Two Emotions

Love and Fear

“...everything that divides and separates removes us from what is sacred, and so weakens our chances for joy.”

Mark Nepo (The Book of Awakening)

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote, “There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear.” We humans tend to live in the tension between these opposites. As soon as we feel love in emotions like joy and attraction, we swing into fear of losing it. When we are in fear mode, we build walls, enact rules, gird our loins, so to speak, to protect our tender emotions. In doing so, we separate ourselves from the source of love and joy.

If we are people of faith, we know (at least sometimes) that there is one pulse, one heartbeat of life and that is Spirit. Even if we are not members of any particular religion, we recognize the unmistakable thrumming of life in our veins. If we can stay connected to that source, we feel contentment, hope, optimism, satisfaction—all offspring of love. When we are divided by anything—race, class, gender, orientation, clan, tribe, nationality, religion—we allow fear to disconnect us from life's vital flow. Outside of that which is sacred, there is only discontent, distrust, suspicion—the children of fear.

Today, let us resolve to live in love, and not in fear.

                                                            In the Spirit,

                                                                Jane