When I awoke this morning,
It was eerily quiet.
Even the birds in my garden were not chirping like they normally would.
And with the events sweeping our planet at the moment,
Understandably,
It is quiet.
Our restaurants,
Roads,
Places of work,
Everything is coming to a near halt.
And yeah,
That is scary.
And that does feel threatening.
And of course,
That does invoke fear.
And what I want to share with you today is that fear is only as real as we make it.
And I don't say that lightly because about 18 years ago,
I was living in a state of fear.
Everything posed a challenge or a threat to my very existence.
You see,
I married my junior high and high school sweetheart.
And we have three amazing,
Beautiful daughters.
We even built a dream home in Malibu.
And I worked sunup to sundown and built a successful business.
It was all perfect,
But unfortunately,
Something was missing.
And what I realized that I was functioning from a place of fear.
And right now,
One of the top words that's being Googled in Google search is existential,
Existential threats,
Things outside of ourselves that threaten our very existence.
And I'm not just talking economic existence.
We're talking our lives.
And of course,
Climate change has been the numero uno thing that is going to be threatening us on a go-forward basis.
But here we have a biological threat.
And it's also a psychological threat.
Events like CV-19 really,
In some way,
Are just the beginning of the new norm around the globe,
That we're going to be facing many,
Many more existential threats.
And one of the things that I think about in terms of how do we deal with these threats?
How do we manage our fear?
Well,
We don't.
We really can't control what is happening in our external environment.
And one of the mottos that I've always lived by is that there's no safe places.
There is only safe people.
So I decided,
Well,
I better be a safe person.
And I better get in touch with my fear.
So I asked myself,
What is the purpose of fear?
And in a spiritual sense,
The purpose of fear is to remind us that there is only love,
Because fear is the absence of love.
And of course,
That's touchy feely and feels awfully good.
But ultimately,
What I found was the fear kept arising in my life.
And ultimately,
What I realized is I needed to shift my perspective about the purpose of fear.
And it made me think about,
Well,
That movie some time ago with Michael Douglas called Wall Street.
And Michael Douglas said that greed is good.
And of course,
That's nuts.
But ultimately,
We can also say that maybe fear is good.
In one sense,
It drives us back into love.
It makes us think about what's real and true in our lives,
The love we have of our children,
Of our friends,
Of our community.
And I want to just share with you that I'm seeing that love and that connection and that compassion all over from you and many others.
I was talking with a client yesterday,
And he shared his deep compassion and love for wanting to help others.
And if you look at your Facebook or other social media,
You're seeing people really care.
Yeah,
They think they're experts,
And we know what it is,
But ultimately,
Of course,
We don't really know shit,
And me included.
So I'm not professing to share with you anything maybe you don't know.
Other than what I want to offer is that fear is good in a sense that it moves us towards a deeper love of ourself and a deeper truth of what's meaningful in our life.
You see,
I've always thought about viruses in two senses,
Because the virus that I see in the world is not the virus in the external world or existential threats in the external world.
The greatest threat I found when I was living that picture-perfect life,
I had everything,
And everything wasn't enough.
The greatest threat that I found was internal,
And that I was infected with a virus that was impacting my life and the way I wanted to live it,
And my connection with my children,
My people of work.
I struggled at times to even go out and have fun and hang out with my kids,
Because I was so obsessed with what I needed to do in the world,
Or what I needed to be in the world.
I really became,
Well,
What my agent called me,
A millionaire jerk.
And it didn't feel good.
So what I found is that this virus that I had that was creating my fear was driven by my lack of connection and disconnection with the world around me.
I couldn't feel that world to the extent that I wanted to.
I couldn't love that world to the extent that I wanted to.
Because if I did,
Then that could threaten my very existence.
I would let people into my space.
So I needed to push people away.
I lived in fear.
I needed to defend that idea of myself.
Ultimately,
It left me lonely and unhappy.
So fear can perpetuate not only a manifestation of what you fear,
But it certainly can perpetuate our inner sense of,
Well,
We're alone,
And we need to survive.
And we can actually be threatened in a world.
But quite the opposite is true,
Because there's another virus other than the one that threatens that existence,
Like a corona on the external.
But there's also the malice of the virus within our own psyche that runs and operates from a place of fear.
The other choice,
I say,
Is the virus that's benevolent.
It's the one that's magnificent.
It comes to the world in faith.
It comes to the world in love.
It comes to the world in compassion and understanding.
It sees the moment.
It seizes the moment to be the presence of love and to bring the light forward.
And it's been a long journey for me,
And I've steeply struggled with my own fears.
And as we move into this,
Well,
Chaotic and challenging time in the world,
Let us remember that within us,
We can choose the benevolent virus of love,
Of compassion,
Of living our truth and authenticity.
And I'm overjoyed to see that arising in the world.
Yeah,
There's fear.
And yes,
There will always be existential threats on the globe.
These are the beginning of wild and interesting times.
But together,
We can invoke the benevolence of ourselves and share the hearts and minds and joy of what it means to be human.
The world is still a beautiful place.
People are living and loving and caring for each other like never before.
Well,
I want to send my blessings and Godspeed to you.
May you be safe,
Healthy,
And happy.
Godspeed.
