THE PATH OF FEAR

For several years, I saw a therapist: we slowly worked through my fears, triggers, and anxieties. I had one really big fear—the fear of losing love, something I thought I had found for the first time in my life, because I had never before experienced such strong, selfless affection toward anyone. I thought that if I lost this love I would never regain that strong feeling with anyone else. This fear was a real burden, it horrified me, made me neurotic, because there was no point living without love, but life with love that came with so much fear, pain, and other negative manifestations, dependencies, and tensions was becoming a threat to my health.

During one session I meditated and worked through this issue and realized that my love was my ability, which I discovered thanks to that person. But since I had discovered it and I knew what it meant TO LOVE someone, it would never leave me, regardless of whether I stayed with that man or not. This was my gift, to feel this love inside me forever. 

A few days after the session with the therapist, I had a dream in which I was alone, walking down a sandy path in a dark, wet pine forest, and suddenly saw a snake crawled in front of me. I am very scared of snakes and seeing them somewhere sends me into a state of shock. I froze. It was like I turned to stone, I couldn’t move forward. When the snake disappeared from sight, I came to my senses a little and took two steps forward. I saw that the road was intersected by a ditch with hundreds of black snakes intertwined in water and clay. Paralyzed with fear, I couldn’t move in any direction. I stood still, barely breathing, losing control of my body as it started to slowly slide on the wet ground and into the ditch, toward the snakes. At that moment I thought I was going to die. Having sunk into the swarming goo up to my shoulders, choking with fear, I went through the entire spectrum of despair, helplessness, and feeling that this was the end. But after sitting there for some time, I realized I had nothing left to lose. Somehow coming to my senses, I hesitantly started to throw snakes away from me and crawled back onto the other side of my sandy path. I returned to the path safe—I hadn’t been bitten—and continued my journey. Living through fear changed me, of course. It left a mark on me, and a memory. When I woke up, I realized that I was no longer afraid of losing love, because my love is my feeling and it is always with me, inside me, regardless of whether I am in a relationship or not. After that everything in my relationship began to change, and I soon separated from PP.