In the last few months I have been taking a family recovery class. It has been challenging, hard, personal growth. I am far from being healed, but I am working it as hard as I can.
One thing I have heard several of the interviewed experts say is that humans have two main emotions, love and fear. It has taken me a long time to process this statement. What about joy and sadness? I feel those things also. So what could they possibly mean by saying we only have two main emotions.
What I have come to interpret is that as a motivation for change or to take action, those two emotions are the reason we make choices. We choose change either for love or out of fear. That can be a love for money, time, education, a pet, an object, ourselves or someone else. It can be from fear of consequences, judgement, losing someone, the past or even from fear of the future.
I have mentioned in previous blog posts, almost every decision I have made or failed to make has come from fear. That is the one trait I would change in me if I could change anything. In these last months I have had to verbally tell myself, you are afraid. What are you afraid of? Is what you are afraid of true? What are the facts driving your fear?
Those questions and answers alone have made me realize most of the time, the fear is something I am causing in my thinking, not in present time with present circumstances. I will continue to work on this aspect of my life, because it gives me crippling anxiety. Breathing helps, moving helps more and praying helps the most, yet my mind still likes to go back to that fear.
My goal in the next several months is to figure out how to retrain my brain into doing things for love, not fear. The main reason for this is because when we do things out of love we take our time and think of the reason we are doing it. We do so with patience and deliberate actions. Fear causes us to make hurried decisions in the spur of the moment. Those choices usually end in chaos or regret. Love is kind and true and with good intention.
Fear can be a powerful motivator and when we fear for someone else it seems like we are always making the decision with the right intention. But the truth is, making a loving choice is not always the easiest, it is not always the most comfortable, but it is the purest choice you can make for yourself and for others. I invite you to look at these two emotions and how they drive your decision making. Do you want to spend your life making hurried anxious decisions out of fear? Or would you rather take your time, examine your heart and choose for love?
Serenity Family Recovery 