FEAR OR LOVE
by Donna Marie Pritchard
As published in 11:11 Magazine Issue January - February 2013
Donna Marie Pritchard | Email: donnapsavage@live.com | 24 Hour Message Center: 803-360-6255
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My fears are great at camouflage, masquerading as conflicting thoughts that cycle over and over in my mind— gaining
momentum until I feel overwhelmed. When I finally notice the gyrations, I remind myself that the thoughts and the
associated emotions are not valid. I must not trust them. My ego has tapped into its arsenal of fears to freeze my
progress. When this happens, I have to create a space wherein the mental noise will die down. Only then will I make
clear, balanced choices.
This past spring, after a futile year of trying to sell my home on San Juan Island, Washington, I gave up. It was time to
return to do some maintenance and secure a new tenant. My experiences and memories of the island were so loaded
that in just planning the trip, I could feel the powerful pull of my prior life there.
San Juan Island is a powerful vortex for me. I lived there eleven years and developed a high concentration of close friends, a powerful community connection, and a successful career. Simultaneously, I experienced a period of active, awake expansion that both derailed and enhanced my life. At the heart of it all, embodying this significant period of transformation was my Beach House—a "tear-down" that I had painstakingly remodeled into a spacious, light-filled retreat that I lived in for barely a year.
No sooner had I turned my car in the direction of the Islands than I felt the energy of my old life building, luring me into its familiar territory. I decided to keep my options open and take the Beach House off the market the next day. However, by the time I drove onto the ferry transport to the island twelve hours later, I had a buyer with a valid offer.
The next morning, I awoke to the sounds of seagulls and the glorious views of the ocean from my bed. The seduction was complete. It felt so real, so true, so right for me— I was home! How could I possibly give it up?
I collapsed into the sheer love of all that I cherished there, and told my agent I was not going to sell. Never mind that selling the house had been my plan for the past year. Never mind that I had trepidation over going back. Never mind that I had been away for two years. Never mind that my life in Sun Valley, Idaho was going well.
I was at a crossroads between all that had been my life and a whole new life, and I was holding fast to the past. My agent advised me to give it some time, and persuaded the potential buyer to wait.
I was tangled up in thoughts as I tried to determine the best course of action. I had doubts percolating about my intense emotional response to returning “home.” I recalled how deeply I felt the energy there—wonderful for a few weeks, but consuming and exhausting on a daily basis. Over the next few days, my fears of making a wrong decision were jumbled up like the ping-pong balls in a bingo air machine. I observed the erratic bantering of my thoughts, a solid clue that I could not trust anything that I was feeling. I turned it over to Source, and requested clarity for the highest and best good for myself, the house, and all concerned. I asked, “What is my next step?”
Lana showed up the next day. She is my close friend, and a trained spiritual mentor who facilitates transformative work through deeply focused prayer. We were sitting in the living room of the Beach House, and she was guiding me to encapsulate all my feelings about selling the house in one phrase while she prayed.
“This is my security… this is my security…this is my security… ” Over and over I silently repeated this phrase, following her directive to stay focused on it as other thoughts and emotions tried to crowd it out. As I did so, another phrase bumped up against it every time with, “this is NOT your security.” The two phrases volleyed back and forth in my mind vying for control.
As I focused on the phrase, my mind was flooded with images of houses I had owned, all dilapidated dumps. Flowing in were memories of intense dedication to clearing and renewing the land, cleaning, painting, and fixing up each place—hard work that I had undertaken as I created lovely conscious-centered homes in which to live and thrive. I recalled the joy I felt in the metamorphous of each property and the sense of celebration; then the sadness and futility I felt because I had lived in each of them only briefly.
During my time in the Islands, the primary remodeling had been of myself, though it had often occurred in tandem with the remodeling of a home. The homes were mirrors of my internal work.
That old Beach House was in such bad shape when I bought it that all five experts that I consulted offered the same advice—tear it down. Yet, I saw its core and what it could become. I had been attracted to fixer-uppers all my adult life— both houses and people. It felt good to be the catalyst for a complete wreck to become a dream come true. I liked getting down to the bones of a building or seeing the essence of a person’s heart.
As Lana held the pulse on my energy, the images from the beach house and other past homes faded as the phrases battled for control, “This is my security.” …“This is NOT your security.”
Then, something shifted. The phrases folded one into the other, the meaning of the second phrase intertwining with the meaning of the first. Only the first phrase remained, now pulsing to me as before, but showing me a new revelation. “THIS is your security… THIS is your security…THIS is your security…”
The phrase had turned inside out and I was filled with a flowing, pulsing sensation that I can only loosely describe as a combination of light and wisdom and benevolence pouring through my crown and permeating my body.
I recognized IT immediately! I was reminded that this feeling, this knowing, THIS is my security. Call IT what you will. Lana refers to it as GOD. What I sensed was a never-ending flow of energy that cannot be turned off but that can be tuned out. The session ended and my body released a flood of emotion as I realized that I had blocked the only guidance I need. I had forgotten that IT is present even when I am not.
Lana facilitated opening my channels. With her help, I released the fears that held me captive in confusion. I saw that my desire to hold on was rooted in the sadness of seeing those houses and people pass from my life. I saw how discouraged I felt over working so hard to create one beautiful home after another…and then leaving each one behind. I was now out of my own way. Right action could now flow in a timely manner. Guidance could now come to me.
Since I had a tenant for the house, I knew for certain that I was to return to Sun Valley. I started packing my most precious items, starting with my altar. To my surprise, I found a single angel card with a crystal laying on it, apparently left behind by “accident” when I moved. This card had not been part of my deck of angel cards for those two years! The word on the card was: SURRENDER.
As I pondered the card, I recalled that a close psychic friend had advised me to return to the island because there was something left there unfinished—something to be retrieved. It was ironic that the retrieval had to do with letting go of the past.
So, I surrendered. I went with the flow. I negotiated a fair transaction. I got rid of the majority of my possessions, visited a few friends, and left the Beach House knowing it was in good hands and would be loved.
As I worked on final maintenance items the last week I was there, I accidentally dropped my cell phone in a bucket of paint. I laughed out loud! My cell phone held the numbers of all the people close to me. In a sense, it was my only connection to my past or present. I was fully unplugged for the rest of that week.
It was then that I got it. My house, my relationship, my job, my friends, my life in all its details—all important to me—are not the source of my security. To make any one of them so is to place too great a burden or limitation on something that is meant to flow and change.
So, when I turn to my partner to make me happy, I place a burden on our relationship and on him to measure up to my standard, and to possibly sacrifice his own needs to satisfy mine. When I become stressed about my work, I forget that my job does not define who I am. When I worry about money, I forget that the abundance I desire flows from a universal stream. The worries and fears escalate until I notice them and recognize that I am off course— their only useful function.
I am reminded of a dream from many years ago: I am in a cafeteria service line and all the servers are monks in orange robes with shaven heads and the queue of black hair at the crown. I pile my plate high and join some friends for the meal. Once I have eaten all my food, I go back for a second helping even though I really am full. I return to the line and one monk looks directly into my eyes and says, “This has been waiting for the one whose soul hungers. This is all you need.” With those words, he reaches under the counter and brings out a white porcelain cup and places it in front of me.
The next day, I bought an empty white cup and it became my reminder that when I am overly full of whatever details are in my life, there is very little time or room for the flow of Spirit. When my plate (or cup) is overflowing, I can be grateful for the abundance, yes —but it is likely also time for me to do some housekeeping. It is time to clear out my mundane world so that the Universal Stream may flow unhindered through me and so that I can feel it. When I surrender to IT, I am then guided to make choices that reflect back to me those qualities I desire in my life. THIS IS MY SECURITY. THIS IS ALL I NEED.
Everything else is a facade, false information luring me into a state of dependency on a mirage that is impossible to sustain. Fear is the only thing that ties me up, keeping me from accessing my deepest power. Fear makes me believe in it —believe that the fearful thoughts represent reality when the opposite is true.
WHAT IF? What if a motivation of fear were replaced with a motivation of LOVE — Living Only Vibrant Energy?
To live from a basis of love means every choice I make is based upon whether it will bring more love to myself and to others. It means that I will place a desire to love above fear of pain. It means that I will not be seduced by the comfort zone that pain provides — an excuse not to shine my light. Love-based choices will motivate me to move in a direction that expresses my eternal self to the fullest degree possible. Love sets me free. Living Only Vibrant Energy, my new mantra, challenges me, inviting me to step into the golden age with an open heart.
"The most important thing ... is to give
up who you are for who you can become."
DONNA MARIE PRITCHARD
