Many people live in disarray, emotionally consumed to the point of being overweight, living in debt, hating their jobs, and otherwise living unhappy lives, unable and seemingly unwilling to change. Why? What do they have in common? What is the core problem?
Fear, or rather an absence of love.
Fear, and not hate, is the “dark side” or opposite/absence of love, in the same way that darkness is the opposite/absence of light.
Whether your self-image is controlled by unhealthy or uncontrolled overweight or fanatical perfection, both stem from fear. In the first, food is used to comfort upset emotions and to take refuge in a true friend who never lets you down. In the second (and sometimes the first), control over the body supplants a loss of control in another part of life, ultimately taking over that life.
Clutter is almost always based on fear: fear of not having something and needing it, fear of getting rid of something important, fear of leaving yourself open to new experiences (which you cannot enter because your home and, by extension, your life) is already there. full) and fear of being alone with oneself and one’s thoughts (clutter takes so much energy to manage and fix that it can serve as a kind of mental static to keep us too busy to think about important things).
Debt is another symptom of fear: people get into debt for many fear-based reasons (such as needing things to feel better, or fear of not keeping up with the Joneses and being socially outcast). Another part of this equation is that many people won’t part with their access to credit (cut off cards, etc.) because there’s always the “what if an emergency occurs and we don’t have cash available to pay for it?” which becomes moot due to the fact that most of your credit cards are maxed out anyway. Debt is also a symptom of the fear of doing without, even when taken to the extreme. The fear of running out of clothes and the feelings of “going without” fancy clothes or expensive food is no less than the fear and experience of running out of basic clothes and food, although the reality is different.
Working at a job you hate is nothing but fear: fear of not having enough, fear of quitting and not being able to find another job (or finding it and getting caught up in something even worse), fear of not being up to your ” habit of things” or your debt, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of trusting yourself, fear of doing things differently or out of the ordinary (running your own business, fleeing to Mexico, etc.), fear of disappointing family, fear of “wasting” your education, fear of what others will say/think, fear that your evil mom/dad/sister/art teacher was right, etc.
Fear is the basis of almost all human suffering, not counting natural disasters and other acts of God. And the opposite of fear is love. Love creates an ecosphere of calm and wholeness, because you know there is enough (if only enough) and therefore you don’t feel the need to “get mine before someone else does.” Nor do you feel the need to hoard (clutter) or accumulate more than you can afford (debt) to ensure abundance. In a world of love, everyone is accepted and loved for their own personal strengths and forgiven for their faults, thus negating the need to drown in the comfort of things and food (debt and overweight), or worry about what others will think. if you resign your work to become a Mexican portraitist (toxic work). And so on.
Learn to live with love, for yourself and for others, even when they don’t meet your standards (even the rich and terrible deserve your love, because they also serve their purpose). Creating a world of love depends on each one of us. We can’t wait to see if others make the first move. They are waiting for us.