It has taken me a long time to understand but finally I think it is sinking in. This anxiety. This panic. This agoraphobia. God I hate all these different labels. Social Anxiety to an extent with a little touch of this and a bit of that- a phobic. What it does is make you feel that there is more wrong with you than there actually is. Every label is another hurdle as is every symptoms. Now I understand. Lets forget them all. It is one thing. It is the thing the Ancient Greeks called 'Phobos'. That is what all the symptoms are- one thing. That is what all the labels amount to- one thing.
Phobos is the Greek for fear and as old as the hills. It has always been there and the ancients knew it as we do now. That is why it is in us and our body is equipped to deal with it- fight or flight. Some say it is a fear of fear which may be more accurate but at its essence it is fear. Fear is the root, fear is the problem. So from now on I am going to remember that. I have a fear, nothing less. It is fear I must confront.
And by confront I do not mean battle. By confront I mean I must face unflinching without fleeing and without fighting. In its shadow I must stand. Phobos the moon I stand under in the dark hidden from the light. There I must stand alone and submit to its worst. It wont be nice but it is the only way.
Everything has its opposite and fear is no different. At the opposite end of the spectrum from Phobos is Aphobos. The literal meaning of this Greek word is fearlessness, or without fear. This is what we must strive for. In a state of Aphobos we cannot be touched by panic, anxiety or whatever else. Only in this state can we find the sanctuary of calm relaxation.
Always remember it is fear. This is the demon we must make vanish. Not by fighting or running but by standing tall in its face until it goes. Fear cannot harm us. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Fear only exists in us not in what is out there. Fearlessness is in us too, in me. That is what I must find. A way to stop fearing everything, not a cure sore some made up illness with a label.
