The Road To Mastery: Overcoming Fear

February 6, 2005

Samuel:  Hello, dears.

Hi, Samuel.

S: So, how are you doing?

Good.

S: Aye. Good month? So there is a lot of [making faces].

When last we were together like this, we talked about the road to mastery. Aye. And particularly [in] what direction were we going? Frank.

You talked a lot about communication.

S: There you go. And why communication? Why was that the first step in the road? That’s right. Say it again.

Because it’s everything.

S: Everything that you do, in one way or another, requires communication in one form or another, doesn’t it? And the second step tonight up that mountain to mastery is probably one of the blocks to the communication that we discussed, but interestingly enough it is one of the faces of love. Do you remember what I said I was going to talk about?

Fear.

S: Fear. Right.

So tonight we’re talking about mastery, and tonight we are talking about fear, and when we were together this way last time I said that you are moving through a time of great chaos—chaos for creation, creativity—and to look for that in your communication. So, what have you been finding over these last few weeks? Don’t all jump at once now. One at a time. Thank you, love.

I’ve found that I have basically two choices of how to deal with all of this chaos. I can either let it sweep me in its wake and be totally tossed and turned—and I actually sometimes enjoy that so, I mean, I have to watch that. So I can either do that, and I don’t know where I’ll turn up—which is kind of an adventure—or I can totally harness it and say, “I want to use it in this way and I can get a lot of stuff done.” I haven’t found a middle ground yet, but actually that’s how it’s been the last month—it’s either one way or the other.

S: That’s good. That’s a really good description of it as well. More. Aye.

I’ve found that fear has limited my options whenever I’m in a situation. I tend to get real tunnel vision.

S: So when you are in a situation dealing with creative force, creation energy, chaos, the fear button comes first. And, of course, you know you’re not the only one in here who would experience that, is she? And, in fact, that this is actually—well, in the bigger picture, anyway—a good thing, and that is when you are putting yourself out there, doing the best you can where you are with what you have at the moment; when you are being the best you can, fear very often shows up first. Why do you think? It’s not a hard one. Don’t go deep with it. It’s right on top. Well, one of the reasons is because all too often it is an automatic reflex. Reflex, right? Reflex. It’s an automatic response, fear first and then sort it out later, but at least you’ve stayed safe in the meantime.

Now hold just for a moment and think about that. Fear first, but by putting fear first you get to stay safe until you find out otherwise, that there’s no need to fear—hopefully. And think of that in the hundred ways a day that shows up, because that really is there the basis of turning it around. More. Aye.

I’ve had a great month, it’s been a wonderful month, but I’m in private practice and when you take a week off . . . 

S: Me too.

And one of the great things about being in private practice and being a therapist is you have these wonderful clients, and they reach a point where they’re doing really well, and you get to say, “You don’t have to come in as much.” But when they all stop coming in at the same time, then you have to look at your practice and say, “Have I done too good a job? Oh my.” And so the first fear, the first thought, is change. Change means loss. And rather than going “Oh, that’s a great job. You have a few days, hopefully maybe a week, to recoup and enjoy what you have and manifest new clients. But there’s always that point where it’s “I’m going to go out of business.” And it’s not, and you have to get through that.

S: And—work with me here—and is that a sort of a typical kind of response that kicks in throughout your life?

Oh, yes.

S: But does it hang around as long as it used to?

No. In fact it’s more of a thought rather than a full-body experience. It used to linger and obsess, and now it’s “Oh, you’re doing that thing again. You need to change and start thinking about what you want to manifest, rather than what you’re going to lose.”

S: Good. Good. And, of course, one of the things that you need to see that she has done there—being the good therapist that she is—she has recognized a fear, sent it on its way, but filled that hole with something else. And that is vital, vital, because humans go into—I call it security mode—go into fear with loss. The idea of losing something important like income, for instance, losing something important is rather frightening, and so all of those barricades go up. Fear.

But rather than letting that fear hang out, get friendly, rather than allowing it to make a hum, she works right away to banish it, but in banishing it, she avoids a common pitfall. You’re eager to get rid of the things that you don’t want anymore, that you don’t need anymore—ideas, beliefs, furniture, clothes—but as long as that loss is not replaced, as long as there is that hole there, the security system is going to seek a means to fill it back up, to replace it in everything that you do from the point of that release on. Or, as a means that shows it up in your life, ways that some of you probably wish would never happen again, but I’m going to put out as an example, you decide “All right, I’m taking the Guardianship Program because I’m desiring to learn how to function better in my world, and so I am going to stop—give me a good one—eating sugar. All right. That’s one that a lot of people choose through the program.

Quick question for those of you who choose things like that in the program: When you ask yourself the question “What should I take out of my diet that I know really isn’t doing me any good?” and you let go of something like sugar, why is it you take it up again later, when you knew it was something that wasn’t good? Suzanne.

I can answer that. To take out something out of your diet the next time.

S: There you go. Life as a constantly flowing Guardianship Program.

Otherwise you get down to nothing.

S: Nothing more to let go of. Aye. Aye. When you really do reach a point that there is not one more thing to let go of, that’s when you let go of life.

Well, when you said that . . . before you said that, I really hadn’t thought of it, but now since you’ve said that, I think the reason I go back is because I only really committed to that twelve weeks. And if I would commit to doing it for life, it would be much easier for me not to pick it back up.

S: That’s good. That’s good. That’s right. That’s good.

But in my home, everything is set for twelve weeks.

S: Aye.

So that’s it. After twelve weeks . . . 

S: Let’s add into the very last program—all right, Mary Claire and Steve—a few moments of asking which of these changes would you like to keep in the rest of your life? And if there is one you would like to keep, or two or three, commit to yourself in the very same way you did for twelve weeks, commit to continue on through your life with it. Because you’re right, it’s establishing that compact clearly that makes a difference. And of course when you get into the program and there are so many things that are being asked of you, to discipline this and change that, and stop doing this and start doing that, that, that, that, that and that—which is how it goes—only having to do it for twelve weeks is sort of like the carrot, isn’t it? “I only have to do this for twelve weeks!” So that’s good. Thank you for that, a lot. Bonnie.

I’m not in the program, but I think I can relate to the times when you’ve asked us to do something for a certain period of time, and to be real honest, I’m doing that because you wanted us to.

S:  Well, thank you so much.

But when . . . 

S: That could be why it doesn’t keep going, couldn’t it?

It has to be something that I want, and not just to please you, but it has to be something to please yourself. And you’ve got to want it for yourself.

S: Well said. Well said. And interestingly enough—goodness, I think I might just end up floating off into Guardianship Program fears tonight, and that’s not what I’m wanting to do—but interestingly enough with that, the whole idea is you’re letting go of something because you know it’s not good for you. [Aside] Welcome back, dear. Aye. Sorry little private conversation happening there.

When you are doing it for yourself because it feels good, because you feel better, because you know it’s right, because it’s what you want, some of you are less likely to do it for those reasons. Why would that be?

Well, for those who are in that unfortunate group—and I mean unfortunate because it’s hard to live this way—in that group that says “What I want isn’t enough. What I want, what I am, what I think, what I care about, they don’t measure up in this world,” then what you want to do that’s good for you has to jump over an extra hurdle to happen, doesn’t it? Because you have to be finding yourself worthy enough to do something good for you.

Harvey.

Looking at this first fear as a fear of loss, would that be the same thing, would that be related to the fear of not being enough?

S: Well, think about that for a moment. Would you say that your fear of not being enough, not being good enough, not being bright enough, not being pretty enough, skinny enough, weighty enough, whatever, not being enough, do you see the loss that that one’s about? What is that a loss of? Well, it’s probably a loss of several things, but what tends to stick out right on top? Steven.

Well, I’m thinking of a loss of all those things that those people have access to, the skinny people have access to, tall people have access to, intelligent people have access to, the stuff, what we claim is important in form.

S: A loss of self, that sense of self as being enough. Absolutely. Good connection. Aye. Ken.

A thought to think about in personal terms: My fear of loss would be, if I really am not enough, where am I going to, how am I going to relate to all these other people that I want to or need to relate to?

S: Aye. Aye.

That stirs fear quick.

S: And—right there, right on the road—and it stirs those fears because you are working with a primal issue. You are working with a security issue. When I say primal, what’s a better word for me to use other than that?

Basic.

Deep-seated.

S: Basic, deep-seated, instinctual. Sure.

Ingrained.

S: Ingrained. Yes, I like that, too. And I’ll get to that in a moment. Sliding over it. Stuart.

Well, what’s coming up for me lately is not my feeling that I’m not enough, it’s wondering because I’m feeling like I know that I’m not enough, and I’m wondering if other people are noticing it.

S: You know you’re not enough. So far, you’ve kept it pretty hidden. So you’re not too sure now if you’ve been keeping it well enough hidden, because you’re afraid that other people know you’re not enough too. Just a moment, love. I want you to look at the audience while I’m saying this. All right. Is there anybody else in here who’s ever felt that same thing?

Aye.

There’s a certain amount of liberation with knowing you’re not enough. And I can come out of the other side of that. See, I have a witness here that I know I’m not enough, so I know I need to ask for help. I cannot do it by myself. That is such a relief. So instead of being afraid I’m not enough, I go “I know I’m not, so great. Help me out here. Super. Fabulous.”

S: But you know it’s a big road to cross, that point of saying “I am not enough,” and “I know I’m not enough. Help me.” Because your “I’m not enough” is a very healthy one, actually. And in your life, can’t you look back at your life and come up with times in which you remember feeling like “I’m not enough,” whatever your words were enough for it. “I’m not enough. I am lower than the snail’s belly.” Snake’s belly, thank you, it was close. And slimy too. Makes it better. “I am slimy low.” Perhaps that junior-high-school self—is that kind of an age for that, Heidi? Sort of that?—where everything going on around you is new. Everybody already has friends. Everybody already is good at—well, back then it was . . .

Dodge ball.

S: Dodge ball. Now it’s still sort of dodge ball, isn’t it? You weren’t sure if you were going to be graceful or clumsy today. You weren’t sure if you were going to be baritone or bass, or maybe soprano. Aye. You were overwhelmed in all areas of life, and you weren’t sure that you were enough, but you were so afraid to stick your neck out there and say to somebody, “Am I the only one here that’s really petrified?” because you were afraid they would say, “Yeah.”

To reach that point in adulthood and—Dr. McIntosh.

Oh, you say that well.

S: I’m not sure that I ever have, have I?

I don’t think so.

S: I don’t think this life around, and I’m not sure it was McIntosh last time around so. . . . When you have come through that part of your childhood and moved into life as an adult where, hopefully, that many things don’t hit you all at once, giving you the courage to become more of an adult and eventually have a family, and increase your education until you are a doctorate and a—no, you’re not a doctorate, you have one. Right?

Yes, thank you.

S: But you are a doctor, right?

Yes.

S: In which you are, more or less, living a life you never dreamed of when you were eleven, twelve. To say then, “I know I’m not enough. Help me out,” is a whole different version of “I know I’m not enough.”

But you know what? Now and again in this adult life, now and again something happens that pulls out that eleven-year-old, doesn’t it? Something happens that moves the “I’ve made my way in the world, and more or less I’m living the life I want to be living. I’m responsible for myself now. I’m pretty well tuned in to my sillies and willies and can do things with it.” And suddenly what? What are the kinds of things that might hit you and take you right back to seventh grade, eighth grade?

Your boss sends you an email telling you that you’re an idiot, and so you have an authority figure judging you and making you feel like you’re not enough.

S: An authority figure, such as your boss, sends you an email saying you are an idiot, which says a whole lot more about your boss than about you, darling.

Send him one back that says “Sticks and stones . . .“

S: That definitely goes into the category that I call true stupid human tricks. But what it brings back is that child who, to a parent or a teacher […], “Oh, I’m the only one here who doesn’t how to . . .” What are you doing at that age? Multiply? No. What? I’m the only one who doesn’t know algebra.

Spell.

S: Can spell. Cannot spell . . .

Still.

S: . . . still. And that’s where one with one comes in handy, isn’t it, dear? That’s right. Aye. Say, “Cindy, how do you spell dog?”

I can’t spell much other than that.

S: And that authority figure puts you right back into the mind of that eleven-year-old, and when that happens, you immediately have a choice. And that choice is, agree with it or don’t. And in everything in your life, in everything in your life, everything . . . One more time.

Everything.

S: . . . the immediate choice that you have, the very first one that comes to you is, do you agree with it? Shall I go left or right? Do I agree with it? “Samuel, see that one doesn’t work.” Actually it does. What are you agreeing with, with left and right?

Turning.

S: Well, all right, you’re agreeing that you’re turning, or where I was going to go with it is, you’re agreeing that those are the only choices. Could be up and down, could be straight ahead, back where you were. But the very first thing is “Do I agree with this?”

You might find yourself having an easier time with that eleven-year-old in there by making sure that in your life as an adult you have a habit going that says immediately, “Do I agree with this?”

Anybody here have a tattoo? Oh, nobody’s going to . . . a few people. All right, a few brave ones in there. That’s the one that I would suggest. It says “Do I agree with this?” so you can find it quickly and remind yourself “When I’m in a difficult time—all right, got it—do I agree with this? No! I don’t.”

What if the answer is “Yes, I do”?

Then you’ve got another choice.

S: Well, very much. You might allow yourself to feel more in control—humans love that—if you recognize that everything that you do is a series of choices. And when you have made a choice, rather than spending all of your time cheering yourself on for being over that one, give yourself a quick stop, a quick look: “Do I agree with that?” Let yourself realize there is another step after that and after that and after that, and that is, although it is a very general version of moving through life, you actually could move through your life—I challenge you to move through a day like that. Don’t do it until you’ve tried it for an hour first, though—you can give yourself a habit of conscious living by forcing yourself to see all of your actions as a result of a choice, a choice that you agreed with. And realizing that it’s coming from the adult self, as opposed to the child self, can make a huge difference with that.

And here is why. The road to mastery is not a superhighway, newly paved, straight. Parts of it are, and interestingly enough those tend to be the parts that you doubt yourself the most on—the straight and easy, fast and fun. You tend to doubt yourself more at that end of the road than you do when it’s a bumpy challenge, curvy, you don’t know what’s next over in the corner. Why do you think that is?

Well, here is an illustration of the answer. Have any of you ever been a grocery clerk or a similar sort of clerk, dealing with a whole lot of people, doing a lot of things at the same time? Yes, you call that raising a family. Right.

Waitressing.

S: Waitressing. Does the day pass faster if there’s few people or many people?

Many people.

S: Even if it’s a whole bunch of grumpy people? Does it still pass faster than if it’s just two or three? Well, you might have some better stories after everybody grumpy than two or three, but indeed, when there is a whole lot going on, your focus is there and not on the time.

So when that road to mastery engages your attention constantly or you have chosen to have yourself engaged, that time moves by faster, and the benefit is, you are getting a constant series of successes. “Oh, made it over that bump! Oh, made it across that ditch! Oh, rounded that hole! Oh, got through the corner!” A constant series of success that causes you to feel good about you, or so incredibly awful that you wish I’d hurry up and get to that part of the meeting so that you can know what to do with that. Shall I go there now? Back to fear. Aye.

This is a month that is full of interesting holidays, isn’t it? Starts out with an ode to a—it’s not a gopher and it’s not a beaver—groundhog! That’s right. I don’t know why that’s such a difficult one. An ode to a groundhog that you pretend that you actually think forecasts your weather. Right.

Punxsutawney Phil.

S: That one, aye. I’m trying to picture how a groundhog has anything to do with the beginning of spring, the fire festival. I suppose that’s coming out and seeing the sun, putting a new fire into the hearth, sort of. It’s a big stretch. I think that the gopher, no, groundhog, has become more of a distraction to what that particular holiday is meant to be about, but there is that. And there is also.

Imbolc.

S: Imbolc, which doesn’t actually fall on Groundhog Day—Groundhog Day, all right—but Groundhog Day sort of took it over. But a little further into the month there is . . .

Presidents’ Day.

Valentine’s Day.

S: Presidents’ Day.

Two presidents. Dead presidents.

S: Colleen says celebrating dead presidents. Oh, I get it. That was a political statement. I missed it. I’m sorry. And then there is Valentine’s Day. Instead of celebrating a groundhog, you get to celebrate a dead saint, right.

And a massacre.

S: Massacre, yes. You have Brighidmas. Right. You have, for this particular culture, within this society, you have a whole focus that starts right after the Christmas holidays are over, that starts into the holiday season, based on love. Valentine’s Day. That was meant to be precious.

Cherubic.

S: Cherubic. And that particular holiday, also known, Don, as?

Marion’s birthday.

High, holy day.

S: That particular holiday is theoretically the one in which you celebrate those people that you love very much, and yet interestingly enough, it is absolutely perfect for a quick discussion about why love and fear are the same thing.

A few moments ago, we left that eleven-year-old self, but let’s bring that eleven-year-old self back, all right? You’re eleven years old, you’re sitting in your classroom and it is Valentine’s Day. At eleven years old, are you madly in love with somebody yet, or does that wait another couple of years? More and more now than [you] used to.

I was in my forties.

S: Forties, aye. Eleven, forty, you know. That’s the love fear thing again, you see. Rather than work it out through you for the sake of time, I’m just going to pop out a scenario. There may be those of you who can understand it, who can remember it, and there may be those of you who don’t, but what I am seeing here is the child who, perhaps, has a big crush on somebody, and is hoping, hoping, hoping, that you will receive a Valentine card from that person that professes their undying love for the rest of their life, that they want to follow you into eternity and back, and . . .

It all seems so silly now.

S: Or maybe you don’t really care if you get one, but you are—with sweaty palms—giving one. A little smeared because you sweated on it, because you know that you’re not just giving a Valentine card here, you are giving your very soul, your heart, your guts—aye—by being brave enough to express what you feel to this person you care so much about.

Now there are versions of that that happen all through life. Younger, there is—and this is the picture I have going; it may not be something that a lot can relate to: In younger classes, do you make a box?

Yes.

S: You do? Oh, all right, you make a box, you put . . .

And everybody you give those [to], they have them in the store, too, or you can make your own, or they have the little tiny valentines that you just buy for the purpose of your son or daughter going to class and having those put in their box.

S: And you count them. Do I have as many as . . . ? Did I get one from . . . ? What did it say? Did they say “Love, Chris”?

And you know one of the best things that could happen to you in life, one of the best things that could happen to the adult you in life, would be to have that happen ten or fifteen times through your childhood. “Samuel, wait! Surely I’m misunderstanding. You don’t mean to go through that horrible, sweaty-palm, rejection routine over and over and over, do you?” Oh, I do, because it really makes a difference when you have something often enough that you don’t have to fear it any more, that you realize “Oh goodness, February fifteenth. I’m still alive. What do you know? The world did not end after all.” All right, then you become twelve the next year, and on February fifteenth, “Oh look, the world did not end again,” and again and again.

Because in your life you have the opportunity to live by your fears or to live by your love, and all of that comes out of, the choice that you make there is the result of, the times that you believed the rejections or the times that you believed tomorrow will come and the sky will not have fallen and the earth will still be here, and I will continue on.

And now I’m going to shift this back to the statement that I was preparing to make about love and fear. In your life, most everything that you deal with has extremes. You may not be experiencing the extreme. You might be—hopefully—comfortably at a place of balance. But you know that when you are eleven years old and you have given a sweaty valentine to the person that you admire and love and you’re nervous because you’re afraid that they might reject you because of it, you’re in that fear extreme. And as with any pendulum, eventually that swing slows down, because you’re no longer caught at one end or the other and you hit that middle.

In this world—hear me here—in this world, you are here for one purpose. There is only love. And your human purpose is to find how to live that, express that, at every opportunity. When you come to the end of it and you are judging your life, you are going to judge it not by “Was I good or bad?” but by “Was I loving? Did I do the loving thing?” The pain comes from having not chosen love. The only thing that makes you happy—and I’ve had enough time, I’ve looked through this whole audience, and I can tell you, everyone of you in here—the only thing that makes you happy—now, I don’t mean “Oh, I just had a cookie! It was good. I’m so happy,” although that might fit in this category, depending upon how much you need those cookies. But in your life, if you were to look over the last week, if you were to look over the last month, if you were to look over the last year, or ten, or twenty of them, those experiences that stand out as being good, happy, were times in which you were giving or receiving love, in one way or another.

One of the things now and again I have the opportunity to embody—in person, that’s how you say that—in person, I have the opportunity in person to see tiny, newly born babies, and I always say two things to them. The first one is “Only love,” and the second one is “You will remember.” I say that because I think that there aren’t so many people out there any more telling that to the children.

Don’t lead your life by your fear. Lead your life by your love. But love has, as everything does, another side, and that side is fear. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s fear, but the fear is the absence of love. And the very first fear that comes about—or, if you want to look at it this way, the very first thing that gets in the way of love going first—are those instinctual, embedded, enseeded, instinctual activities of survival. Your survival mechanism is the very first doorway that fear moves through.

Now, that’s not such a bad thing, is it? If, for instance, you were walking through New York City—give me an area that you’d not want to be in at dark.

Central Park.

S: Central Park. Central Park? It sounds like such a nice thing. All right, so Central Park, New York City, two in the morning, well it’s not so stupid to be fearful then, is it? Because that fear is trying to do something fairly important, isn’t it?

Keep you alive.

S: Keep you alive, that’s a good one, don’t you think? Aye. And ultimately that’s what your survival mechanism is all about—keeping you alive. Keeping you alive. And when you are a child, keeping you alive means you eat properly and you exercise as you can and you grow up healthy physically and mentally and, hopefully, emotionally, and you have somebody in your life who is pre-programmed to let you know everything in the world you need to be afraid of. It’s called a parent. “Don’t do that! Don’t do that either. You will be hurt if you do that! I will hurt you if you do that.” And they’re doing it because they want to see you stay alive.

As you get older and you shift away from the being alive, eating, breathing, walking, talking into the more subtle areas of life, it’s no longer about survival of the body. It moves into survival of the emotional body. Now, that actually starts at about age seven— just about did it that way [demonstrating with fingers]—about age seven. Until you’re about fourteen, the emotional body is being built, and survival tends to be different than “Eat your peas or you will not grow strong like Popeye.”

Spinach.

S: Whatever it is. And I want you now, just for a moment, to think about your own life until you were—particularly that eleven and twelve and thirteen and fourteen—you were learning about a whole different kind of fear then, weren’t you? And you were learning about them because your survival was on a whole other level, wasn’t it? And when in your life your survival is being threatened because you are unable to take food, you are getting too close to the fire—all of those things that your parental authority drilled into you so you would physically alive in this world—when as an adult any of those functions of survival kick in, you go back to that five-year-old or ten-year-old. If you successfully made it through that experience as a five-year-old or a ten-year-old, it registers as a success and you move forward, maybe with curiosity, maybe with hope, not likely with fear. But if you go back to it and it was associated with pain in whatever way, fear pops up.

But, you know, as an adult in this country, you don’t so often face that you fear for your physical life. No, what you more often face are the fears that come up afterwards, the fears that are the result of learning to function in the world, your emotional survival. Getting on with others, communicating. When you find yourself threatened, you tend to go back to that twelve-year-old. And if that twelve-year-old had a really hard time of it—you felt stupid, unwanted, unchosen, not enough—then that means the forty-year-old has a choice to feel that same thing. One more reason to get that tattoo as soon as possible, don’t you think?

Fear has two purposes: one of them is to keep you going, whether that is physically alive, emotionally alive. You know that you can be walking and talking and breathing and look quite alive and be truly dead, don’t you, because you are emotionally dead, so locked in fear that you can’t take another step? But that’s death. You can’t move out of it. Isn’t that sort of what a grave is all about? You can’t get out of it. You’re just sort of stuck there, at that level.

Fear is there to push you to a place of safety. But what it’s too easy to forget is that the place of safety is found when you are functioning back at your most natural place, at your most natural self. You are here to live love. Now not even getting into the airy-fairyness, not even opening up your head and pouring in the importance of the choices you made to come here now and what that says about you now, not even reminding you that when you were a kid you knew that you were here to make a difference, and that, as you grew up, what separated you from the masses was that you have always been one who was willing to love, love readily, sometimes to your disadvantage, without even going there.

In this life everything that you do immediately goes back in the incredible computer of your brain to what was the last time that was safe. [When you have a] Totally new experience, then that brain looks for the closest to it, looks for the safe version of it, and if that safe version is there and it was yesterday, no worries at all. If that version was there twenty years ago, a little more nervous, but it’s there. If it’s not there at all, then survival comes into play, and survival shows itself up broadly to the adult as sex, money . . . say it.

Body fat.

S: And body fat, ultimately, doesn’t it? Intimate—not necessarily sexual—intimate, intimacy, expressing love, individually, relationships. Sex, money, finances, enough to fly yourself around the world and back, or to pay your rent this month. To live the life you want to live, to get along one more day to live. And body fat is not really body fat as much as it is your image of yourself, how you function in this world as you. The you that is allowed to be out in the world, is it the twenty-, thirty-, forty-, fifty-, sixty-, seventy-, eighty-year-old you—choose the most appropriate—or is the one that gets out in the world the unsure, fear-based one? The one that is eleven years old and doesn’t have the right number of valentines in the box.

Mastery is about love. Mastering love in this world is the easiest thing to say and the hardest thing to live that can ever be put in front of you. Love is—yes, it’s true, trite, but true—an action verb. Love is the  only thing you’re good at. Everything else comes from that.

Where there is not love, there is fear. And what you want to ask yourself is, “What is this fear? Is it for my physical safety? Is it for my emotional safety? And is that the child that I want guiding my life? Do I agree with that? Is that me?”

At this time of creation energy flowing into the earth, a time of new beginnings, a time of open doors, a time of choices, choices, choices, it all boils down to: it’s because of love or it’s because of fear. And you have that choice. Is it because of love or is it because of fear? And if it’s because of fear, is it the fear that keeps you going so you can take the next step or is it the one that’s deeply rooted into something that’s so far beyond you that it’s just an old habit and it’s time to break it?

Give yourself a gift this year—aye, it’s all right. Buy yourself some roses, buy yourself some chocolate, whatever it is—buy lots of roses, lots and lots of roses, yes—but this would be a really good year to send yourself that valentine that you always wanted to get, to look at love as a viable option, not just a thing printed on candy.

If the fear you have is healthy fear, go with it, listen to it, but if you’re tired of living your life where the first thing you ask yourself is “Why? I can’t!”, if you’re living your life through a filter of nonproductive fear, let that pendulum swing back to love. When you’re faced with a fear ready to break your heart or smack your head, make an immediate choice to do an anonymous act of love—maybe two or three if it’s a really painful one—so it changes the road, giving you another option.

It’s love or it’s fear. Good. That’s the road to mastery. Glochanumora.

Thank you.

S: You are so welcome. Happy trails.