For all of my life, I’ve awakened in fear.

I suppose it began with bedwetting and, left untreated,  evolved into general anxiety; in our world, there is always something to be alarmed or upset about.

Most of us experience a life full of beautiful moments and difficult moments. For many of us – even when I am joyful- there is fear behind the joy.

I have worked to find ways to reduce and control my anxiety. And I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned.

Because of my “accidents,” my oddness, and my Dyslexia, some people shamed me during my early years, so I took in the shame and carried it with me. I was not like the other children, as they say. Life was a trauma.

Hatred is the first cousin of fear, and if you can’t resolve one, you can’t escape the other. I grew up angry.

One of the most important things I am learning now is to focus on the beautiful Quaker idea (I heard this in a meeting) of letting my life speak for me rather than defend myself and try to persuade others that I am a good human being.

I am not as good at speaking for my life as I am at living it.

The challenge is not hatred but empathy, the ability to stand in the shoes of others and see the world differently.

I sensed Queen Elizabeth had that gift from her lofty, protected, and ridiculously antiquated perch. I can’t know what she thought, but she always projected herself as someone who listens and can see into the souls and accept the lives of others.

She saw that as her mission. It inspires me, even now.

It took me many years to grasp the significance of this old saying. When you let your life speak for you, it is a way of investing in yourself, accepting yourself, and saying, “this is a good life, for all of its flaws, and I believe in me.”

Letting my life speak for me does not suggest I have a perfect life or that I am perfect; it just is my life, and it will show the good in me and the bad. It speaks for itself. It is a shame repellent when other people try to shame me.

In America in 2022, if you share your life in public, people will try to shame you.

They have called me a thief, a pedophile, a liar, and a hypocrite. These assaults are relatively new; they coincide closely with the bitter divisions in the country that exploded in 2016 and have grown steadily ever since.

They coincided with my decision to write about politics from time to time.

Americans have learned to hate the people they disagree with. This is poisoning our democracy.

The Founders celebrated disagreements; they are at the very heart of a democracy. This was part of Queen Elizabeth’s genius. She never disagreed with anyone openly; she let her life speak for her.

When you start to hate the people who disagree with you, you live in Putin’s land. That was new to me; I wasn’t evolved enough to handle it.

It was hard to understand this rude and cruel malice from strangers who knew nothing about me. I know it’s not really about me; it is about them and their brokenness.

People always disagree with me, and I love those disagreements; they fuel the mind. But not if they are cruel.

So I stopped posting and enabling the angry ones, and they went away; only one was left. She’ll be gone soon.

In many ways, the attacks were good for me.

They challenged me to look at myself and realize just how strong I was. I made the mistake of fighting back; that is what I learned to do those many years ago. This was a mistake. I needed to live my life, love my life and stop arguing about my life.

People often ask me why I pay attention or put up with it. The answer is simple. Because it hurt. I am proud of myself for not surrendering to that shaming. I never will. I finally got that dinosaur hide.

And you know what? That has worked. Better late than never.

I believe that if you can empathize, hate dissipates and softens or goes away. That means fear goes away as well or is weakened.

I woke up this morning in fear, worried about money, hatred, our country, the dreadful toll climate change is taking on our country and its people and the world, and the endless conflict and confrontation spreading into our world. I know I am not alone in this.

I then used my new mantra, the old Quaker statement that I embraced and absorbed years ago and then forgot and think of more than once a day: My Life Speaks For Me.

This idea, buried for years but resurfaced not too long ago in my consciousness (during meditation), is my answer to the fear, hostility, and cruelty that has entered our environment, especially for people who put themselves out there and expose their lives to the world.

Whenever I feel wounded, angry, or defensive, I choose to let my life speak to me; I am free to live it, and I don’t need to explain it to others or justify what I do.

This idea has made more room for empathy, tolerance, and compassion and has helped me contain the anger that also lives inside me. My life is excellently speaking for itself—a much better job than I did.

 

My Life Speaks For Me. I don’t need to defend and protect my creative space.

My life will do this for me, or it won’t be done. Since I began using this mantra in the mornings to diminish the terror I often feel before the sun rises, the fear has changed.

It is smaller, shallower, and weaker. Perhaps one day, it will go away.

The sometimes cruel and wounding messages have stopped.

My hair-trigger responses to them have mostly stopped—too many innocent victims.

My blog is edging closer to the thing I always wanted: a place of thought, love, compassion, and empathy. A safe place. Care. Love. Hope.

I realized the blog could not be safe if I did not feel safe. The blog could not be peaceful if I were not at peace. The blog could not be a compassionate place if I were not sympathetic.

Choosing to embrace the idea that my life, not me, must speak for me, for better and worse (and I am no saint, there will always be some worse) has been liberating. It took away the underpinnings of much of my fear. Bedwetters (and maybe Dyslexics too) grow up with a fear of being vulnerable and different.

We are made to feel shame, defend ourselves, and plead with others for understanding. Learning to let my life speak for me has been liberating and transformative. Recalling it was one of the many great gifts of meditation.

I took some time to listen to myself and learn who I was, and I came to see that we can’t speak for ourselves in many ways; our lives can do that for us, and my life is not subject to argument and misinterpretation. It is what it is.

And if our lives are good and full of meaning, they will do all the talking. I never wish to defend or explain myself to strangers on Facebook or Twitter.

This morning, looking at the sunrise outside our bedroom window, as I felt the first wave of terror, I said to myself, “let your life speak for you.”

And then I talked to Maria and felt the feelings begin to melt away.

I came downstairs and wrote about it on the blog, where my life speaks for me more than any other place.