Big Green Farm, Salem, N.Y.

My own experience with fear began many years ago, but came to a head when I broke down a few years, an experience I partially shared on the blog. Since then, I have gone many miles and to many people and to a lot of different places  in my search to understand fear and move beyond it – therapy, medical doctors,  analysts, pills, music, friends and family,  meditation, massage, Quaker Meeting, Presbyterian Church, Zen Centers, poetry, acupuncture, spiritual counseling. I am getting somewhere. I am going to see myself. It’s inexpensive and effective.

I always try to share what is useful, while keeping the most personal parts to myself.

Through spiritual counseling, I have come to understand how my mind works. How it evolved into a fear-scanning and anxiety machine which sometimes served me well, sometimes not. I have lived in lament and drama. No more drama. No squawking about snow, whining about bills or the state of publishing, living out of fear and anger to the normal exigencies of life. When you stop telling that story out loud, the mind calms down. That is what is happening to me. It works. It isn’t that I won’t squawk or complaint sometimes, of course I will. But it is no longer the story of my life. My insurance company denied a dental claim, and I didn’t tell Maria how unfair that was, I just paid the bill. This has helped me slow down, sleep and open myself up to the joy, love and creativity that are the true and important stories in my life. When I call Customer Service, and get off the phone, I do not grumble about going to Asia.

Drama is uncomfortable for me, now, and when I hear it, I wince, whether it is coming out of my mouth or somebody else’s. I think drama and complaint have become the national ethos. People do not expect to pay taxes or bills, or to have life work in any way but the most inexpensive, self-serving and undemanding. I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t watch the news much so I don’t have to bitch about the news much. Stuff I need to know finds me. When this drama isn’t coming out of my mouth, it is also beginning to flee my mind, looking for a more receptive home. It feels joyous and wonderful. I can’t really even describe it.