Fearlessness

One of the greatest lessons during my life has been anger. My earliest years as a child were peppered with abuse, shouting, fighting, aggression, and alcohol-fuelled knife wielding by parent figures.

In turn I learned how to be angry, how to express my anger, and how to let my frustration at that which did not resonate with my inner yearning to come through me as a growl or a shout. I would escalate my anger, to the point of tears and a gut-wrenching swell.

In time I came to discover that this anger was a symptom that followed when I felt helplessness or fear. As I looked back to my childhood I started to realize that I must have felt very helpless, and filled with fear as those that I should have been able to love lived through their anger.

Through the realization of helplessness come another: In forgiving myself, and those who contributed to this lesson, I have found a gift. In finding peace I have found a gentleness and calmness. And in slowing down to understand this lesson I have discovered a fearlessness. This poem is a reflection of my journey, of how I had to lose myself in my doubt, and be stirred by awe to shed the first tears of healing.  Only in finding tenderness have I been able to discover fearlessness.

Fearlessness

There is no dry land,
amid the ocean that you chart.
Your wind is your fearlessness,
and it blows from your heart.

The course to your freedom,
is beyond waves of concern,
through storms of restless anxiety,
slow, find that which you yearn.

Drop anchor, relax with your fear.
Drive into moments of doubt.
Let wonder evoke that first tear,
and tender child within swim out.

Real fearlessness comes from within,
product of tenderness and awe.
Feel the ocean woo the drop,
and never have need of the shore.

Copyright (c) 2009, Carmien Owen