LightHearted Musings - The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 29th, 2008
The only thing to fear is fear itself.
–Franklin Delano Roosevelt
This is a quote that has been roiling around in my head ever since the recent financial crisis started. Maybe it’s because of our politicians’ continual references to the Great Depression. Maybe it’s because it is one of those lines that I would really like to be true but know is not for many people. Homelessness, unemployment, poverty, ill health, death, even fear of lost dreams or missed opportunities are top on people’s minds at the moment, and for some, these are very real possibilities in their lives. For others, this has become their present reality. There is a lot more than fear to fear right now.
So what do we do with this statement, that the only thing to fear is fear itself? Do we scrap it or do we try to pull out those parts that resonate, those parts that have made this such an enduring phrase? I’d like to take a stab at the latter.
The first thing to comment on is how simply inefficient fear is since it doesn’t fix the problem or even avoid it. If it could help you to be proactive and move forward toward your goals, then that’s one thing, but more often, fear paralyzes. It’s like the deer in the headlights that waits for the car to come and run it over. One of my favorite quotes from my own dark days after a broken neck was coincidentally from Roosevelt’s compatriot, Winston Churchill, ”If you are going through hell, keep going!” That is hard to do when fear is cementing your feet to the floor, cutting off your options for escape simply by narrowing your focus and wallowing you in despair.
Dr. Bruce and I regularly teach people a simple technique for loosening that cement. First, close your eyes and take a few good, deep breaths. Then, think about a time in your life when you felt completely loved, completely happy, when all was right with the world, even if the feeling was just a moment in time. Imagine yourself back in that moment and let yourself bask in that feeling for a bit, holding your hand to your heart while you do so. Now, with that image still in your mind’s eye, bring into your heart the problem you are currently dealing with, be it a situation, a person - whatever it might be. Allow both the problem and the love to sit side by side in your heart and then ask your heart if there is any other way to handle the situation or person that you are dealing with. Your heart will give you the answers that you are seeking, and you may be surprised by the great wisdom that comes from within you. Your heart has been patiently waiting for you to seek its guidance - tap in and see what it has to say to you.
One of the advantages of staying in your heart during troubled times is that it gives you access to your own wisdom. It opens up the box of possible solutions and leaves you free to be creative and innovative. It helps you to find your balance, to think quickly and clearly, and to find solutions that are in integrity with your highest values, all of which cannot happen when you are coming from a place of fear.
Acting from fear often brings with it a backlash of recriminations and anger because it stems from a feeling of disempowerment. People do desperate things when they are drowning, even to the point of pulling down and drowning the one person who had come to rescue them. Some in our society have used fear-mongering for their own purposes, as a method of controlling our thoughts and actions. As a country, fear has gotten us into wars, it has put us into financial peril, it has divided our nation, and it has created many more enemies for us to fear around the world. We are now paying dearly for this - the fear has fed on itself and multiplied.
On the other hand, acting from a place of love is inherently a statement of empowerment. Love creates win-win situations and actions that you can feel good about later. It creates alliances, friendships, cooperation, healing, and yes, even opportunities. Love feeds on itself and multiplies as well.
I have sometimes been accused of being too optimistic, of always looking on the bright side of things, but it is important to comment on that assumption. I have had more than my fair share of troubles and challenges in life, and I know full well what loss feels like. I do see what’s going on out there right now. We have financial turmoil, war, anger, and greed. I know the challenges that are coming up for me and my family in the next few years, and I know that other people I care about will be affected as well. My choice of love over fear is not a case of my sticking my head in the sand.
Instead, I see it as the most pragmatic and efficient reaction to the situation that I can have, much more useful and powerful than fear could ever be. I simply don’t have the time for fear. There is too much work to be done if we are to find solutions out of this mess. In this time of limited resources, I can’t afford to waste my limited energy on something that won’t yield positive results. We as a community hold the solutions to our problems in our collective heart, and what we most need right now is to take a moment, tap in and ask love to impart its wisdom. Maybe the line ought to read, “The only thing that works is love itself.”
Dr. Molly’s Twitter Updates for 2008-09-26
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 26th, 2008
- I’m putting together a CD of loving comments from each member of the family for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Shh, don’t tell them! #
Dr. Molly’s Twitter Updates for 2008-09-25
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 25th, 2008
- Now my blog talks to my Twitter who talks to my Facebook who talks to my Plaxo who talks to my MySpace! Ah, the wonderful web of technology!
LightHearted Musings - We Belong to Each Other
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 19th, 2008
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
–Mother Teresa
When I was younger, I really thought I wasn’t going to live past the age of 30, and I am amazed at how many others of my age had the same thought. You have to wonder what that kind of impending doom does to the human psyche.
I and others like me were convinced that we would all be blown up in a nuclear storm long before we would have a chance to grow old and die peacefully in our beds. This was during the 60’s and 70’s, when we were full force into our Cold War with the Soviet Union, when we were told that this “Evil Empire” on the other side of the world was just itching to blow us off the face of the planet. We were told that we were the good guys and they were the bad ones, that they couldn’t be trusted, had no morals or conscience, and wanted only war and destruction.
There was much talk of impending nuclear war and of our leaders having their fingers on the trigger of worldwide destruction. We saw what a nuclear blast did to cities and people in those famous newsreels, we saw movies depicting people who went crazy and set off a nuclear ping pong match that nobody could possibly win, we heard in great detail what a nuclear winter would be like, we saw the news where the latest conflict was splashed all over the headlines whipping up fear, we heard the concern in our parents voices when they discussed these issues – our impending death was clearly right around the corner. And I always knew, even as a young child, that our “Duck and Cover” nuclear blast drills at school wouldn’t save anyone. How is a cafeteria table going to guard me from a radioactive blast? Might as well face it head on and get the dying over with quickly. Those were my 10-year-old thoughts, and 10-year-olds all over the country were right there with me on the firing line.
Well go figure, here I still am, now well into the second half of my 40’s, still intact and free of radioactive contaminants. The dreaded “Big Bang” didn’t happen, I grew up, got well past 30 (!), fell in love, got married, had children, and now our first child has just gone off to college. All my body parts are intact and my kids have no idea what “Duck and Cover” might refer to.
We are now friends with the Russians, and (who knew!) we found that they were just like us, with all the same fears, stresses, joys, loves, and hopes that we have. Sure, there are some bad guys in the bunch, but we have some of those ourselves. The majority of them are good, kind, decent, loving people who want peace and harmony in their lives. They had been hearing the same demonizing words about us, and to them, we were the “Evil Empire.” All it took was for us to talk with them for a while to find out how much we have in common.
Now I hear some of the same talk about the newest in a long line of bad guys, those in the
I see us all as more similar than different on so many levels. As a physician, I know that 99.4% of our DNA is the same in every human being on this planet. I see that we all come from a common ancestral line and as such, we are all brothers and sisters in our humanity. We are a family, dysfunctional though we may be at times, but one worth working on to find more peace in our interactions. Just like family, we are all connected, and our countries can’t harm one another without harming themselves in the process. The same goes for us individually, something that is important to consider the next time you want to yell at your spouse or cut someone off in traffic.
On an emotional level, our needs for safety, physical comfort, love, fellowship, fulfillment, and understanding are common to all. So said the old woman in
On a more cosmic level, I see us all as children of God, all with that spark of the Divine within us. It is that Divine essence that unites us, makes us all One in a far deeper sense than those words can adequately convey. We are all connected to each other and we all have our parts to play in this great collective World that we share. Violence toward one person on this planet energetically creates a ripple effect that harms everyone else. Harming another because they are different is just as irrational as if I cut off my arm simply because it was different from my leg. This recognition of our divine unity is what we need to tap into in order to honor and cherish each other and bring peace to our world.
So much of our collective time over the past millennia has been spent in figuring out how we are different and then attacking that difference in others. It has been the basis of all our wars and conflict. I wonder how much better our world and our future would be if we all just stopped with the demonizing, with the “us vs. them” mentality, with the thought that those “others” couldn’t possibly be like us. I am so dearly ready to hang up the concept of “Evil Empire.” I am so ready to focus on what we all have in common and to highlight our similarities instead of our differences. I am so ready for my children and my children’s children to assume that they will grow old and die peacefully in their beds. I am so, so ready for a more peaceful world.
If you have been overwhelmed by the events of the world, then consider bringing these words into your heart and letting them roll around in there for a while. I know I am not alone in this peaceful wish, and if you are a compatriot in these personal and cosmic hopes and dreams, then please share your thoughts here.
History is a Vast Early Warning System
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 12th, 2008
History is a vast early warning system
-Norman Cousins
Don’t you just love this quote? I do, partly because I’m a history buff (history nut I sometimes say). I think that every Presidential candidate should be a history nut as well. If they were, we would avoid tremendous amounts of pain, war and anguish.
Our ancestors are our greatest teachers, not because they were more brilliant or more noble. In fact, they were no different from you or me, making decisions to the best of their ability and not knowing what impact their decisions would have on the future. They are our teachers simply because they have already blazed the trails of both success and failure. We waste so much of our time reinventing the wheel when all we need to do is turn around to see that wheel already made and waiting for us to make use of it.
There are very few problems in this life that haven’t already happened in some similar form in the past. I will stand by this statement even with the tremendous technological advances that we are all living through because most of our contemporary problems are still mainly related to how well we get along with each other. This is an area with some of our greatest failures, but ironically, it’s also the area where we most shine. We could save ourselves a lot of time and heartache by studying the successes and failures of those who have come before us in order to learn how to “do life well.”
No matter how well we do with this challenge, we will most certainly be our children’s teachers. We are all quite literally the future’s ancestors. So what do you want your own legacy to be?
LightHearted Musings - The Cure of Many Diseases is Unknown to Physicians
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 7th, 2008
The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians…They are ignorant of the whole which ought to be studied also, for the part can never be well unless the whole is well. This is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that the physician separates the soul from the body.–Plato
When I was a little girl, my doctor was a woman named Mary Saxe, M.D. and what a character she was! Dr. Saxe had been my mother’s doctor when she was young, and she then became my doctor until I reached adulthood. She had literally known my family for 3 generations, and her interactions with us reflected every facet of that familiarity.
Dr. Saxe’s office was in the poorest area of the city. She was aware that these were people whom others had thrown away and she wanted to be of help. If you sat outside her office for any length of time, you would think you were hearing two different people in the next room. One moment, she would loudly and forcefully yell at someone for not taking their medicine and the next, she would be lovingly hugging somone who was going through a rough time. She would minister to all of us with her unique blend of anger and love, and her patients absolutely loved her for it.
By the time I knew her, she was an old woman. Dr. Saxe had been trained in a man’s world in the early 1900s, when she was one of the very first women of her time to receive her M.D. degree. She had to be tough to get through that type of medical gauntlet, and tough she most certainly was!
Dr. Saxe could be incrediby gruff, like when she knew I wasn’t going to listen to her advice. If she thought I was whining about a problem that was in my control to fix, she would berate me…and she was quite a powerful force when she was in berating mode! I remember being more than a little afraid of displeasing her and inciting her wrath. She expected more from me than I expected from myself, and she would push and prod to get me to recognize that I had it in me to be…whatever I wanted to be.
And yet…she could also be incredibly kind and insightful. She would come to my home to minister to me when I was really sick, would see how I was living and how I got along with my parents and brothers, would comment on the posters I chose to put on my wall, would pay attention to who I was and how I was doing in my own world. When she knew I was hurting, really hurting either physically or emotionally, all that gruffness would simply melt away and I would be the lucky recipient of the full force of her love and attention.
She knew me in all my dimensions, mind, body and soul, my family make-up and dynamics, my joys, hopes and fears. She ministered to all those parts of what made me whole and recognized that the body was just one piece of the puzzle to full health. Dr. Saxe had the unique gift of fully accepting me while at the same time continually challenging me to live my life fully.
There is something about this quote from Plato that always brings me back to my memories of Dr. Saxe. She got through the medical system that insisted on toughness and compartmentalization of the body from the soul, and she managed to “do it her own damn way,” to express by example the true meaning of healing. She recognized that our health is related to all the wondrous aspects of our life, that physical health was only the tip of the iceberg for a life full of joy and vitality. In so many ways, she was my inspiration, and it was my great honor to learn these lessons at the feet (and sometimes under the feet!) of a master holistic healer. Plato and Dr. Saxe - may they both live among the angels!
Dr.Molly
The Healing Touch conference w…
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 7th, 2008
The Healing Touch conference was great! I ran my workshop yesterday on how to have a Juicy life and it went very well. Juice was had by all!
Building Holistic Medicine Bridges
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 6th, 2008
I’m here at the annual conference for Healing Touch International, and what a wonderful group of people are here! They are kind, heart-centered and open-minded. It is wonderful to be in their company, and to see how well they are doing after their own internal shake-ups in the last year.
It’s also wonderful to be with a group of nurses in which my doctor credentials are not a barrier to our connection and friendship. This doctor/nurse dysfunctional dance has been going on for quite some time, and we are now seeing people on all sides breaking down the barriers and relating as human beings. I am aware that much of this healing within groups has to start with healing within each individual, and it does my heart good to see that this inner work is being done on a larger scale than it has in the past.
The AHMA has decided to be on the forefront of building bridges, of bringing people from different holistic trainings and backgrounds into partnership with each other. This is the path of right relationship, and I am honored to be a part of this mission that is greater than all of us. As Diane May, the President of Therapeutic Touch International, said while building bridges of her own here at the conference, “If those of us in the holistic professions can’t find a way to get along, who in the world can?”
In an hour, I’ll be giving my …
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 5th, 2008
In an hour, I’ll be giving my workshop on the Love School, showing ways to help people create loving, supportive and joyful relationships.
If you are going to the Healin…
Posted by Dr. Molly Roberts on September 3rd, 2008
If you are going to the Healing Touch International conference this week in Milwaukee, come find me. I’ll be giving two workshops there.
