I’d been meaning to write this piece for months. I’m learning to turn fear into love and make it work for me, not against me. Today, I woke up thinking about it. I’m ready.

I’ll start by saying I agree with the idea that love exists only in the present and only when we are truly present for one another. In the storm of distractions we live in, that is not easy.

Four mantras contain all four elements of true love as described by the Buddha: love, compassion, joy, and freedom. I am using them in my life with Maria; they nourish a great love and keep it alive in two fearful people.

And this is the mind-rattling part of it for me.

They are helping me turn a lifetime of fear into a lifetime of love.

I  can do something with Maria that I could never do with any other human being in my lifetime.  I  can say, “Dear One, I am Suffering. Please Help.” And it helps. That was just one of the mantras. That is what love is.

The minute I say it, I feel safer and better.

She feels better when I tell her that I know she is suffering and I am here to help her. She knows she has to do it herself, but she knows there is someone who loves her. It works both ways.

We have both lived with fear all of our lives; we are now living with love every day of our lives instead.

All my life, I’ve struggled to manage my own money, think ahead and look ahead, and fight off the impulses and anxieties of a traumatized child.

A month ago, facing economic change and turmoil in the world,  I turned to Maria in bed one morning and said, “I can’t do this alone. I need your help.” I had been hiding my fears for a long time.

It was the first time I’d ever spoken those words.

And so we are doing it together, and it is working; I am figuring it out and being fully transparent with her.

I’ve cast away the fear that has always surrounded my life with money. She thanked me for trusting her and sharing this task with her.

When Maria has a panic attack, she no longer rushes out to the woods to hide it. She comes into my office and says, “I need help.” And I make it clear that I love her and am here to help her. And then, she rushes out to the woods.

We are bounded; we don’t take over one another crises, but we are there for each other and willing to help. That feeling alone helps.

She needed to hear that from me. I needed to say it to her. I don’t need to say these things a loud; I don’t even have to be in the room. They are about a state of mind.

I owe this change to the idea of turning fear into love.

Honestly, it is the best thing I can do for the person I love to be present, not just physically but emotionally and consciously,  what the monks call mindfully.

How can I love someone if I am not fully there?

For most of my life, I was never fully there for anyone, and no one was fully there for me.

I am fully there for Maria, and she is fully there for me. Being present is natural for her; it is sometimes a task for me. We are turning fear into love.

_______

 

I have a therapist I’ve been talking to on and off for nearly 15 years.

She understands me – the good and the bad –  as well as anyone in the world except Maria, but Peggy may know me a little bit better.

She is honest,  bounded, and challenging.

I never get away with a thing; she cannot be charmed, diverted, or manipulated, and she has, more than any person or thing, taken my mental illness and helped me to heal, become reasonable, rational, and safe.

In her work, she is fearless; she has helped me understand what authenticity means.

My illnesses are not curable, but they are treatable. I am learning to live with them and live the life I wanted but could never find.

Some people see the good in me, and some see the bad; I have learned that I am sometimes toxic and sometimes a productive brew of them both. The good in me never left. Neither did the bad.

Mental illness is never about being good or bad. It is about being sick and healthy.

There is Something – many things –  positive about emotional trauma.

I have learned how to survive and be strong.

I recover daily and have learned much about empathy and compassion.

I’ve learned a lot about how to cope and adapt.

An analyst in New York diagnosed me as suffering from severe and generalized anxiety. (I am also Dyslexic).

Peggy reminded me the other day that I often used the term “terrified” to describe my childhood and said it should have been treated but never was.

She asked me to be specific about what terrified me. It was quite a list.

I blamed my parents for not dealing with this, but as I got older, I realized they were probably stymied and had no idea what to do with a troubled creature like me.

Back then, immigrant families knew little about mental illness, even though many suffered. And no one knew anything about Dyslexia.

Their sons and daughters were all in law and medical school or studying accounting; A college dropout, I was dodging the police in New York trying to write about the Vietnam riots and eating Sicilian pizza every night for dinner.

The list of things that terrified me when I was young was so long that it surprised both Peggy and me when it came rolling out of my mouth.

It was right there on the surface as if it was yesterday.

I was terrified of just about everything. I could mask it much of the time, but not permanently. It crippled and shaped my life. I was afraid for my very existence.

So when I came across a philosopher who wrote about turning fear to love, I paid attention.

Peggy and I have worked together for years to turn my fear into love and ease its place in my life, so I had a head start. This has triggered my growing turn to meditation, philosophers, mystics, and mantras.

I’ve learned a lot. I’ve changed a lot.

_______

Mostly, I learned that you don’t change just by wanting to. You have actually to change.

I see now that this is possible to do.

It takes hard work, discipline, and quiet – meditation, contemplating, and some space to think. Having someone to love is a profound incentive.

It also takes the will to face the truth about myself; that may be the most challenging part.

I have learned to be open about my illness, vulnerability, and need.

This has made me more sensitive to the vulnerability and needs of others.

The idea of a mantra has always been a turn-off for me, one of those spiritual words I never quite grasped, but in truth, mantras are simple and understandable, and I had nothing to fear.

Mantras were initially practiced in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Mantra is a word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation and can be a powerful medicine we all carry in our heads and need no insurance or fat bank account to get.

The website marginalia reminded me this week of the teachings and writings of Thich Nhat Hanh, the revered Vietnamese Buddhist Philosopher and author of the beautiful book:  Fear: Essential Wisdom For Getting Through The Storm.

I came across this book when I began exploring how to turn fear into love. Hanh wrote a famous book about fear.

This idea has become the centerpiece of my life and consciousness for years. Until recently, I could never figure out how to write about it, or, to be honest, really do it.

This work has helped me understand and own up to my vulnerability, problems with trust, and painful search for love.

Even Tolstoy insisted that “love is a present activity only.” Peggie says my commitment to change will get me there.

“Fearlessness is what love seeks,” the philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote years ago. “Such fearlessness exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future…The only correct tense is the present, the now.”

This is a big idea in the spiritual and philosophical world. The gurus and prophets and deep thinkers write about it often.

Hahn believes that fear can lead to love. We can use one to get to the other.

________

He embraces four mantras he says can make this happen. To my surprise, I have used them for some time, and they have worked for me.

They have been transformative and helped me turn fear into love and feel calm and safe, if not yet fearless.

The mantras have broken through the iron wall of my fear and cracked all kinds of holes in it.

Only through silence and concentration did the idea sink into my distractable consciousness.

“The most precious gift you can give to the one you live with is your true presence,” writes Hanh.

 

 

That is something I have always wanted to be but have never thought to say.

I say it now, and when I am present,  I mean it; I’m not just going through the motions while I check my e-mail, worry about money, or look at my text messages.

Maria can see that I mean it. She can see when I don’t mean it.

Thus, it means so much more to her.

Maria and I are here for each other. We are both learning how to trust. Now, we know when we need help, and we say it. What an enormous change in our lives.

Being present, Hanh says, is where true love resides; the capacity for presence is challenging against the tsunami wave of distraction, information, and anger that sweeps through everyday life and takes us along with it, “always on the brink of drowning.”

It takes enormous concentration and feeling to break that cycle. It takes being present.

Hanh taught me in his writing that our most significant source of power, our pathway to fearlessness, is our most effective antidote to fear is the quality of love we can give through the quality of being present.

It sounds simple, but it isn’t. and yet it is.

I am often there but rarely present. That requires concentration and focus. That is when I truly experience what life is and can be when my feelings get a chance to breathe.

I am present when I wish to be and work to be.

Mantra One:  Darling, you know something? I am here For you.

Mantra: Two. Darling, I know you are there, and I am so happy.

Mantra Three. Dear One, I know you are suffering: That is why I am here for you.

(The other person feels better. Our presence is a miracle. My  understanding of another’s pain is a miracle also.)

It’s a big deal.

Mantra Four: Dear One, I am Suffering—Please Help.

To be there, I have learned, is the first step. The second step is acknowledging the presence of the person you love. To be loved is, first of all, to be recognized as existing.

We are battered every day with the idea that we need money, success, and security even as our culture constantly takes those things from us, thanks to our evolution as a Corporation Nation whose faith is no longer religion but profit and efficiency.

We have abandoned spirituality and pushed it to the margins of our lives. We rarely have the opportunity to make ourselves genuinely present.

I am inching towards the fearlessness Hannah Arendt wrote about as the only antidote to fear.

A friend asked me how he could turn some of his fear into love.

I  told him I could only say this: really try to be there, for yourself, for life, and for the people you love. Feel and dig deeper.

Give, and you will receive.

The rewards have been enormous for me.