Can We Choose NOT to Live in Anger and Fear?

When we choose NOT to live in anger and fear, we will experience more joy and less suffering in our lives. And we will introduce less pain into other people’s lives.

Recently, I had a conversation with a good friend in the deconstruction community. He described how he overcame his fear of leaving church. Although I had never focused on overcoming my fear, I realized that my story required overcoming fear, too. Many of us live in fear of death or hell or loss of some kind.

Christianity is generally more doctrinal, exclusive and evangelical than other religions. Because there is more emphasis on “right” beliefs, there is more emphasis on fear, such as the fear of hell. “What if I am destined (or, worse, predestined) for eternal conscious torment?”

Some Christians have other fears, mostly associated with separation and sin. “Did I separate myself from God? Have I exposed myself to Satan’s influence? Will I be ‘left behind’ in the rapture?”

These fears derive from specific Christian beliefs. A universalist does NOT fear hell. A nondualist does NOT fear separation. And a person who reads the Bible metaphorically does NOT fear Satan. Except for some Evangelicals, most people (including most Christians) do NOT fear the rapture. There are over 45,000 Christian denominations, and they do NOT all believe the same things.

Many people in other sacred and secular traditions do NOT have these fears. In many traditions, Ultimate Reality is “a part of us,” rather than “apart from us.”

Deconstruction and Fear

Some people normalize or rationalize these fears unless or until they leave Christianity. Maybe the comfort of thinking that they hold “right” beliefs outweighs the discomfort of living with the fear, guilt and shame resulting from a theology based on separation and sin.

For those deconstructing from Christianity, there is also a significant amount of fear. “If I do NOT believe in Christianity, what do I believe? What if I have abandoned my ‘right’ Christian beliefs and embraced these ‘wrong’ other beliefs?” Many deconstructed Christians retain their previous Christian worldviews, including their Christian fears. I wrote about that here.

Of course, our old Christian beliefs might NOT be right, either. Could we confirm any of our old beliefs, either experientially or intellectually? Worse, did our old beliefs cause us to behave badly, perhaps by marginalizing LGBTQ people, non-Christians, or women?

For some who leave church, they NOT only leave familiar beliefs. They also leave familiar people and places. Some people wonder, “Should I stay, despite my discomfort with my church’s beliefs, or should I leave, despite the loss of community and the shunning that I will likely experience?”

Developing a spiritual practice and finding a spiritual community after leaving church might be the biggest issues facing those who leave. I will be writing more about this topic in the future.

Can We Overcome Our Fears?

We can experience more joy. After my discussion with my friend about overcoming fear, I found a book, When Fear Falls Away, by Jan Frazier, in my favorite bookstore. Synchronicity.

Frazier experienced a spiritual awakening while she was awaiting a possible cancer diagnosis. One night, while she was anxiously anticipating her mammogram the next morning, she wondered, “Could I maybe do this without being terrified?” Instantly, her fear fell away. She writes, “The absence of fear did not come from somehow ‘knowing,’ in advance, that there was no cancer….”

“If it turned out the news was bad, I would start to deal with it then—not prematurely, before the mammogram happened…. Fearlessness is a flimsy commodity if it depends on a known outcome.  I knew that if it turned out I did have cancer, I would have the inner resources to deal with it…. I knew I would be okay in the most fundamental sense, even if my breasts were not okay.”

Now, think about something like the fear of hell in the same framework. “Could I do this without being terrified?” Is there a hell? Nobody knows. What is it like? Nobody knows. Will I go there? Nobody knows. Can I avoid going there? Nobody knows.

Should we actively engage with the immediate, observable reality of the here and now, rather than prematurely worry about the future, imagined fantasy of our worst-case scenarios? Of course.

“Are You Trying to Hurt Me? There’s No ‘Me’ to Hurt.”

I have a Zen practice. Zen is grounded in concepts like impermanence, non-attachment and no-self, which might sound sterile or unfeeling.  But it is NOT. In fact, Zen does not train us not to feel; it trains us not to fear. Zen trains us to stay in the present, NOT to regret the past or worry about the future. In so doing, we can live more authentic lives with compassion and wisdom.

Zen distinguishes pain (what happens to us) from suffering (how we react to it), like a cancer patient who chooses NOT to be fearful. Or like a friend who chooses NOT to be angry.

The other day, I accidentally angered a friend, who lashed out at me in a nasty text message. It felt like a sticky ball of rage simply bounced off my chest. “Are you trying to hurt me?” I thought. “There’s no ‘me’ to hurt.” I chose NOT to respond in kind, NOT to see my friend’s outburst as a personal attack, and NOT to take the bait. I accepted his rage without anger or fear.

We Can Experience More Joy

Frazier likes mystic Franklin Merrell-Wolff‘s description of “high indifference,” when our happiness does NOT depend on our outcomes. Frazier writes, “When fear left, all these other things—abilities, insights, profound tenderness—came rushing in.” Is it sterile or unfeeling to respond with compassion and wisdom, rather than anger and fear? Of course not.

When we choose NOT to live in anger and fear, we will experience more joy and less suffering in our lives. And we will introduce less pain into other people’s lives.