Article May 18, 1987 Issue

Is there a way out of anxieties?

The Christian Science Monitor

When I was a child, my mother would quiet my fears of the darkness by telling me there was nothing to fear. When I grew up and the monsters I had been afraid of no longer seemed real to me, there were adult anxieties to take their place. Fear of not being accepted by family members, coworkers, or employers; fear of not having enough time to do a job well; fear of the future; fears growing from a strong personal sense of responsibility. These can put a person in a different kind of darkness, but one that is just as gnawing as the child's fear of the night.

Like cats fighting in an alley, these anxieties often make enough noise to trouble us, but not enough to make us go out and stop them. When fears start taking the joy out of life, most people look for some kind of temporary release. But wouldn't it be better to heal these worries instead of living with them or letting them build up into bigger troubles?

In order to get rid of fear, we have to rely on something larger and more capable than a personal ego. The question is not so much "Can I do it?" as "What is the real source of ability and power?" Why would someone as supremely capable as Christ Jesus have said, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me"?^{John 5:30.} He must have found that only by relying on God could he make right judgments and decisions. In naming the source of his abilities he showed us how to gain freedom from our anxieties. He recognized God as the one genuine cause, or Ego, the origin of all true thought and action.