Sometimes I declare myself worried.
‘I am so worried!’ I say and quite believe this to be so. ‘And haven’t I every reason to be worried? Look at these circumstances!’
Worry seems somehow inevitable…even morally correct.
So like a dark cloud passing across the sun, a worry clouds my psyche, and I begin to hallucinate, imagining the worry is me.
Yes, I somehow seem defined by it; it has taken over. I move from noticing a concern passing through me to the sense that this is who I am: I am this worry!
By now, I’m well and truly kidnapped by this emotion.
Though I am not this worry. Like most distressing emotions, it is a distant memory acting up, a childish panic resurrected – latching on uselessly and damagingly to present circumstance.
Cracked bells are jangled, old ghosts stirred; but they don’t come to help.
The deeper truth is that I am peace; that is who I am.
Perhaps I can arrive there today for a moment, just for a moment, letting the worry go, releasing it into the big sky. I let it pass through me like a charmless visitor greeted – but now asked to leave.
And so I touch reality.
Peace…our truer identity.
