“Don’t move the way fear makes you move. 

 

Move the way love makes you move. 

 

Move the way joy makes you move.” 

 

~ Osho

An acting teacher I used to study with often said that all emotions, which are the primary tools in an actor’s toolkit, boil down to love or fear. Whatever other emotions you are experiencing, they are really just shades or colors of love or fear.

 

In my Reiki practice, these two emotional “categories” sometimes feel like different experiential “spaces” to me.

 

Fear feels restrictive.

 

Love feels expansive.

 

I no longer think of them as separate, exactly. It’s like fear is this tiny box within giant, gentle, infinite love.

 

When we are caught in fear, if we can open the box, we can enter the freer love space (and the love can enter us).

 

And if we can get rid of the box altogether, ending the habit of fear reaction, we can ultimately be nothing but love! Which is what we really are already.

 

Fear is humanity’s natural lens, narrowing our view.

 

It’s not so easy to let go of fear. But if we keep practicing, the box stays open more and more, with complete disappearances on occasion.

 

For me, I am more able to see the box lid come down. When I can see it crashing down, I can more easily slip a little wedge in before the lid closes completely. Which makes it easier to open the box again.

 

And sometimes I can see the box forming around me in time to just say, “No, thank you, box. I appreciate your kindness in trying to protect me, but it seems the love space might do a better job of keeping me safe.” And poof, no more box. Just like that.

 

And of course, other times, I’m just trapped in the box. I can’t see anything but the box. But understanding it IS a box helps me break out again, sooner or later.

 

Having experienced the love space more and more, it is easier to trust that intellectual understanding of the box even when I can’t see through it yet.

 

The box is ultimately made up of our notions of self versus the universe. This self-ness is an intrinsic part of our humanness.

 

But there is a way to exist simultaneously as self and all. This seeming contradiction holds the greatest potential for human existence: to be me and we and KNOW we are small me and great we at the same time.

 

A nuanced version of one of the five core Reiki precepts is “Do not be worried, fear is distraction.”

 

Distraction from what? From our innate universal spaciousness. From pure love.

 

May each of us rest in the gentle ocean of love more and more each day.

 

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Inspiration Credit & Appreciation: Thank you to Elise of Brenner Reiki Healing for reposting the Osho quote on her Facebook page. And thank you to Osho, Indian spiritual teacher, for leaving us such wonderful teachings in simple, beautiful words.