Thoughts on Love and Fear

A friend very recently became a first time father and sharing in his journey is helping me feel all the feels of parenting: love, awe, wonder and most of all, terrifying, crippling fear.

What a huge adjustment it is to become a parent. For the first time, in the deepest and most profound way, you discover what it is to be solely responsible for a tiny, fragile human being who is not you, and yet an extension of you. The Ego, which is the keeper of both self and fear, goes a little nutso. The Body is freaking exhausted and cannot soothe, and the Spirit is having a manic moment of wonderment.

Parenting makes quite a bit of the other nonsense happening in the world fade to grey. Suddenly that person griping on your social media page about a conspiracy looks only like a jerk, and not someone you need to take seriously. You can get back to the critical things of feeding, changing and the pursuit of sleep.

Perspective comes with parenting. You may feel utterly unbalanced without sleep, but actually it might be the first time in one’s life that you experience true levelheadedness. All the nonsense falls away with the enormity of the task ahead.

I remember staring into my first child’s eyes and feeling equally gobsmacked and terrified. How could I ever keep this precious bundle safe? Today the terror is heightened as the world crumbles around us,

And yet. Things have a way of coming together.

I take this “and yet” to heart. It is the essence of love and faith, and perhaps it is the only thing that gets us through the crazy.

These days, in the midst of so much pandemic pandemonium that none of us can begin to understand, it’s nice to remember what it is to love so deeply, to care so much, to be consumed by awe and wonderment, and yes, the fear, and realize things have a way of coming together.

We only need to trust the Universe conspires for us, even in a pandemic.

Michelle Marchildon is the Yogi Muse. She is the author of four books on yoga and life, and is based in Denver, Colorado. You can find her at www.YogiMuse.com