How to get free

In the face of fear

In what moments have you felt fearful?

What have been the consequences of feeling fear in those particular moments?

Sometimes I study my face in photos. Observing where I was, what I was doing and what was happening in my life at that point in time, I make an assessment of what my face says about how I was feeling at that given moment. And something I’ve been able to see is fear. When I look closely. When I allow my mind to remember.

A scroll through my camera roll of photos from Ghana tells a story. One that began in loss and fear, progressing into healing and exploration, then returning to fear but with courage, expanding to peace and solitude, then descending again into fear and a desire for approval and validation, before I finally let go and surrendered my fears.

In some ways letting go is a daily decision that has to be made over and over again. Because some memories never leave. Wishing them to go away can be futile. And so rather than spend precious energy trying to forget, it could be that what we actually need to do is remove the power of the memory to intimidate us back into the fear we felt in those moments.

Revisiting photos of me that hold different meanings and stories has been a way for me to face my fears in the present. Because trying not to feel is how we can try to suppress the fear, the discomfort, the pain.

Freedom is in many ways a state of mind, an attitude, a belief-system. And if it is, then it is available to us in the present.

We may need some support in truly walking in our freedom - therapy, leaning on friends, education, creative expression and so on - but we can choose today to recognise that salvation is available to us now.

We can choose to accept now that we are not our past mistakes or the hurtful experiences that have happened to us.

The past and our pain can cause us to fear.

Fear that we are bound to fail.

Fear that we will never be deserving.

Fear that it is too late to turn things around.

Fear had consumed me for so long that I thought that I needed to get rid of it completely before I could start living the life I wanted. But by looking at the photos of past me, I am reminded that we can grow. And our lives can blossom. Even in the face of fear.

Facing our fears can help us take back the power that we have surrendered to difficult memories.

Freedom is calling us to feel the fear and get free anyway.

Because the absence of fear is not a prerequisite to freedom.

This was the lesson for me.

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