Fear and Love of Life and Death
Bert Hellinger’s Reflections — the Fear of Life from the Hellingerschule Youtube Channel
Life makes us happy, and it also frightens us. Fear is the driving force that keeps us alive
So today, this Sunday, I say something about how we can live with this fear in a good and grateful way.
I will say something about the fear of life. What does the fear of life mean?
The fear that we lack something important to ensure our survival.
How does this fear of life manifest itself?
By gathering provisions to protect us from bad times, for fear that these will end and we will not have enough food. Maybe we’ll also lose our roof over our head. This fear of life keeps us moving. All life always depends on something that keeps it alive at all times. Therefore, it is constantly busy securing its existence. In times past, bad harvests mean famine and starvation for many people.
Even today many people are still affected by this. Today, many people mostly secure their livelihood especially by earning enough money to get what they need. With its help to live in times of need. They are no longer looking for food on their own but for enough money to be prepared for a famine.
Behind everything acts the fear that one day they won’t have enough to live on.
Famine takes different forms in our present.
We’re afraid of losing our work. The many unemployed are the current form of famine
There would be enough food in many countries, but not enough money to buy it.
What do we lose from sight with this fear?
Jesus gave us a clue. “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, or reap, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” They only need to search. The table is set abundantly, but we still have to search.
Here again, the rule is, without your own effort, there is no life. Behind the fear of life with all its precautions, is the fear of being abandoned by God. The fear that he will abandon us and that his provision will fail.
If we avoid the word God, we fear that nature will abandon us, that its supplies will run out and that one day we will be left empty-handed. At the same time, we are overexploiting it for money in multiple ways, so that money takes the place of nature and ultimately God.
The justified fear of life, which drives us to do something for our livelihood, takes us, if we give priority to money, away from the harmony with nature. In its unrestrainedness, this fear of life rises above nature, and ultimately above the Creative Force on which all life depends at every moment. Instead, something else is sought and feared. This takes us away from life instead of closer to it. In this heaven made by us, nothing grows.
There we search in vain for the foundations of our life. From these wrong paths and detours, how do we return to nature, to our mother- the earth?
We overcome this fear of life by walking towards her, instead of away from her. What is the result? She approaches us like a mother and invites us to her richly laid table. We just need to look for it, albeit in a new, previously unknown way.
Whoever hoards their supplies, can they still walk? Are they still in tune with something greater? Are they still living? Something else has its effect behind the fear of life which it necessarily has to face.
The fear of death. It’s mostly thus it wants to escape.
Whoever looks calmly into the eyes of death, whoever knows that it is their companion at every step, knows that death brings all misery to an end after a while. Just as life, so death comes from the earth.
In tune with it, where does it take us? Into an eternal cycle of dying and becoming, back to life again, just as our life sprang from another death.
So how do we live serenity, beyond our fear of life?
Always in search, in tune with becoming and dying, whenever and however our time may come to an end. Where? In the earth. It remains and with it the Power that created it.
Consenting to death, whenever and however it touches us, is surrender to that Power. It’s the ultimate surrender. It is the surrender to life, as it comes from it and where it leads us. Just as it brings us safely back home, beyond our fears. One again with our origin, one with its movement, wherever it takes us. Perhaps to a next coming, a different future, wherever it may be.
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This video I saw today reminded me of the collective fear in the post and mid-pandemic world. There is huge fear about financial and job security worldwide as many industries were halted due to strict lockdown in place worldwide. There is also huge fear about getting COVID and recovering from COVID, or losing a loved one to the virus.
As lucky as I am to have the means to support myself through graduate school, working part-time and collecting rent from my roommates, who are all struggling and thriving in their different ways, I notice myself living with the same constant fear of do I have enough in my bank account? Would the tax agency audit me and take away what I have?
As I prepare for graduation in September and starting a new career as a licensed acupuncturist and seek to grow my systemic constellation facilitation practice, there is much fear around finding enough clients to sustain my practice. There is fear that my healing work is not effective or worthy enough to be compensated financially.
My Dharma teacher Master Cheng Yen often asked her disciples and volunteers in Tzu Chi Foundation, many who are wealthy, overworked, over-ambitious entrepreneurs who run huge factories and corporations, “How much do you eat a day? How big a bed do you need? If I give you $50 a day to eat and a bed to sleep in, will it be enough?” It prompted many of them to rethink what we really need to chase and secure to find that peace of mind.
I recently just drafted my will and had a notary signed a really basic template I printed online. It was a great exercise sitting with my mortality and the effects in this world if I literally disappear the next day. Would any of my family really need the stuff I leave behind? Would I really be missed? The planet and universe will continue to move and rotate to their own rhythm. I surrender, I surrender to the impermanence of life, the possibility that sickness and accident can just take me away at any moment. I pray that all the seeds of kindness and love I have planted will continue to thrive, in their own forms, without my physical presence to tend to them.
Apart from this fear of death, fear of enoughness in my professional and adult life, there is the same fear of really living as an adult, the fear of marriage, the fear of choosing the family life — parenthood and more.
The most common cry of my generation, “Adulting sucks! Adulting is so hard!” Why can’t we just all be like children and play all the time. Growing up was such a privilege and dream we relished as children. Now that we have the never-ending errands list, bills to pay, taxes to file, workouts to do, body to maintain, aches and pains to massage, food to cook, rooms and laundry to clean, dates to go on, arguments to settle, insurance claims to argue, research papers to write or to grade, people to check in with, adulthood is not as dreamy and free as we imagined it to be.
I look at people I know who are so excited to become parents, to get married, I really wonder, is that truly the fairy-tale happy ending that I should sign up for? I deeply respect everyone’s choices but hearing the tantrums my super adorable tiny neighbors are throwing, feeling the ground shake whenever they “stood their ground” and “shouted protests” at their educator and doctor parents, I am always reminded of the reality that marriage and family life is a LOT of WORK.
I often joke that I am only dating to find another adult that can help share these “adulting chores” and just trade good massages for free. I see my newly-wed friends deeply missing their life partner when life takes their partner to the other side of the globe for some reason for a while. And it was more than the romantic sentiment of longing, it was the amount of chores being shared due to economy of scale that also weighed on them.
From Bert Hellinger’s discussion above, I am reminded that life is about embracing the dualities in all aspects. To embrace life, I must embrace death. I must surrender and acknowledge that death is with me at all times.
To embrace the full freedom of adulthood, I have to accept the burdens and responsibilities that comes along with it. As Peter Parker’s uncle famously said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” What responsibilities do we take on consciously that deepen our connection to Life Force? Deepen our sense of liberation? Freedom is the privilege of choice. Choice to be single, or to be married. Choice to parent or not to. Choice to go to school, or go to work, or stay home. There is no ultimate freedom, only conscious choosing and surrendering to that choice, from moment to moment, without regret.
To embrace love, I must embrace grief. To love deeply, I surrender to the chance that my love will be rejected or lost at some point in life. Knowing that love is unconditionally given and reciprocity is a gift beyond anyone’s control, the same principle applies to many life’s choices. Marriage, a job opportunity, an event we organize, an invitation extended for a friendship, a dance, a connection, the choice to birth children or to adopt children, all of these beautiful opportunities come with the same amount of joy and possibility of grief. To celebrate and live deeply is to surrender to the impermanence of it all.
To bring change to any system, we must embrace all its shadows and light. In promoting social justice, do we start from a place of peace and inclusivity, a place of compassion and patient listening? Or do I propagate the same violence and exclusion when I attempt to include? Every invitation creates a container, an experience that is itself exclusive to prioritize the experience and targeted audience. Is there possibility for flow while we balance our goals and intention in any container we shape? As a vegetarian/flexitarian, do I shame the carnivores or anyone from a different faith or cause when I am advocating for my cause.
Finally, in life, as immigrants, as travelers, as changemakers, do we see every stranger we meet as a resource or a block? Through constellation work, Bert Hellinger realized that to love, we must accept and embrace someone as they are, all they are. We must first learn to accept our Father and Mother as they are, in all their imperfections, to receive their gift of life. When we can receive them as they are, we can open our hearts to love them and love others. To have any lingering resistance to how our parents show up will unconsciously cause us to project that onto any man or woman that we meet, professionally, socially or romantically. Ergo the perpetual daddy issues/mommy issues, or inability to connect to resources and seek assistance. When we love our parents, we learn to love ourselves as we are made from the magical parts of our parents. And we can see the light in others, and learn to love them as they are, acknowledging their light and shadow parts, equally, without resistance.
I breathe and choose love. I breathe, celebrate and grieve that this breath will end and another shall begin.
