Fear: A Muscle You’ve Built Out of Nothing

By Amaya Gayle Gregory

Do this; do that. Say this; don’t say that. Wear this; don’t wear that. Buy this; oh my God, don’t buy that. Eat this; whatever you do, don’t eat that.

Everyone’s got something to say, especially when they are selling something to go with it, but it’s shelled out for free too. Consummate salespeople that we are, we sell it to ourselves.

I don’t often hear, ‘just be you’. Everything that’s out there wants an improved you, a fixed you, a not-you you. That built-in lack, the ‘never gonna be enough’ message, is a true killer of joy, of connection, of happiness.

If you think about it, the world goes round and round on the merry-go-round of fixes. There wouldn’t be much to buy, to consume, to dream of or die for without the magical world of hoped-for upgrades.

How often do you hear, ‘just be real’ and what is real anyway? Maybe purchasing the latest clothing, following diet … and spiritual fads, or riding in smooth looking autos is real … at least as real as you can or want to be right now. If so, it’s so.

But maybe you are tired of the merry-go-round … are you? You know there is a deeper real? There’s always deeper, always further. Thank heavens, life doesn’t mysteriously stop unfolding, quit changing and evolving.

What if being you includes all of you, the warts and wrinkles, the highs and lows and in-betweens. What if all those things you think of as mistakes are you too? What if all you need to do is be you? You already are, but not knowing you are as real as it gets is a different experience than recognizing it.

Not knowing most often comes with unconscious doubt and frustration, accompanied by squirming in your skin, struggling to figure it out, that gut-wrenching discomfort that’s hard to pin down, and oodles of pent-up anger that you don’t even know is there. At times it feels like you’ll burst like a balloon — pop, fizz … if only.

Not feeling is a defense mechanism, a hardened muscle that’s been built up over eons. Life felt safer when you didn’t have to feel it, when you could ignore or deny its pain, so you flexed the muscle building up your defenses, trying to obliterate the sensations of life, until it seemed natural.

Now we are a consumer society. It’s our new muscle milk. The next new thing, the Top 10 new toys, the must-have bit of tech, the sacred place, the next gen teacher … they all keep the focus from dropping within.

What’s fun, is that’s real too — real in the sense that it’s what’s appearing as life right now and couldn’t be otherwise. It’s just less satisfying — other than perhaps in the moment — offers no inherent nor lasting peace and happiness. Rather, it holds the seed of the next dissatisfaction. Why? Because it is based in covering up, covering over, not meeting the pain, not feeling the deep avoidance, not being you. It is based in fear.

Yeah, I know. It doesn’t feel like fear. Fear is tricky that way. It says follow me, I’ll grant you a better life … but fear is a very accomplished swindler. It wears the cloak of improvement reaching accomplishing. It silently stealthily says you, and your life as it is, simply are not enough. There is more … do what I say or you’ll miss out … for God’s sake, don’t be you.

Fear points you away from the delicious brilliance you already always are, keeping you focused on it, on what you want to avoid, or fear you won’t find. In its circular logic it points you back to itself, stopping you from looking closely enough into its face to see through the farce.

It’s not intentional, a bad guy holding a knife to your throat. Fear isn’t even real, although I grant you if feels real. Fear is simply an idea, an idea that you aren’t enough as you are and as long as that idea holds sway you must continue to look for enoughness.

That’s why life is always offering you the opportunity to step out on a limb, to let go into the unknown. The unknown is YOU and you can’t meet yourSelf hanging onto the trunk of fear. Fear is merely the bark you wear, the known commodity, not who you are.

There is no harm in living in fear. It simply replicates itself, bring more fear into view, weaving more pain into the pattern. Some would see that as harmful. It hurts. It is a bringer of pain and suffering … and yet that same pain and suffering ultimately push us to the point of stopping. It’s part of the perpetual evolution, of hearticles of love that manifest your life from the rubble of your unearthed expression.

Relax. No one can be left behind. THIS is ringing the dharma bell, calling its entire self home. When you finally get tired of the fear, it can’t but show you what you are.

There is no appropriate bio for Amaya Gayle. She doesn’t exist other than as an expression of Consciousness Itself. Talking about her in biographical terms is a disservice to the truth and to anyone who might be led to believe in such nonsense. None of us exist, not in the way we think. Ideas spring into words. Words flow onto paper and yet no one writes them. They simply appear fully formed. Looking at her you would swear this is a lie. She’s there after all, but honestly, she’s not. Bios normally wax on about accomplishments and beliefs, happenings in time and space. She has never accomplished anything, has no beliefs and like you was never born and will never die. Engage with Amaya at your own risk.  That said with a giggle, check out Amaya’s new book – Actuality: infinity at play, available in paperback and e-book at Amazon.