“There's a lot more to ogres than people think.”

Shrek is a wise ogre who knows something about layers; a word I can no longer hear in any other way than the one Donkey uses in the onion conversation in the first Shrek movie.

We all have layers and I’ve been working on peeling mine away.

I know people in our society don’t like to talk about fear except in conjunction with words such as conquer, overcome or pushed past. However, I believe we do ourselves a disfavor by ignoring the ever present powerful motivator that fear really is in our lives.

There's a lot more to fear than people think.

My exploration of personal fears began, as one might expect, by being consumed by it for a while and finding myself in need of a way to live with it. It is very difficult to spend long periods of time living in mortal fear. Days, weeks and months went by and still it would rear its ugly head unexpectedly in the course of everyday activity.

I've gained acceptance that fear is part of us. We need it to survive, but we can choose to let it dictate our lives or we can explore, understand and use it.
I found that by understanding my fears they lose any power they might hold over my activities and become part of conscious decision-making.

I've decided that talking about facing fear is not helpful. Fear doesn't give a rat's patootie if you're looking at it or not. But if you look hard enough you can choose to accept or reject its role in your life. Some fears are helpful such as not walking blindly off a cliff. Others simply hold you back such as fear of being alone.

A short while ago, someone posted a Buddha quote on Facebook that mentioned that we have 10,000 fears and 10,000 joys. (When I looked up the quote, I found that Buddha taught that there are 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. Yeah internet and FB!)

But the thing that struck me was that there really are 10,000 fears we carry around and allow to limit us and our lives. Some are very basic if you can get to the root i.e. the desire for food, shelter and community. And some are purely First World Fears to borrow a current phrase and distort it a bit.

What I’m finding though is that humans are hard wired to constantly check for scary things nearby. If there are no man-eating tigers or armed hostiles, then the fear becomes more subtle.

As I strip away much of my society’s boundaries for life, I get deeper into and closer/clearer about my motivating fears. My time away last year allowed me to begin peeling away layers of fear, belief, clutchies (things you find hard to "let go" of) and obligations.

At one point, I feared that people would think I simply couldn’t handle life anymore and had given up. But from my perspective, I’m getting close to being free. Many people around me still struggle with primal fears that manifest as mortgages, bad jobs and failing relationships.

Some of the fear-based social norms I’ve let go include fear of not having insurance for that, fear of being poor in my old age, fear of not having a significant other, fear of not being able to take care of myself and fear of being irrelevant.

Some I’m still working on include fear of being considered nuts (although I may have already lost that battle), fear of wasting whatever time I have left and fear that I won’t be able to foster change that helps earth.

 I’m getting out there beyond a lot of First World musts and gaining insight. If you’re interested in letting go of some suffering, I suggest you look for its foundational fear.

I think the sorrows Buddha talks about are founded in our fears. Fear is always about ourselves.

I’m getting lighter these days by digging my way through the 10,000 and I will vouch for the fact that as the fears and sorrows become illuminated the joys shine ever brighter.

Here’s another Facebook internet quote to mull, “We are not just here to keep each other company. We are here to show each other God.” The Divine is light. Shine on my friends.