Stay With It
Our first response to fear is to run from it. Our primal instincts demand that we do. But there is another alterative: to stay with it. “What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear,” wrote Indian speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti, “that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.”
To live with fear means to become comfortable with the unknown, of being out of control, of not knowing what is coming next. We must toss out our predictions, our planned trajectories, our 10-year budgets, even our daily planner. “It’s not about slaying the monster,” writes Dennis Merritt Jones in “The Art of Uncertainty,” it’s about learning to lead the dance.”