in our awareness, and that something is the love of Oneness. With good parenting and effective reinforcement from the world around us, that love is recreated in our lives.

But no parenting is perfect. Nor could any human interaction fully take the place of Oneness. So, the illusion that love is absent, introduced merely by taking human form, is perpetuated. Depending on our experiences, the illusion even grows over time. That illusion becomes part of who we are and shapes our everyday experience.

The presence or perceived absence of love may begin to seem random, and dependent on outside forces. We begin to look outside of ourselves for it, and worry that it will be taken from us.

As you’re reading, are you imagining how this may have played out in your own life?

What do we do about it?

Unfortunately, we can’t just tell ourselves intellectually that love is part of who we are, and expect to truly understand this universal truth. And for anyone who may be feeling right now that love is absent, it can seem beyond frustrating to hear that love is always present.

No, to really get it, we need to embody it. We need to feel it, deep inside, and we need to remember our true nature experientially. We need to live it.

But how?

Here are a few ideas:

1. Be present: Being present is a matter of paying attention to your experience. Paying attention will help you to:
2. Honor and understand your feelings: As you become aware of your feelings, you learn about what you love, who you love and how you love. This awareness will help you to:
3. Learn when you become gripped by fear: Recognize the illusion that love is absent. You will learn about when and how and why fear works in your life and blocks the flow of love. Knowing what this feels like will help you to:
4. Change your behavior and environment: You become more aligned with your true nature, your loving self that is always present and ready to come through. This alignment will help you to:
5. Listen to your inner wisdom and take action based on love rather than fear: You become more of a loving presence in the world. You make different, more empowered choices, showing up in a loving way both for yourself and for those around you. The actions you take may be small, but love is in the details.

I call this process the journey of a fully expressing soul, and it is the core of my teaching and coaching.

Why is it important to understand love and fear?

I don’t need to tell you that we are living in challenging times. When you look around, it is easy to see great pain and suffering everywhere. A global pandemic. Economic hardship. Racial discord. Fear is a natural response – the illusion that love is not present. We are definitely seeing a lot of fear based behavior, aren’t we?

It can be more difficult, as individuals and as a society, to look around and see the presence of love – and even more difficult to actually be the presence of love.

But that is what we need most right now. Yes, these are challenging times, but they are times of tremendous growth and transformation. More and more of us are insisting on acting from love rather than fear. When you can be the presence of love, you remind others to do the same.

When you become a master of love and fear in your own life, through the process I outlined above, the whole world masters love and fear a little bit more fully.

And when you think about it, doesn’t it only make sense to learn mastery of love and fear? Can you imagine if human beings came with an operating manual, but love and fear were left out?!

I can’t imagine it.

I imagine something far better for us.

How about you?

This journey of mastery, both inner and outer, is crucial. Get this, and you will be well on your way to living a life full of authenticity, meaning, and positive contribution.

If you have any thoughts or questions about love and fear, I would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment or contact me directly.

I honor your loving heart,

John