What If We Were No Longer Afraid?

Lately, I’ve been sitting with a lot. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, school shootings, the persecution of the Jewish community, the devastating loss of life in Gaza, the escalation of wars, natural disasters, and the growing political divide. It all weighs heavily. Each headline seems to carry more grief, more anger, more fear.

And I’ll admit: I’ve felt that fear deeply. Not just for the people directly affected, but in the way fear seeps into how I look at others, how I judge situations, even those that don’t touch my life personally. Fear narrows me. It contracts me. It makes me see separation instead of connection.

Sometimes I notice it in the smallest, most personal ways. When I’m driving and another car cuts me off, I feel rage rise up. Rage that, if I’m honest, is tied to all the moments I’ve been too afraid to speak my truth. Or when I scroll through social media and see hateful posts, my instinct is to dismiss their truth because it clashes with mine. But beneath it, I know what I’m really reacting to is fear...theirs and my own.

What’s tricky is that fear doesn’t always look like fear. For many of us, it shows up as anger, defensiveness, or judgment. And it can be hard to admit that those emotions (even when they feel justified) are often rooted in the same thing: fear. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of being unsafe. Fear of not being in control.

That realization led me to a simple but profound question:

If I were no longer afraid, how would I respond?

If fear was gone, judgment would fall away.

If fear was gone, I’d have no reason to close my heart.

If fear was gone, love and compassion would become my natural response.

From that place, darkness looks different. Division softens. Even in painful circumstances, there’s an opening for light, for connection, for possibility.

This is where meditation has been such a powerful guide for me. Meditation doesn’t erase what’s happening in the world, but it creates space...space between what has happened and how I respond. Space to soften fear before it hardens into judgment. Space to breathe light into the darker corners of my mind and to widen my view of the world.

Imagine if we, as a collective, moved from fear to love.

What would happen if (just for a moment, or one interaction at a time) we removed fear from our lens?

What if instead of defending or blaming, we listened?

What if instead of judging, we chose compassion?

What if instead of holding tight to fear, we let it dissolve into love?

I’m not saying it’s easy. Fear is a powerful instinct. It tells us to protect ourselves, to stay small, to resist what feels uncertain. But what if our ultimate goal became this: to notice fear, to soften its grip, and to ask: “How would I respond if I was not afraid?”

Because without fear, we are different people.

Without fear, we create a different world.

So this is the practice I’m holding close right now: to meet whatever arises, in my personal life and in the wider world, with the intention of removing fear. And when I can’t do it perfectly, at least to ask the question. Because even asking shifts something inside me.

Maybe it will shift something inside you, too.