Fear as distraction

The frightening ruminations, almost always regarding my adult children, strike most brutally in the middle of the night. Nauseating scenarios of heartbreak, harm, or any number of destructive possibilities play over and over again in my mind like a horror film. Fear has played a huge villainous role in my life for as long as I can remember- snuffing out joy and peace and paralyzing growth and productivity.

A big benefit of growing older is having many years and difficult experiences to reflect on. Five decades in, the futility of all my obsessive worrying now reveals itself with painful yet merciful clarity, exposing the devil’s chokehold on my thoughts and actions. Living in constant dread of the next heartache, failure, or crisis is not living at all.

I’ve heard it said that fear is stagnant while courage is action. When fear becomes all-consuming, I can’t create, connect, take leaps of faith, or find joy in simple pleasures. My health, vocation, and relationships suffer. Fear diverts me from my God-given purpose and fills my soul with darkness and despondency.

In his book, “The Inner Kingdom” Met. Kallistos Ware wrote that:

The “great understanding” or “change of mind” signified by repentance consists precisely in this: in recognizing that the light shines in the darkness, and that the darkness does not swallow it up (Jn. 1:5). To repent, in other words, is to recognize that there is good as well as evil, love as well as hatred; and it is to affirm that the good is stronger, to believe in the final victory of love.

Do my thoughts, habits, words, and decisions reflect my belief in this final victory? The salvific work before me lies in purging my soul of the sin, distractions, and fear I’ve allowed to darken my perspectives and stunt my spiritual growth.

I must simultaneously empty my soul of habits that breed pessimism and anxiety (gossip, complaining, overthinking, judging, doom scrolling, avoidance of ascetical efforts) and daily pursue the peace of prayer, quiet, gratitude, restraint, beauty, order, attentiveness, vigilance, patience…

2 Tim. 1:7 reminds us that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” A life of repentance and asceticism is a return to rest, sanity, and freedom from the passions that breed barrenness and inner turmoil.