Open Up and Face Your Fears

Today's post is an amalgamation of past posts on The Walkabout, which I feel will better convey my message today.

The Things We Don't Say
Exactly two weeks ago, I read this moving post by @JacqueNdinda. It made me both very sad and livid to no end, and I said as such.
The fact that sexual offences continue to happen to people around us is a pointer to bigger ills in our society. What I find especially  worrying about these types of crimes is that the victims are adversely affected for the rest of their lives.

Screw Fear
Back in April 2009, I wrote about the need to overcome fear and doubt in discovering our inner potential. What may not be apparent in that post is the undeniable fact that doing so is never easy.
Sometimes, the circumstances behind that fear may seemingly be out of control.

Yesterday, I visited Faith*. At one point during my stay, she confided that she was recently raped by someone known to her. The trauma has so far made her fearful of men, even those in her family.

I was so taken aback my the pain in her voice and written all over her face, largely because sexual abuse had prior to yesterday, never happened to someone I knew really well. It was always another girl, another lady, another elderly woman, another baby - but never a person close to me.

Cries From the Heart
In his book Cries from the Heart, Johann Christoph Arnold addresses those who struggle in their search for hope and meaning in life. Individual chapters focus on many of life's situations such as emotional suffering, despair, illness, remorse, unanswered prayers etc [see a chapter listing in our blog post].

While some seek understanding in the sciences, technology and varied belief systems, others search within. Still, others seek answers from the supernatural or from a higher power. All these are Cries from the Heart which have continued since time began.

Drained
The search for meaning can at times wear someone down, and the frustrations of elusive meaning and delayed solutions make him/her feel drained.
At this point, one wants more.

Thankfully, someone has written a book that features stories of people who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds and emerged victorious.


All in all, opening up provides a way to start facing and overcoming one's fears. And better still, when in the company of those who can help, and upon reading stories of others who struggled and eventually overcame, it becomes much easier to endure the pain, to have hope, to unrelentingly struggle, and to eventually make it on the other end - victorious.

*name changed to maintain her anonymity.

Dealing with Feelings of Loss when we Let Go

Following @Carolkmail's comment on yesterday's post [about remembering and letting go to move on], let us take sometime to look at loss or feelings of it.

In his book Drained: Stories of People Who Wanted More, Johann Christoph Arnold quotes George McDonald,

a man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself.

In another chapter, aptly titled 'Let Go', he outlines the need to only bite that which we can chew. In Thomas Merton's words,

To surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.

In September 2010, I painfully watched as my dog succumbed to poisoning. My brother and I both knew it was already a good number of minutes after it had swallowed the poison, there was little we could do to help. What really irked me at the time was knowing that I could in no way help it.

When we deliberately let go of persons, things, situations and other matters, the situation is slightly different. I however contend that our resolve to move on should make the juice of progress, no matter how tiny its drops, totally worth the while.

Previously on The Walkabout, we had a post about Paulo Coelho's The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession (P.S.). The following underscores the need to let certain things go in life, simply because by closing a chapter in a story, it then becomes possible to move on to the next one...

...there are always some stories that are 'interrupted,' and they are the stories that remain nearest to the surface and so still occupy the present; only when we close that story or chapter can we begin the next one...

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose.

People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability, or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life.

Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

What are your thoughts on letting go, given its attendant issues?

Drained: Stories of People Who Wanted More

"Words are things,
and a small drop of ink
Falling like dew upon a thought
Produces that which makes thousands,
Perhaps millions, think."
- LORD BYRON

Free Awareness

Carlos Castaneda, a renowned American anthropologist said that "once awareness is free, intent will redirect it to new revolutionary paths". That is what Peter's Walkabout is predicated on, the fact that a closer look at life invariably reveals the bigger picture...

Books have a way of making us take that look. Good books take us to places we never dreamt possible, make us see ourselves in a totally new and different light. These are books worth reading. These are books worth sharing.

Every once in a while, Peter's Walkabout will highlight such a book, and provide a download link wherever possible.

Drained: Stories of People Who Wanted More

This book by Johanne Christoph Arnold is a collection of stories about people who faced seemingly insurmountable odds and emerged victorious.

All this was possible thanks to a longing deep within each one of us, that seeks to realize the best in us and to always make things better.

This book is NOT a cure-all remedy to life's problems, all it offers are stepping stones to a fulfilled life.

Get your copy of  Drained: Stories of People Who Wanted More here.

Let's learn, share and advance.