When You Don't Choose Love You Choose Fear

It says that Love and Fear can NOT be felt at exactly the same time as its impossible to do so. I disagree as I remember a time a time in my life that I felt both "love and fear" at the exact same time. I was 16 years old and holding my newborn baby girl in my arms. I looked deep in her eyes and felt real love for the very first time and felt intense fear like never before. The love between mother and child and the fear of being a new first time parent. If anyone would kindly take the time to help me understand I would gratly appreciate it!

Mindy, I agree with this remark. I appreciated much of the insight in this article, but felt that same thought surfacing as what you mentioned. It is because I love my daughters so much, so deeply, that fear about their future, their safety when they're away from me, etc., seems so intense at times. I am not sure what to do with that dichotomy!

This is a great example of both emotions at the same time

I think what you felt was anxiety, which we can experience when we love.

Some very interesting responses, especially in regard to parenting. As a mother who is now a grandmother, I see the fear of doing the wrong thing for our children as something we can let go of because no matter what we do, we cannot control everything in the world (or much of anything, really) and worrying about the future is a waste of our energy. This is where self-love comes in. Allowing love to replace the fear of doing the wrong thing is letting go of the need to control the world around us, and trusting that LOVE will guide us. Perhaps this is a spiritual or cosmic idea, not a concept that the human mind can willingly accept. FEAR needs to control outcomes. LOVE wants to allow what IS, in each moment as it arrives. FEAR is of the mind, LOVE is of the soul, the Higher Self. After all, THIS moment is the only time we have. Be HERE NOW, and you will find that LOVE overcomes FEAR.

I too had a question about experiencing love and fear at the same time and was unsure. I appreciated reading all these refections. Trina’s captures much of what my heart and mind are telling me. I also wonder if the co-arising is only very brief, and seems that way until the next moment arises and we move into choosing which version of the future (new or old)we will invest in - Love’s possibilities (new) or Fears dramas (old). Because I/we (I believe all) have experienced love together with fear, in our mother’s wombs and arms (and for some breast milk), we have them both vitally alive in us. By noticing and recognizing them we become able to create the future we would like to see and we can become who we have the potential to be as we choose courage and love as our intention for the ride through whatever comes our way- and it can sometimes be quite a storm when old fears surface. For me these are around losing my current level of stability and relationships, (ie believing myself rejected) and at the bottom of the barrel some beliefs around lack of fundamental worth. These were under many other layers. Rather as a cross section of a tree-trunk has rings, with which you can count the years, I wonder if my Being has rings. Rings of growing in the spring and summer seasons of love and condensed darker rings in the autumn of confusion and winter season of contraction in fear. Wishing you all much love with which to hold the Fear. (I also like thinking of thsi as the acronym False Evidence Appearing Real, at least for all those occasions that we recognise as having roots in past overwhelm and which show up regularly as recognizable patterns). Thankyou Elizabeth and David K-R for this inspiring article, for all the previous posts in this thread and to Awakin.org for hosting it.