Nothing Shows up Uninvited- Unexpected ways to treat anxiety

Nothing comes into our experience without some form of inner consent—conscious or unconscious.

If a scoundrel shows up in our life, some part of us is welcoming it. Absurd? At first glance, yes. Why would I invite betrayal, deceit, or loss?

The form or behavior itself is not what is meant when discussing this topic. Because the form is not the point. And to be clear we are not talking about what appears to be happening to a person on the level of form. The meaning is in how it is interpreted.

The Cheat Code

All behavior flows from only two roots: love or fear.

They can also be understood as wholeness(love) and lack(fear). That’s the cheat code. Once one sees this, understanding comes to the forefront.

The act itself doesn’t matter. Petting a dog can come from love—or from fear.

When it comes from love, it comes from a place that is whole, complete, needing nothing. In that space, the gift is the giving. Love doesn’t wait for a return. Love is the extension and return on one.

Extend it, and you feel it. That’s the only love you ever experience: the love you extend.

So when I pet my dog in love, I don’t need him to stay. I don’t need him to validate my gesture. Half the time, he gets up and walks away. And it doesn’t matter—because love needs nothing back- what could you offer wholeness that it does not already have.

Wholeness or Lack

But let’s look at the same behavior when it’s rooted in lack.

I pet the dog because I need him to respond. I need proof I’m loved, proof I matter.

Now, if he pulls away, I feel rejected. I feel small. The act is the same, but the root is different.

In this example I have just set my dog up as an object to offer me something I fear I am lacking. "I'll give you this pet if you offer me something better back". I am using him as some form of validation.

When I remember that I can look at this in a different way, it is not the dog's behavior that can effect my emotional state but my perception of the event and the choice I made between the two views in my mind wholeness or lack. It it from this place of wholeness on the level of the mind that one remembers their true divine nature.

For this reason one can ever truly reject me unless I I first chose to reject his true divine nature and see them as an object to give me something I perceive I lack.

From lack, every gesture comes with a demand. From wholeness, every gesture is already complete.

So the real question is not what I do but where it comes from.

Love or fear. Wholeness or lack. That is the ground of meaning. That is the place where freedom lives.

This is the pivot point: not the world, not the people in it, not even the behavior.

The pivot point is the mind and who I reach for to interpret this behavior.

When I choose love/wholeness, I am free.

When I choose fear/lack, I am bound.

Every encounter is the same lesson in disguise:

Will I meet it from love or from fear?

And this is the secret: peace is never out there, waiting for the world to behave.

Peace is here, in the mind that needs nothing to be whole.

The only love I ever experience is the love I extend.

The only peace I ever know is the peace I choose.

The Choice Point

Nothing shows up in our experience without some form of inner welcome, whether conscious or unconscious. This doesn’t mean we deliberately choose another's behavior or have control over it—but it does mean that how I experience it is in my control.

Every experience arriving at our door has something to teach us.

What teacher will I go to in my mind to interpret the situation?

The real work is not to obsess over the form—whether it’s a "scoundrel", a disappointment, or a loss—but to look deeper at how we are interpreting it. How would love in my mind choose to see this situation? Love does not see a scoundrel but could see a person who is having a temporary moment of insanity and acting out in an unconscious way.

When we meet an experience from fear, we interpret through lack: Why is this happening to me? What do I need to protect? What might I lose? Why is this person withholding? That lens breeds defensiveness, resentment, and more separation.

When we meet an experience from love, we interpret through wholeness. This person is coming from fear just like me. When they choose fear it’s expressed like this; when I choose fear it’s expressed like that. How would I want someone to see me when I a frightened? That I’m doing the best I can based on my day and life up to this point.

Can I see through the form to the innocence beneath?

That lens turns the same event into an opening for peace.

The choice point is always interpretation. The same form—welcomed or not—can be the doorway to fear or to love. And the life we experience will be shaped not by what enters, but by the mind we meet it with.

Reflection Questions

1. Can I recall a moment when I acted from love/wholeness? How did it feel different from acting out of fear/lack?When I look at my recent reactions, how many were rooted in fear rather than love?

2. How does my interpretation of an event change the way I experience it? What shifts when I ask, What if this behavior is really a call for love?

3. In what areas of my life am I waiting for others to behave differently so I can feel at peace?

How would my experience change if I chose to meet those same situations from a place of wholeness?

4. What does it look like for me to act today—without expecting anything in return?

How might I experiment with the idea that the only love I truly feel is the love I extend?