I am open-minded.
Life taught me to open up, dissolve bias, be humble and face my fears. Fear makes you see what is not there because fear is illusion, not real. Fear appears to be real. Fear seems real. Fear even feels real. But appearances and seemings are not real. Just because you feel something does not make it real or true.
Fear is ego's excuse to remain comfortable, safe and bound. Comfort signals regression, safety is an illusion in a world of constant change and being bound consumes your freedoms.
Fear has a funny way of following you around like a little puppy until you face, feel and release fear. I recall moving out of the house roughly 6 months ago. After selling the crib we had to find homes for our 3 cat-children. Each felt like our babies. We loved our kitties deeply.
For no less than 4 months, my wife and I broached the topic of what we would do with the cats but immediately stopped talking about it, for a deep fear-pain of letting go our beloved kitties. My wife would tell me she did not want to talk about it, vehemently. I agreed. Or at least I did not press the issue.
Finally, we had no choice. We sold the house. Either we found homes for the cats. Or we placed the kitties in a shelter. We did find loving homes for the kitties but the crying, purging and utter release I experienced during a violent, 5 minute stretch revealed all the deep fear I had bottled up and avoided during the 3 month stretch. I began to vomit, I cried so deeply and violently, after placing the last cat in the carrier.
Life becomes hell if you do not face your fears because fear-feelings in your being enslave you, depress you and flat out make your life miserable. How can you ever deeply enjoy life's freedoms if you fear to enjoy life's freedoms? Fear follows you closely if you duck or avoid fear because you cannot get over what's still in you.
No one gets over fear. People must walk through fear to be baptized by these energies.
Until you face fear and release fear, fear follows you, eventually manifesting as mental and/or physical illness. Pay particularly close attention to humans who suffer through mental and physical dis-ease, or, both. Suppressed fear is a root cause of their mental and physical maladies. Of course, fear had been trying to get their attention for years or even decades, usually through milder mental issues or mild sickness. But ignoring these important red flags and ducking your fears results in the red flags becoming more obvious, dangerous and dramatic.
Imagine smoking like a chimney in your teens. Humans smoke to calm the nerves, aka, to attempt to dissolve their fears. Turning to cigarettes at a serious clip versus looking within to face your fears results in needing a lung transplant in your 30's.
The Fear Red Flag: Repressing deep fears and refusing to face these fears manifest as engaging in a habit that destroyed your lungs in your 30's. Most folks quit smoking, face their fears, feel their fears and live a healthy, enjoyable life, at that point. A few folks more deeply resist their fears, get the transplant, smoke even more, for decades, and die of lung cancer at a young age. Cigarettes did not kill the individual. Nor did dis-ease. An intimately personal, genuine decision not to face their fears created the smoking habit, health red flags and premature death, their fears following them around for decades.
Face your fears.
Be free.