Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm

by Thich Nhat Hanh

As practitioners we should allow ourselves to be as free as the moon.

Sometimes someone we love—our child, our spouse, or our parent—says or does something cruel, and we feel hurt. We think it is only we who suffer. But the other person is suffering as well. If he weren’t suffering, he wouldn’t have spoken or acted in a way that hurt us. The person we love hasn’t seen a way to transform his suffering, so he just pours out all his fear and anger on us.

Much of our suffering comes from wrong perceptions. To remove that hurt, we have to remove our wrong perception. “I see him or her as doing this or that. But maybe the reality is not exactly like that. There are a number of hidden points I didn’t know. I need to listen to him or her more, in order to understand better.” The people who we think have created our suffering likewise may have wrong perceptions about us. When you make the effort to listen and hear the other side of the story, your understanding increases and your hurt diminishes.

To be loved means first of all to be recognized as existing.

love, compassion, joy, and freedom—the four elements of true love

If we come back to ourselves to restore peace and harmony, then it will be much easier to help the other person and restore communication in our relationships.

Caring for yourself, reestablishing peace in yourself, is the basic condition for helping someone else.