Fear doesn't have a stick

June 2018, a mom wrote for a public group that fear was assaulting her. In a conversation on the side, she used the term again: "sometimes fear assaults me."

I responded:

Fear doesn't hit you with a stick in a dark alley.
Don't use the word "assaults."
It's too dramatic and it makes you a victim.

An additional problem, though, is that it also treats "fear" as something outside herself, that comes toward her and assaults her when she least expects it.

Maybe ALL the negative words are doing that—personifying, or anthropomorphizing, an emotion as an external enemy. So some would say "it's just semantics," but it's a map of one's emotions that ranges outside the body and builds bad guys, I'm thinking.

"Just semantics" is a big problem

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photo by Ester Siroky

Relax into peace

"Power struggles can disappear when the person with the power stops struggling."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/deblewis

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photo by Sandra Dodd

Gentle peace and patience

Struggling is harmful. Don't struggle.
Relax.

And don't "just" relax, relaxing blindly, but relax into new knowledge of the value of gentle peace and patience.

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photo by Cathy Koetsier

Are you struggling to relax?

Leah Rose:

Sandra wrote: "They need to STOP battling, STOP fighting, STOP struggling"

This has been such an incredibly powerful, empowering concept for me. It's a total turn around from the way I grew up thinking, from the way we think and speak in Western culture. But I have made the greatest strides in my own deschooling by learning to notice when I feel myself "struggling," and to Stop! Then I can choose to let go, to relax about the disparity between what I want and what is. And what I have discovered is that that conscious mental shift releases the energy I need to step forward mindfully into the moment...and then that moment becomes, itself, a step towards what I want, away from what I don't want.

—Leah Rose

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photo by Lydia Koltai

Relax inside yourself

Someone wrote once:

"I really have to be vigilant on myself and try not to control."

I was amused, but responded, in part:

Being "vigilant" sounds like absolutely exhausting effort. Relax. You do not "have to be vigilant." Especially not on yourself. That's you watching yourself. Way too much work. Let go of one of those selves. Relax inside the other one. Have a snooze. Don't be vigilant.

When you wake up, think. Am I glad to be here? Is this a good moment? If so, breathe and smile and touch your child gently. Be soft. Be grateful. Find abundance. Gently.

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photo by Denaire Nixon