Yesterday, my 14-year-old daughter shared a video on why your pen is the most important thing in your life. The narrative goes, if you lose your pen, you can’t take notes. If you can’t take notes, you can’t study. If you can’t study, you fail. If you fail, no diploma. No diploma, no job. No job, no money. No money, no food. No food, you get skinny. You get skinny, you get ugly. You get ugly, you’ll be single. If you’re single, no marriage. No marriage, no kids. No kids, you’re all alone. You’re all alone, you get depressed. You get depressed, you get sick. You get sick, you die. So don’t lose your pen or you’ll die. We had a good laugh over that silly video.
In meditation this morning, it occurred to me that the “Don’t lose your pen or you’ll die” video was a pretty good example of the Buddhist teaching about The Arrow. That teaching says if an arrow hits you, you will feel pain in that part of your body where the arrow hit; and then if a second arrow comes and strikes exactly at the same spot, the pain will not be only double, it will become at least ten times more intense. In our lives, the first arrow comes from the painful things that we experience or witness – rejection, loss, heartbreak, illness. But the second arrow we fire ourselves in the form of anxiety or fear of experiencing those things again and our narrative of painful events we repeat to ourselves.
In my own life, I allowed the second arrow fear to paralyze me for more than 10 years. I was literally miserable with fear for 10 years. When the thing that I feared did happen, the way through the situation took less than a month to come to resolution. What I learned from my second arrow journey was an understanding of the nature of fear. From a biological perspective, fear kept my lower brain busy in fight or flight because it didn’t know whether I was living in a cave being chased by a saber tooth tiger or living in a home in rural Virginia with a modern-day trauma. Despite being generally well educated and a problem solver by profession, my fear robbed my higher brain functions of rational thought, much less creative problem solving, about the situation. The fear also robbed me of present peace. What a sad way to expend so much mental, physical and spiritual energy!
Today, I embrace that version of me at that time in my life with love and compassion. I live in appreciation of that part of my journey for the gift of today’s wisdom - being able to breath, return to mindfulness and more quickly identify the second arrow. I am reminded that fear contracts and dims the light of our Divine spark. The grace and power of Universal Love emboldens us to grow, change, and flow as water around or through any obstacle encountered.
And I know if I lose my pen, I’ll be just fine.
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