Fear was my biggest problem. I had no idea.
I didn’t know anger was fear. I thought my anger was justified. I didn’t like being angry, but I thought I couldn’t help it. It was a natural response to a broken world and its broken people.
I didn’t know anxiety was fear. I thought my circumstances warranted anxiety. I thought the solution was to change the circumstances. The circumstances were impossible to change.
I didn’t know resentment was fear. I thought my feelings of resentment were justified. My resentments extended back many years. They produced anger, sadness, and discomfort. I was stuck with them.
I didn’t know jealousy was fear. I thought my jealousy was caused by others.
I didn’t know sadness was fear. How could sadness be fear?
The negative feelings were with me for years. I thought they were a permanent part of me and intrinsic to all life. I prayed that the negative feelings would not manifest into illness. They felt like illness. They also produced negative behavior. I worked hard to separate my behavior from my feelings. I didn’t want to behave poorly just because I felt poorly. But I did.
I tried to be positive, but I worried I was simply putting a bright blanket of untruthfulness over the darkness. Wasn’t it better just to accept the negative? I didn’t want to be phony. I took pride in my ability to face the inky black void.
All the time, I was surrounded by light. I couldn’t see it. I thought this dark world around me was the entire world. But my dark world was a delusion. I was the problem. Remove that dark me, and the world goes light. So I removed the dark me.
Spiritual Awakening 
How did “YOU” remove the dark “ME” ?. How is it possible?
Could it be that when the the light was noticed as the true self and eventually was established as “abidance in to the true self” that the conceptual dark ” ME” was not noticed any more. It was never there to begin with.
Too bad you cannot edit the comment. Edit 4th line “noticed”
Also wanted to ask ,
What kind of “Me” are you, now that the dark ” me” is removed?
I hope it is not another sort of “ME”.
I hope not another “ME” too. I edited the comment.
You’re right. It was never there to begin with.
Loved the article Rob, it certainly resonated with me. Thank you
Susan x
When it is seen that there is no separation, the sense of vulnerability and fear that attaches to the individual falls away and what is left is the wonder of life just happening.
I never had a life because there never was an ‘I’. In a split second of eternity it is known that without an ‘I’ everything is being seen for the first time simply as it is.
The light is always within. It’s the ego that covers it up with all sorts of fear dimensions (anxiety, resentment. anger and so on…). The ego feeds on fear. One cannot truly experience love (and therefore, emotional freedom) without having experienced fear.
Perhaps we should all embrace our fears with open arms, that is: without resisting them, without working too hard to separate feelings and behaviors. The harder we try, the less we achieve. I speak by personal experience. It’s challenging but not impossible. Look at us here writing about it… surely something must have already shifted.
Great post, Rob.
Thanks for the comment, Treespirit11. It’s easy to embrace the fear when we realize we have nothing to be afraid of. Something has shifted indeed.
You’re welcome Rob. Apparently we are exactly where we are supposed to be in our lives. Some say that, and I’m starting to give some thought to it. In that case, maybe there is really absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
It takes some work to identify our fears and replace it with love. I think the opposite of love is fear. It’s ego food.
“Fear is ego food.” That’s great Hipmonkey. Thanks for the comment.