Life Coaching: Belly Rubs and Fear

It’s 6:00 on a Saturday morning and I’m awake. This is day 4,562 of the continuing saga of sleeplessness at the Jackson house. If anyone has any ideas of how to consistently get a good, solid nights sleep without using medication, alcohol or essential oils, I’m all ears…I’m lying here on my couch, scratching my doggie’s belly with one hand and trying to type with the other. She’s content and happy, but it occurs to me that this act of belly scratching is never reciprocated. I mean, where is the love here? Maybe if I feed her enough treats, I can teach her to scratch MY belly. Mamma needs love, too…

The above paragraph has absolutely nothing to do with today’s blog. In fact, I don’t even know why I wrote that, other than to share the moment with you good folks. I am digressing and need to get to the topic at hand, which is FEAR. That’s right. I said it out loud: FEAR.

I have never considered myself to be especially fearful, except when it comes to snakes. But recently I’ve discovered that I am much more fearful about certain things than I care to admit. And here’s the thing…most of the time, we know what we’re afraid of. We know what makes our knees weak, our hearts turn to water and our minds race like a hamster in a wheel. That is a known fear. But it’s those unknown fears that insidiously creep up on us in the middle of the night and grip us by our throats we need to be wary of. Those fears are the ones that lurk unseen for years, then pounce like a panther stalking its prey. Those fears can paralyze us because we aren’t even aware they are operating in our lives.

Exposing fear is a tricky business. We first have to realize it’s there. Next, we have to seek truth instead of a lie, and then we have to deal with it. And just let me say right here and now that I hate dealing with it. I will let things lie until the cows come home because I am an emotional procrastinator. I don’t like to deal with negative emotions and fear is definitely a negative emotion. Sometimes I just want to swallow the blue pill and be plugged back into the Matrix. The Matrix is comforting. The Matrix is soothing. And the Matrix is a lie. And being the truth based little soul that I am, I eventually have to listen to truth and deal with the fear or writhe in spiritual misery. We cannot do this to ourselves, my friends.

When Trixie rolls over on her back to get those belly rubs, there is not one ounce of fear in that dog at that moment. She trusts her Mamma. She know she’s getting ready to receive something she absolutely craves and the attention and the divine elation of her Mamma’s touch. If we humans viewed God one-tenth the way our dogs viewed us, we would live much less fearful lives, knowing He was watching over us. I have not achieved this yet, but I want to.

Trixie has finally curled up beside me and is back asleep. No more belly rubs for now. I, too, am gonna curl up and try to get a few more hours of sleep. Despite the fact that we have fears that have yet to be revealed, we continue our quest for truth. We pioneer on, and when fear comes to our door, we shoot it in the face. With a cannon. 😉 My prayer for us today is that God would reveal areas where we have those secret fears lurking in our lives. Once He reveals them, we can walk in His glorious freedom and rest in those spiritual “belly rubs.” God bless!