Smashing the walls of fear-constructs
We create, over time, through worrying and anxiety thinking, as well as logically working things out, and talking about it, and all sorts of strategies, a world in which the thing we fear doesn't exist, in order that we don't have to feel the fear about it.
For example - I am afraid that my partner is going to leave me, because I fear not being wanted, deep down that is a huge core fear of mine, that really I am not want-able. So "my partner doesn't *really* want me" is the fear as experienced in relationship. But of course it shows up in all other areas of my life too. My friends don't really want to be with me, I'm too much / little / fragile / weak / stupid / intense / ugly. So, in order that I don't experience that fear any more, I work over a long, long, long time to create a world in which I don't experience that. In other words I constantly worry about whether my partner and I really are a match, that we should probably break up because of this and this and this. And then eventually, we will break up. Which will mean that I don't have to feel the fear of being unwanted by my partner, because I won't have a partner. I will have to go through the sadness of the breakup, but at least now I will have removed the partner from my life, in other words created a world in which I live without a partner. Then I won't have to feel the fear that he doesn't want me. Safe!!! And desperately sad and lonely but at least I won't have to feel that fear any more, that deep down I am not wanted.
In society - people have fear of economic insecurity, that they will become homeless and die if they lose their job. They fear when they imagine two men being together that their own sexuality is wrong, or what they have been taught is wrong, that their worldview is not the only one. This is destabilizing. So, Trump helps them create a world in which gay people don't exist, and immigrants that are the ones taking their jobs don't exist. That means they won't have to feel their fears.
The creation of this world in which the thing we fear doesn't exist is like constructing a tall impenetrable wall around us. Like North Korea, China, and the United States literally build walls around them in order to block outside influence. Within the walls we can have a world without gays, or liberals, or democracy, or partners who say they love us but really will reject us someday. We do exactly the same within our mind and therefore within our actual physical world, the one made up of our relationships, community, home etc.
We have an argument with our partner, and because of how they acted, really they are not the one for us. They refuse to understand us and are entrenched in their view, so really it's not a good match. Better to break up now. Makes sense. And, what are we doing but creating a world in which we don't have to feel the fear of being broken-up-with.
Of course, ultimately it's easier to put on a pair of shoes than wrap the world with leather (Shantideva, Chogyam Trungpa). But instead we involve ourselves constantly in wrapping leather around the world, constantly creating one in which we don't have to feel the fear by removing what we think is the source of it.
The way through this is to break down the walls. Smash them, like the Berlin Wall in 1989. Open up to the outside. What's outside? Loving-Kindness. Larger Self. Smash the walls down. Be brave. Face into the fear itself. I am afraid that nobody wants me. It's a horrible feeling. I can feel it now as I think it. I recognize it, an old old deep knowledge that below it all, nobody wants me. And so I practice. Take down the walls. See this fear. Feel it in my body, it's a tightness in my chest, like the sides of my chest wall want to cave in. An elastic band tightening and tightening. Feel it feel it feel it. Smash the walls down. Let the outside in.
Come out come out come out. Be the man they want you to be. Be the guy your dog sees you as. Be vulnerable, be brave - not by going to war to defend your walls, but by facing this dark fear, put your head in the mouth of the dragon. Take your armor off. You are beautiful just as you are, wrinkles and shortness and fatness and anxiety and fears and intensity and not-enoughness. All of it.
Open to the help all around within you. When we are wrapped up in our fear it's like it being a thumb we are holding right in front of our eyes. Wherever we look, all we see is this thumb. It's everywhere. My partner doesn't want me, my friends don't want to spend time with me, my boss doesn't like me, the guy in the coffee shop looked at me and looked away because I'm fat. So, let's leave the partner, quit the job, stop going to the coffee shop, don't call my friend. That's safer. I'm lonely as hell but at least I don't have to feel the thousand paper cuts of a thousand people not wanting me all day long.
I feel for you. My heart cries for you and for me. Smash the walls down and come into the warmth that is outside. It's cold inside the walls. There is warmth outside.
I choose to face into this fear and feel it, practice with it, share with my partner what I've learned so he can know me better and continue to give me the beautiful love he does. He needs only to support me as I feel this fear and not take it on as his. And I open to the amazing larger self that I am, full of loving-kindness for myself and all beings as we take on the challenge of facing and feeling our fears, rather than building a wall to exclude them. Pull the thumb back from in front of your eyes and put it back where it belongs, farther back where we can see it for what it is. A fear, sure, but not something that dominates our entire world-view.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
Rumi
