The Compass of Fear
La brújula del miedo
A reflection on how moving toward what frightens us reveals a more authentic life, and how self-knowledge strips away false desires to uncover what we truly want.
The Compass of Fear
A reflection on how moving toward what frightens us reveals a more authentic life, and how self-knowledge strips away false desires to uncover what we truly want.
For me particularly, that was one of the moments of moving into a deeper way of being. But it was a movement toward fear. It was terrifying, for reasons that at the time seemed partly financial. That, however, was a superficial fear. The deeper fear was to live more authentically, to live in a way that was more unknown. Less knowing of what life would be like. Less knowing of how I would be. Less knowing of how others would think and respond to me.
Fear as compass
My teacher would always say that the compass, the true North, is where fear is.
One way to answer the question of what the meaning of life is: do whatever you want to do, always, at every moment. But that is deceptively simple. Because what do you want? And where is that want coming from? Is it really what you want, or is it an illusion, a belief?
Knowing what you are not
And so that is where the work of knowing thyself begins, which is actually to know what you are not. The more you see, "that's not me, that's not me, that's not me," the more everything that these narratives once supported loses its energy. The desires that were coming from that which I thought I was begin to dissipate, to dissolve. And so the true, real want, the real desire, can come forth.