Fear is the mind-killer

Calm as a ...flower?

I am, by nature, a fearful person. I used to let that rule me when I was younger, and it led me to make a lot of decisions based on avoiding fear. That's no way to live a life, and thankfully I have learned to move through my fears & anxiety (well, the majority of the time, anyway). Of a great help to me was getting together with Scott, an incredible rock for me who had already studied much in the way of "letting go" via Zen Buddhism; but he also encouraged me to read Dune.

Dune changed my life, and it was because of the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear:

I must not fear.
 Fear is the mind-killer.
 Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.
 I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
 And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
 Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. 
Only I will remain.

I am the type of person who can only learn hard life lessons when the time is right for me to learn it. I know, that's not very convenient, is it? So I can't say that just reading this changed everything. Obviously it was the right time for me to learn this particular lesson. But anyway. This, plus all the years of therapy I've had, have given me the mindset that its not healthy (for me) to dwell on fears. That includes writing them down. In general, all of my fears can be traced back to a fear of death, anyway, and that's no fun to talk about, so I'm not going to talk about this subject anymore.

I mean, OK, I'm afraid of spiders and clowns and was once chased down the street by a mime....is that the kind of stuff I'm supposed to talk about?

I had a great day today & will be running a race tomorrow morning. I really didn't like this question because I always try to be positive. Back tomorrow with a recap of the run, etc!