a study of fear

Hey, I hope you’re doing great!

For a long time, I didn’t realize how much fear was shaping my life. Looking back now, I see it hiding behind so many different emotions.

No matter whether it appears as shame, jealousy, or discouragement, underneath it all, there is fear.

This is a truth I keep returning to: at the core of so many emotions, there is fear. The fear of being excluded. The fear of losing something. The fear of choosing wrong. The fear of reaching for something and not knowing what it might cost.

When I think of fear, I think of uncertainty. Of standing in a dark room, unable to make out what is around me. I think of the kind of darkness that does not only exist outside of you, but slowly finds a place inside the body.

Fear does not live in just one part of me. It settles into my shoulders, my chest, my head, my arms, my legs. It moves through me and stays there. I feel it as heaviness. As tension. As small, silent blockages in places I did not even know were holding on.

I often understand life through two states: flow and stagnation. And fear, for me, belongs to stagnation. It is a state in which you stand still, where you freeze, until something has to interrupt it. It does not have to be “destroyed”.

But it has to be met. It has to be moved through, softened, released, until it can become part of the flow again.

I do not believe that feeling fear is wrong. Fear is human. Fear is natural. Sometimes it protects us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. To have no fear at all can be dangerous too. But there is another kind of fear, the kind I do not want to build my life around. The kind that breaks relationships. The kind that numbs you. The kind that makes you abandon the things you love. That is when fear stops being protection and becomes a prison.

When I think of fear, I often hear my mother’s and father’s voices. Voices that wanted to protect me from the world, without always knowing that protection can sometimes become a wall. That love, when shaped by fear, can also limit the person it is trying to save.

And maybe I do not want to overcome fear in the way we usually talk about overcoming things. I do not want to fight it as if it is my enemy. I want to understand it. I want to sit beside it. I want to learn its language. Because what remains unknown inside of me only becomes louder, darker, and harder to hold.

I want to breathe this fear out of my body. I want to release the places where it has been stored for too long. I want to turn it into light. Because even behind the deepest darkness, I believe there is still something small and bright waiting to be seen. I can feel it. I can see it.

And sometimes I wonder: what if fear is only an illusion? Not because it is not real, because I feel it, and what we feel is real in the body. But maybe it is not the whole truth. Maybe fear is a shadow that looks larger than the thing itself. And then again, is life not, in some way, an illusion too?

I like to meditate on certain themes through art. I often work with abstract, formless shapes. For me, the written part reflects the conscious mind, while the formless space beneath it reflects the subconscious.

With this painting, I wanted to give my fear space to exist. To let it move without judging it. Because honestly, I do not think we can fight fear forever. To fight it forever would mean fighting against our own nature. I have accepted that fear is a part of me. An important part of me, even. But I do not want it to rule me. I do not want it to have so much power that I become numb. That I forget how to think clearly. That I lose myself inside of it.

When I started this painting, I felt that it would take hundreds of pieces to truly let everything out: all the memories, experiences, and thoughts that have attached themselves to fear over time. So this is the first one. The first of maybe 10,000 more that still need to come.

I wrote the caption above because it carries a truth I want to remember:

“Whether it is shame, jealousy, or discouragement, at the core of it all, there is fear. The fear of being excluded. The fear of being hurt or replaced. The fear of losing something. The fear of making the wrong decision. At the core lies the illusion of fear.”

If you have any recommendations of your own, feel free to share them with me.

Well, I hope this article helped you in some way, or maybe will help you someday. If you feel called to, you are welcome to support my work.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

With love,

Rania 🤍