I mentored an Afghan newcomer last year. One fall day when we met, she was visibly upset. When I asked her why, she said, “There are monsters everywhere! My neighbors have dead people on their grass and they scream whenever someone walks by. It is so scary!”
I had never looked at American Halloween through unaccustomed eyes. She was right. Without context, venturing into an otherwise friendly suburban neighborhood in October could be at best, strange, at worst, a horror. To her, it was terrifying. Not only was this display of ghouls and supernatural un-deadness incompatible with her religious beliefs, the extent to which we went big at Halloween, unsurprisingly, was completely foreign.
The business of fear is not relegated to the month of October. Afraid to age? Try this cream or dye. Afraid to be unattractive? Try this magazine or diet or make-up. Afraid of falling behind? Try this software or app or service or class. This, though, is the time of year that fear comes out in all its mechanized, inflated glory, and it can, if we let it, get right to the heart of the matter. “Hey. You afraid of death?”
Many of you know that I became a transpersonal therapist after I heard a loving voice in my head: “It’s time for you to help people live better and die without fear.” I said yes and this has became my mission. You can interpret this as two things on a list: 1) Live better, 2) Die without fear. Or, you can see these as whole and continuum — life and death both, fearless and fear free.
So many of us carry degrees of fear always. It can manifest on a scale from low-level anxiety all the way to paralyzing terror. People are afraid of others, of getting hurt, of getting sick, of the unknown, of loss, of failing, of being lost in the crowd, or of being alone. Some are afraid to remember things they don’t or forget things they do. Some are afraid of losing control—of themselves, of the outcome. Many, many people, though, are afraid to die. They don’t know what comes next after the event horizon of death and that scares them… well… to death.
We are human. Humans feel fear. Fear as response is built into our brains and our bodies. A genetic response to fear can even be passed down in our DNA. In addition, we can absorb the fear around us. Babies can take on their mother’s fear in the womb and carry it with them in life subconsciously. We can also soak up the energy of fear when we witness it first-hand, in the news, or in the shows or videos we watch. We can be programmed in fear through our social groups. The way our religion, political party, clubs, family, and friend groups engage with or respond to fear can influence the way we process it ourselves.
I will say two things very simply right now, though:
- Fear precludes the true release into spiritual awakening.
- You do not have to live in fear.
I had the privilege of learning from Bonnie Greenwell before she passed away in January 2022. Bonnie was a non-dual teacher and transpersonal psychologist that dedicated her life to mentoring people through spiritual awakening. Last week, her daughter sent out an email to all her students inviting us to connect to her teaching again by listening to the last class that she conducted in the final months of her life. I accepted that invitation.
I chose a lesson whose title spoke to me. In it, Bonnie spoke of fear. Hearing what she said in the context of her knowing these were the last weeks of her life was very poignant.
Your natural humanness wants to have control. It wants to self-preserve. It wants to be embodied and live. But this physicality is perishable and that makes it vulnerable to the conditions on our planet. So we feel that. You’re going to feel vulnerability at times because the body is indeed vulnerable. The body is not designed to be permanent. The seeking of awakening is the seeking of that which is eternal, which can’t be destroyed, which is always present and which will endure, even when we know for sure that this physical form will not…
Bonnie Greenwell
When fear is there, it is the ego structure. It is the separate self… Your true nature is never going to be afraid.
There are different ways to release fear from your body and your life. I am here to help if you would like. It is possible for you to shift your perspective. It is possible for you to step out of old patterns and access your potential. It is possible for you to set yourself free.
Instead of absorbing and adopting the ideas and ideals that someone else taught us, we can access our own beautiful soul and learn from our deeper, inner wisdom what freedom feels like. We can align with our own true nature to find our place, our work, and our own unique way to contribute to the whole. Then we can live better and die without fear.
The spiritual journey, whether it’s a gradual path or a storm of hello, allows us to transform our way of being. The process empowers us with deeper resources for living in this world so that we are not overwhelmed by it, so that our hearts don’t break under the heaviness of this place, so that fight is not the only answer, and we don’t only associate flight with fear, but with freedom.
Halloween time is here. Maybe when you now see those bleak headstones and frolicking skeletons and Fiat-sized spiders and nodding cats through non-desensitized eyes, check in with what you feel. Reminiscent? Playful? An insatiable craving for peanut M&Ms? I’m guessing not many of you will say “scared.” Why? Because we understand. We know that this is all a game and that, truly, we are safe.
Exactly.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to understand the same about life and death, too?