by Cleo Dunsmore Buchanan
Life is messy! I mean what fun would it be if it was clean and predictable as fast food? Fear gets all kinds of bad press. We are born and raised to not like it, yet fear is in a way the seasoning which makes life enjoyable.
I recently watched a video from a man who was a Vietnam Vet. He suffered from PTSD so severely that he could not function even at the most basic level. After years of unsuccessful therapy and medication, he finally chose to have part of his brain deadened with surgery, to literally kill his ability to feel fear.
He now has no fear and also no excitement. He describes going to Disneyland as utterly boring. He might as well be anywhere. There is no thrill of excitement. He describes zip lining over high gorges in the mountains as completely uninteresting. There is nothing that happens for him at all. No joy, no excitement, no zest.
Who knew that without fear we have no thrill of victory, even in the smallest sense? Who knew that life is a deep and rich mixture of fear and feelings without which, we would be flatlining every day.
I was asked to write a list of my greatest victories in life. I wrote and was surprised to find the list included all my greatest traumatic events. These painful challenges I had always described as things I’d barely survived. Looking back I see, they are the greatest gifts of my life, and I created things Id never have without those painful circumstances. And so in every way, the journey is one of fear, and its value.