Passing Through the Doorways of Fear

But if you step back from the part of your mind that gets anxious about controlling what to do and which way to go, you will start to tap into a sense of inner stillness and maintain a clearer attentiveness to where life itself is taking you at the present moment. And inevitably it will lead you toward a series of doorways. Each time you pass through one of these doorways you will peel off a little more of the sense of separation from the flow of life, or God, or whatever it is that is moving us all toward wherever we are heading.

The most common doorways are the doorways of fear. When you let go of your own agenda life will take you, inevitably, to the threshold of something you fear. When confronting fear, you can do one of two things. Either you face it and continue on in spite of your fear, or you busy your mind and your life in avoiding it. If you try to avoid it, the flow will take you in a circle—sometimes a very small circle, which takes you only a short time to traverse back to the same doorway, other times a very large circle, where it can take years or even decades to arrive back at the same place. You will continue to move in circles back to the same doorway until you finally decide to let go of your busyness, confront the fear, and pass through the doorway.

There are all kinds of fears, and so all kind of doorways to pass through. Fear of letting go of the familiar and comfortable, as when moving to a different area or starting/ending a relationship. Fear of the loss of security, as when changing careers or leaving a job. Fear of acting on something that is important to you—fear of failure, or fear of success. Fear of questioning whether cherished beliefs are actually true or useful to you.

The Christian tradition depicts the process of passing through the doorways of fear in the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. As the story goes, Jesus is wrestling with fear on the eve of his arrest but determines to continue following the will of God wherever it leads him. In this case it leads him right into what he feared, torture and a horrible death—but then through that into resurrection to a new and more wonderful life.

If you face the particular fear you are being presented with you may experience what you fear or you may not, but either way by being willing to pass through the doorway you will find a deeper sense of peace, inner stillness, and oneness with life on the other side. It will feel as though a burden has been lifted from your shoulders, as in fact it has, because you were carrying that fear around with you even though you may not have been aware of it. After passing through many gateways you will eventually be ready to just cast off all fear and go with the flow of life as it presents itself to you.

Start with the gateway in front of you, and face the fear that it invokes in you. On the other side of that gateway is resurrection, a new life, and a deeper experience of the oneness with life that you seek.

© 2010 Alan F. Zundel
 

Alan F. Zundel is a counselor, author, and teacher currently living in Eugene, Oregon. His talks are available to download for free at HeartAwake Center at www.heartawake.org.