Confronting Fear

Fall always makes me feel sort of sad and empty, but last night was particularly difficult.

Sometimes I feel like my emotions are just too strong for this poor body to contain or manage well, and I wish that I could peel open my chest, hop out, and go straight to heaven and avoid all the unevenness of this life. My physical heart seriously aches, and it feels like someone is pushing down hard on my sternum. I think about all those storm clouds overtaking the land and that's how I feel.

I just don't know that I am strong enough for this life. Seriously, I know for sure that if I was not raised in a good and loving family that I would have committed suicide by now. I think of all the potential for loss in this life and my too-tightly-hugging type of love bearing, and I sort of wish I that the Lord would decide I need to die young. There are situations I don't think I could stand. Like what if I had a child and he dies. Or what if a spouse were to cheat. Or what if I were to cheat, not that I ever think I would. Or what if one of my brothers die. Or what if I hit someone while driving. I don't think I could bear it. I don't know that my faith in the Big Plan has settled into my cells, or my heart valves. Maybe I should stop eating so healthy. I think I'm just realistic and my emotions are way too quick to jump on the boat as my imagination sails it into dark waters. and suffering is inevitable. The impermanence of this world and our attachment demands that we suffer.

I think alot of what I have to learn is how to go through suffering with hope. I feel like my head gets this, but its those pesky heart valves that start to twitter and shake that don't buy into it yet. I think of Jesus, sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemene, or the mid-life of Joseph. I love the story of Joseph. When he first sees his brothers again, and they do not recognize him, he has to leave the room and weep. But then when they come back again, he has forgiven them, and tells them that what they meant for evil to him, God meant for good, so that the lives of many would be spared. I love how Joseph processes his own emotions by seeing them in relation to God's plan.

I think that historically alot of my fears have been directly conected to men and marriage. But I think that I am finally able to sort of talk myself down out of that tree of fear and start playing in the game with my heart, and not just using my heart (quite powerfully) to imagine the game. But I am pretty good at being single. i think now I'm just waiting for the right guy, and it won't be fear anymore that keeps me single. last night was rock bottom for this, and the lord was right there with me. as he always will be. in the mean time, I think I want a dog.

I think I need to remember too that the bigger the love, the bigger the fall, and that's the payoff for the intensity of love that I feel too - that joy, excitement, closeness, oneness, bliss with those I love. I just wonder if, no matter how much I trust in the big plan, if it is just my makeup for my body to be extreme in experiencing both love and grief. If I calm down on the grief experience, does that mean I have to calm down on the love experience?