‘Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.’ (Marianne Williamson)
Fear contracts. Love expands. And every single day, in a hundred small moments, you get to choose which one you want to experience. Sit with those two words for a second. Contract and expand. They are not just ideas; they are something you can feel in your body. Fear makes everything small and tight. Love opens you up.
Feel the Difference
Think about the last time fear had you. Your chest tightened, your shoulders crept up, your breathing went shallow, and your thinking narrowed down to the worst case. Your whole world shrank to the size of the threat. Now think about a moment of real love, holding someone you adore, laughing until it hurts, standing somewhere beautiful. Your breath deepened, your chest softened, and the world opened back up. One pulls you inward and closes you down. The other opens you outward and lets the light back in.
Almost Everything Grows from One of These Two
Nearly every emotion we feel grows from one of these two roots. Anger, worry, jealousy, control and the need to be right are all children of fear. Kindness, courage, patience, generosity and peace are children of love. In my book I talk about how, in its highest form, even fear is really love, love that has forgotten itself and slipped into protection mode. When you look underneath the fear, love is almost always what it was trying to guard.
You Feed the One You Focus On
Here is the part that puts the choice back in your hands. You will not always be able to summon love on demand, and you can always choose which one you feed. Attention is the water. Whatever you keep watering grows. Replay the fearful thought all day and fear grows tall. Keep returning your attention to what you love, what you are grateful for, and who matters to you, and love quietly takes over the garden. This is really the daily walk from ‘The Tip,’ where fear runs the show, to ‘The Garden,’ where love does.
A Gentle Practice
So through the day, simply notice. Ask yourself, in this moment, am I contracting or expanding? Am I acting from fear or from love? You do not have to force anything. Just noticing begins to shift it. A slow breath, a softer word, one small kind choice, and you tip yourself back toward love.
A Question to Sit With
This week, carry one gentle question with you. And please hear it with no judgement, we all live in fear sometimes, it is human, and often it was simply how we learnt to stay safe:
‘Fear or love, which one has been running my week?’
Fear contracts. Love expands. Every day you get to choose which one you want to experience. Choose love as often as you can.
Have a great week,
Michael
📖 Where the F*ck Do Our Minds Go? → Get the book