Love...And Fear?

Have you ever been in love? Selflessly, wholeheartedly and unconditionally in love? Have you experienced a time when you feel so much a part of someone that you feel like they are a second layer of skin? Have you felt like you've met your soul mate? Have you ever felt raw, pure, undiluted love?

I woke up this morning, frantic. Full of hope, yet full of fear. Excited, yet afraid. Strong, yet weak. I woke up this morning realising that I am in love.

It is such a strange feeling. You love, but at the same time, you feel vulnerable - afraid to openly commit, afraid to love, afraid of what may be, or afraid of what may not be. You want to step out on that ledge, but fear grips you. What if the ledge gives way from beneath you? What if you fall so many feet to the ground that you are hurt? So hurt you may never walk again? So hurt, you never love again?

I spent some time this morning frantically calling my two closest friends, wanting some reassurance that I am not going crazy. Wanting some reassurance that they will not have me committed. Wanting some reassurance that what I am feeling is real - and normal.

I was struck when one of them said to me, "Camille, enjoy the feeling".

And in that moment, I realised that instead of focusing on how alive I had been feeling all morning, I spent my entire morning worrying and living in fear of what I was feeling. Why is it so hard to just enjoy what God has given you? Why is it so difficult to accept freely what the universe has provided or given? Why must we feel that we are not worthy of feeling alive with joy, hope, love and anticipation?

I think that's what it boils down to - we think that we are not worthy of feeling the very intense emotions we feel. An emotion so intense as love. And so we resist it and sub-consciously find ways to mess it up. We over-analyse our feelings and make incorrect interpretations and judgments.

So the question is, can we really fear love? Is it truly love if we live in fear? As I type, I am closer to understand that love and fear are two completely different emotions. On love's side there is joy, peacefulness, happiness, forgiveness, and a host of others. On the other hand, fear reflects hate, depression, guilt, inadequacy, discontentment, prejudice, anger, attack, and so on. These two emotions are incapable of co-existing. Where there is one, the other cannot be also.

One will leave immediately, should the other enter its presence. When I am experiencing great joy, and am suddenly overtaken by fear, the joy is gone. And if I am terrorized, frightened, or otherwise threatened in any way, I just need to turn to the love within, and the fear disappears.

Learning to make the active choice to love and not fear in every situation is the way to find inner peace. And learning to accept God's gifts and grace is another way of finding inner peace.

I declare today that I will relinquish the fear - the fear of being hurt, the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of disappointment and the fear of falling. Today I declare that from now on I will do one thing...One thing only...

Today, I will simply "enjoy it".