Some Thoughts on Fear, Love, Letting Go and Personal Development

The language we use to describe the nature of our lives says a lot about their meanings and typically more can be extracted than what lies on the surface.  For instance, let’s take a look at 2 commonly used phrases: “falling asleep” and “falling in love.”

In both cases, we are using the word “falling” to describe an action, or feeling.  The word “falling” indicates that there must be an initial release, a letting go, a sense of giving in, in order for the end result, in this case, sleep or feeling love.  Perhaps if we have a hard time falling asleep at night, or falling in love, we just have not yet “let go.”

In the case of sleeping, how often do you find it hard to fall asleep because you are thinking of the day’s activities?  Why did I say that?  What did he mean by that text?  I should have done this?  I have to do this tomorrow.  I have this deadline.  We have not yet “let go” of our thoughts and stresses that we cannot then subsequently “fall” into sleep.

I wonder about this with love.  If we are finding it difficult to “fall into love” or opening ourselves to other people, what things are we holding onto?  What things are we afraid to let go of?  If we are falling into love, why do we fear it?  I mean, it’s love for crying out loud!  What is more enjoyable than love?

This sense of holding on, not wanting to let go, can also be seen as a form on survival.  We are fearing the unknown, fearing that our lives will be endagendered if we let go.  This fear response is associated with the reptilian part of the brain, the area of the brain that is responsible for our survival.

This is the area of the brain that controls all the involuntary responses in our body, like breathing, digestion, heart rate and the stress response, and it is also responsible for making sure we have food and shelter.  The reptilian brain is also linked to sex (procreation) and the feelings of fear, anxiety, addiction, worry, greed and competition.

So perhaps the inability to fall in love or fall into sleep, is caused from a thought pattern dominated by the reptilian brain.  If we are always thinking about survival, I have to work tomorrow so I can make money so that I can pay rent (shelter) and buy food, then we cannot actually “let go”.  Perhaps this connection to our reptilian brain is what prevents us from reaching higher levels of awareness and higher states of consciousness.

It’s said that by dreaming, a product of sleeping, we can tap into the deeper areas of our mind, our sub-conscious and the Universal consciousness that we all share.  I believe that the same can be said about being in love.  When we can let go of our need for survival, and “fall” into love, we fall into a beautiful space within ourselves that we are sometimes not even aware of.

It’s like, when we fall in love, we discover parts of ourselvs, hidden corners, and closed doors that we never knew existed.  The more we can “let go”, the more we allow ourselves to love, and the more we can “fall” into love,  I feel the more growth we can achieve as individuals.

If one cannot fall, one cannot rise.  So in the sense of personal development, whether that is reaching higher levels of awareness or just just falling in love, I believe that we must “let go” first.  The trick here, and what can make personal development difficult at times, is figuing out exactly what we are holding on to…which will be the discussion of our next post.