“People living deeply have no fear of death.”

— Anais Nin

When it’s my daughter’s turn to take out the trash, she says she is afraid of the dark.

The Halloween Crew 2011

Interestingly, tonight on “All Hallow’s Eve” she, her siblings, and her friends all ran fearlessly through the darkened neighborhoods completely absorbed in their candy quest.

It seems that her fear of the dark wasn’t quite so … fearful. Most certainly her courage came from a shift in attention, from ‘fear’ to ‘chocolate’. Her focus was on the ‘now’, not the ‘what if’.

Oddly enough, I’ve noticed changes in my own fear during this year of giving. I don’t seem to be as afraid of things like layoffs, meeting strangers, failure, etc. It might just be my imagination, but they don’t seem to worry me as much. Maybe a shift in focus from ‘me’ to ‘we’ leaves less time to fret. Maybe it’s the attention to living and giving here and now.

I don’t know if Anais Nin is right about not fearing death, but I think that when we give deeply, we live deeply.

Happy Halloween!

Survived the ghouls, goblins and ghosts while escorting the kids around the neighborhood for another year of Halloween fun.