Letting Go – Day 27
JG: Can we talk about fear? I think people are more afraid of the fear of what they’re going to find – getting to their worst nightmare it’s not as bad as you think, it’s the fear that’s worse.
FM: That’s right – so what you’re talking about is the shift of bringing consciousness to subconscious fear. A lot of times we’re not even aware of what it is that we’re afraid of. People just fear the fear. … The thing is, that it’s operating, it’s in there, it’s below our level of conscious awareness. If we knew what to do with it, we probably would, but we just don’t know it’s there, it’s just become a reality, it’s become our experience of self. It’s become who we think we are. And, a paranoid schizophrenic is now given a label that defines this intense fear that is fragmenting the self. The layers and layers and layers of kind of coping with this are really deeply enmeshed in our experience of our world, our experience culturally, socially, environmentally. Yes we create, we perceive the outside world, but it’s this self-reinforcing experience. It proves it to us all the time. I’m afraid, and you see, there are lots to be afraid of, therefore I’m afraid.
JG: Can we talk about addictions; do they stem from fear? Is it a way to escape yourself or the fear? And is hitting rock bottom about coming to the consciousness of that fear as well?
FM: A lot of people have to keep redefining deeper rock bottom, and sometimes it just kills them, but that’s the experience, the kind of expansion of self, the kind of testing out of self; how deep, how low, how bad can it get? And who am I going to be, who am I going to find in that place, when I’m staring myself in the eyes, who is that going to be? And I think that addiction (whether substance, emotional addiction, relational addiction, thought addiction) is any kind of repetitive pattern in which we have a tie in. Addiction is actually feeding us in some way, its satiating us, it’s giving us a little taste of relief from our fear, even though it propels us back into the whole cycle of it, it’s this little hit of momentary release from our fear, and that’s our tie in. … It feels more comfortable, even though our life can be in shambles because of it, it’s still more comfortable than addressing the fear, than actually facing the fear.
