One of the most impactful duos that fear can’t compete with is the marriage of exposure and receptivity. When our fears are revealed, either to ourselves or to others, and met with human acceptance, validation and compassion, they finally have the space they need to exist without the unnecessary need to persist. For me, when my fear is present, I’m either anxious in my body and/or mind or I’m heavy and disjointed, both rather all-consuming in their own ways. Sometimes the fear enters in such haste that I can’t help but go looking for its origins outright so I can eradicate it quickly it. Other times, the fear creeps up so slowly that I don’t realize I’m in boiling water until my feet are on fire. These are the moments when outing myself seems to matter most, when any amount of information about myself that I’m currently armed with is more than enough to extinguish its flames. These are the simple, yet powerful communications that set my fear free.

When you hear the subtle or loud cries of your own fear, speak for them and from them as you share with others who can receive you, even if just with yourself aloud. Because fear is often avoided or overindulged in our world, people often don’t realize that a sweet spot is possible where sharing what you’re afraid of is both nourishing to your nerves while equally supportive to your own resiliency and well-being. Fear isn’t good or bad; it’s a call for deeper presence and deeper connection.

Today, I did mostly nothing by the standards of the average American. I did house chores, some fabricated and some necessary. I did a few hours of excel work, which by my usual timeline was actually a heavier day than most. I checked a few items off the lagging to-do list, and I added a few more for tomorrow. I spent way too much time looking at the smallest screen in my house, my iPhone.

Much of the day I felt a very familiar fog of existence, the one where I’m veiled to an experience that others can feel that I can’t. Growing up, I felt this veil pretty regularly. I walked around with a relatively clear mind encased in a lethargic fogginess that often kept me listless and low energy. Even when I wasn’t completely conscious of it, I imagined that something was wrong with me. Other people seemed to be energetic and in touch with an enthusiasm for life that I wasn’t. I wasn’t depressed, life just had a particular vagueness that I could never quite specify.

As I’ve gotten older and worked on a lot of my conditioned behavioral responses, this fog has mostly lifted; some of it an incredibly intelligent protective response to circumstances that felt scary or out of my control as a kid. Yet, remnants still remain. On a day like today, nothing parts the clouds, not a food, not a plan, not a cry, not an accomplishment, not a goal. I know not to try.

Perhaps this is being, not so pure and not so sexy. Perhaps striving for being in the form of embodiment is another cloak of ‘doing’ not much different than the holy grail of earlier decades’ intentions to achieve mindfulness. Perhaps this is what is left when achievement is laid to rest, the intolerable tone of nothingness with nothing to fill it.

I don’t often write to you directly. I’m talented at skirting around the need by telling my own personal stories or making observations of the general “we” of humanity, but never to you specifically. The truth is, I’m afraid of you; your specificity, your personal judgements, your singular history, your particular opinions. When I write to “you all,” I rather confidently speak to how I see the human condition as a whole. It’s vast and inclusive…and safe. But you are a unique being. Your individual opinion matters, yet I don’t have patience nor desire to deal with your uniqueness independent of the whole. I love the whole because nothing gets left out. When I write to you directly, I’m forced to narrow the whole to a fraction of what a human is capable of. When I write to you directly, I have to take aspects of you more seriously than I care to and I have to be willing to hold parts of you closer to my heart than I wish. When I write to you directly, it puts us on the same playing field; a field that I’m afraid will miss me entirely, or trample me with its speed and intensity that I fear I can never match. When I write to you directly, I can’t seem to help but tell you what to do instead of giving you the space to figure it out for yourself. I admit, I often don’t have the confidence that you will. I realize that I won’t ever reach you if I don’t come down off the pedestal from which I climbed up myself. Yet, I avoid the need altogether so I don’t have to face my own misgivings — my imperfection, my missing the mark, my laziness, my judgement, my ignorance. It seems my fear of you is more accurately my fear of me.

The days after a tragedy often brings the humanity right out of people. I noticed it during the weeks and months after 9/11, how soft spoken and kind we all were with each other, how thoughtful, how caring, how interested in other people’s reality we seemed to be. I’m witnessing and participating in this now, too, in my small slice of Colorado. How patient and considerate busy shopkeepers are on the phone after getting dozens of inquiries about donation drop off and how disproportionally grateful altruistic strangers are to distribute them for me, as if my actions of dropping off items that no one in my family has touched for years are somehow award-worthy in nature.

It’s ironic, no matter how much we “give back” in little or big ways during the “normal” periods of our lives sans tragedy, how relevant anything we contribute then becomes when we focus on what matters most during a tragedy. It’s not that it matters less when we take our eyes off the prize of humanity, it’s merely that we’ve let ourselves slip back into the status quo of normalcy. Over the next few weeks and months, and surely years, we’ll check Facebook less for updates on how we can help. We’ll get caught up in school and work activities. We’ll still think about those affected, maybe even check in on them from time to time, but they’ll receive far less help than they are now, when hopefully, they won’t need it as much.

I don’t blame us for this pattern. In many ways, it seems quite biological to show up heavily during an emergency and reduce that support as it is needed less. But, what usually falls by the wayside along with such urgent charity is its accompanying kindness. An additional tragedy is that our hearts close once again. During tragedy, we seem to be touched by the true vulnerability of what it is to be human so much so that it brings us close to people we barely know. It isn’t that we become more interested in other people’s reality during these times; instead, we share in their reality, even if it looks far from our own. I don’t know on the physical plane what it is like to experience my house burning down or losing my precious furry companions in the process, but something within my human heart shares in this universal heartache just the same. This is the sharing that keeps us deeply connected, that keeps our hearts open to the kind of kindness that doesn’t cease when physical support is no longer needed and when the urgency of our own lives take priority once again. So, as the dust settles, literally this go around, my hope is that we don’t stop sharing the experience of our hearts with one another; just one of many ways to bridge the gap of humanity that we so often don’t realize that we’re self-creating.

Today, I am in love. I could conjure up a grievance from which to write but none are heavy enough to take seriously. Mike’s shape is loving yet prickly from hours of programming and I find it endearing. Funny how the behaviors of those around us matter only in relationship to how we receive them. Some days, his prickles rub me the wrong way. I aim to change their form completely or remove myself from their vicinity altogether in an attempt to keep my peace intact. Other days, like today, I rub myself against their edges voluntarily, softening their points ever so slightly with my willingness to be with them in their truth. I love these days because my joy, lightheartedness, and playfulness easily meet Mike just where he is and neither of us needs to change. I love the contentment that comes from weaving in and out of connection while being free to be who we are as we ebb and flow, knowing fair well that usually happens in an instant. Perhaps this is what allows love to flow — the freedom to just be. When I don’t feel free…to rest, to express, to create, to be, just as I want to be, I’m no good for love. When I do, I’m the conduit for it that love intends for me to be.

I’m gliding very slowly into 2022, pausing in the timelessness of a new year began and a past year ended. I love these days, these weeks even, when there isn’t a mark on time. Even when I attempt to keep it this way as we descend deeper into the cold winter months, life picks up speed and before I know it, I’m squarely in a new year whether I like it or not.

The old days of resolutions and grand plans. The witness of those I know and don’t know setting intentions to take certain steps forward. This year, in this time, I want to be still. There is nothing I can conjure up that would satisfy an urge for more. In many ways, I want less. Less content, less productivity, less debate, less self-focus, less complication.

Underneath the stillness is a heartbreak with which the spirit of new year cheer doesn’t mix well. I am lucky, I am more content than ever before, and I am more heartbroken just the same. Through my eyes, I watch humanity burn itself to the ground at a speed not much slower than the fires that rocketed through our sweet section of Colorado two days ago. Man-made or divinely made, I see little difference.

Amongst the incredible open hearts of those present to catch those that lost everything, just as many hardened ones filled social media to turn offering help into another reason for disconnection. An opportunity for the purity of humanity to emerge upended by the noise of ignorance and separation. When will we see that we’re all in the same boat headed to the very same place?

If there is anything I dare to dream for 2022, it is that each person’s individual word of manifestation and reclamation is the same - goodness. What more could any of us really need by way of growth than to become as good as we possibly can be? This is how we each get what we think we want (and so much more!) while making it our priority that others reap the benefit of sharing in such goodness.