Fear

A few years ago I went for an evening walk around nine o’clock. Nothing unusual. Same sidewalk, same quiet street. Suddenly a car passed me, stopped about fifty meters ahead and then started racing backwards straight toward me.

My heart jumped into my throat. My legs moved before my mind could think.

I turned around and headed toward the nearest houses as quickly as I could.

The car stopped, then drove forward and disappeared.

No danger…..No attack…..Just a car doing something odd.

But my body didn’t know that. In two seconds, fear took over.

And I thought: Where did this come from? I’m not even a fearful person.

So where does fear come from?

Why can something as simple as walking in the dark flip a switch inside us?

Why can a sound at night, an unexpected change, or one thought about tomorrow turn a peaceful mind into a drama queen?

The truth is: fear feels sudden, but it never arrives without a cause.

Fear doesn’t come from the darkness, the noise, the car, the street, or the unknown. Fear comes from one instant of forgetting who you are.

In that micro-moment, the mind switches from Truth to the ego’s version of reality and the ego has one message only:

“You’re a body, you’re alone, and you’re not safe.”

The body reacts instantly.

It doesn’t reason.

It doesn’t negotiate.

It simply pumps adrenaline into your bloodstream and says, “Run!”

That’s why fear can arrive in one heartbeat, even when nothing is happening.

Fear comes from:

-Misidentification…..believing you are only a body.

-Old survival wiring…..the ego loves to ring alarm bells.

-Interpretation….giving meaning to a neutral moment.

-Memory….connecting now with something fearful from the past.

-Projection….imagining a future that doesn’t exist.

-Separation-thought….the root of all fear in ACIM.

A Course in Miracles says it beautifully simple:

“If you are a body, fear is inevitable.”

and

“Fear arises from faulty perception.”

In other words: It’s never the situation that frightens you. It’s what the ego thinks the situation means.

The car was just a car, the darkness was just darkness, the sound at night was just a sound. The fear came from the interpretation and the interpretation came from forgetting my Self.

The ACIM view: fear is an absence of Love in awareness.

Not a lack of protection, not a lack of safety, but a lack of remembering Love.

Fear is the cloud. Love is the sun.

The cloud can block your vision… but never the sun itself.

When the mind forgets Love, the world becomes a scary place.

When the mind remembers Love, the same world becomes harmless.

Nothing outside you needs to change. Only the lens through which you look.

The miracle begins the moment you stop running from fear and simply observe it… gently… honestly… without judgment….and say:

“I feel afraid, but maybe this is not what I think it is.”

Then a window opens and Light always enters the smallest opening.

“Oh… I’m not alone. I’m held. I’m safe in Love.”

And once you remember Who walks with you, the darkness becomes just a street, the noise becomes just a sound, and life becomes something to enjoy, not something to survive.

With love and light,

G.