Walls of fear, bridges of courage
Instead of building more obstacles let’s build passages to overcome those.
I put out a new song today called ‘Walls & Bridges’. It’s about the two basic ways to live your life — from fear or from love.
Walls, bridges
are made from the same bricks and stones.
Which ones will you be building?
A wall is a continuous vertical structure that encloses or divides an area of land; regarded as a protective or restrictive barrier.
A bridge is a structure built to span…for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle.
I’ve come to realise there really are only these two basic ways of fear and love to live your life. That’s it. Our reactions and behaviour are based on either of those two core feelings. If you feel fear, you can’t feel love. If you take a look at things from the perspective of love, you cannot have fear. Simple (but not particularly easy).
To put it differently: the more protective and restrictive you become, the more you’ll be afraid of the world out there. The more you expand yourself, the more you’ll be able to build passages over obstacles, both physical and mental.
These hands can do so many things
I open my arms or clench my fist.
Got kisses to greet, or bruises to pay?
The world you get is the world you give away.
The choice is ours. Hate and you’ll receive more hate. Attack and you’ll be attacked. Love and you’ll be loved. Understand and you’ll be understood.
Be curious and your life will be full of beauty and magic.
But just to clarify, this has nothing to do with our egos. It’s not give and take. It’s not “okay I was nice today so why is that dude being an ass towards me?”. It’s simply putting good energy out without counting and then collecting the seeds of what you planted later. Some seeds will grow, some won’t, but you still keep on planting.
The more bridges you build, the more bridges will be built for you.
Build obstacles, you will experience obstacles. It’s an energy thing. What you put out will eventually be reflected back.
Fearful living means falling in love with dichotomies: us–them, good–bad, right–wrong, nice–weird. Living through dichotomies means building a wall between everything. This goes on this side, that goes on that side. Period.
Unfortunately you will miss the whole point of existence that way. Nothing’s black and white, not even black and white!
Also, as late Wayne W. Dyer put is so brilliantly in his book The Sky’s The Limit, if f.ex. you decide to hate a particular group of people, you give a huge part of your own emotional control over to them. A need to split everything in two will poison your inner life: The moment you label everybody as a stereotype you are getting ready to be annoyed about something you expect these people to do, whether or not they actually behave like that (and many times they don’t). You also take away an opportunity to learn from people that somehow have a different point of view from yours. (And we all are a bit different and weird in some ways.)
So the more you build walls around you to prevent real, constructive dialogue with those “others” the more you will block your own possibilities to grow to your full potential.
This also works on a more global, political context: cut aid, exploit even harder, and then blame the poor, refugees, muslims, black kids…basically everyone who’s different than you (and we’re not that different) for standing up for justice, looking for a way out.
There is this fear-driven wave wiping over our world. I used to react with hate to it, discovering these same dichotomies inside myself! But now I have love, even to those I have understanding and love. I understand it’s terrifying to take a look on the otherside of the wall you built to yourself. So I root myself stronger and deeper into the fearless, loveful living and let that fear-driven wave wash over us. Eventually its energy will be gone.
I would just love us to find our greatness. And that greatness is definitely founded on building connection, not division.
I know you’ve gone through things
and that it ain’t easy
but hey you got the key
only you can set you freeDon’t lock yourself from life
open your heart your mind
We were meant to grow. We are here to expand. Mentally, physically, in every way. And that growth can truly start only from within. Brick by brick, stone by stone. It’s such a beautiful world out there. So let’s build bridges, not walls. Both physical — and especially mental.
Reaching out to you,
Anni
P.s. The song ‘Walls & Bridges’ is also part of international campaign Walls Of Connection by MasterPeace.
Listen to the song: Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube
Read the full lyrics: link to Soundcloud
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