I’ve never sought out scary things on purpose, having found real life scary enough. I can only guess that people who deliberately expose themselves to frightening situations must feel safe in all other areas of their lives. No one experiencing the real-life horror of a concentration camp, for example, would queue up to see Friday the 13th.

Now, let’s say that we are eternal, and knowing that makes us feel completely safe as disincarnate beings. We can dip our toe into the sea of mortality whenever we want. Let’s further say that our sense of safety leads some of us to seek out the contrast of deliberately bringing scary situations into our lives when we’re incarnate.

“Am I one of those people?” I wondered. “Am I saying ‘yes’ to scary things just for the experience of it? If so, I’m ready to knock that off right now.”

This morning, while walking through the forest, my thoughts veered toward something frightening, and I stopped myself. “You’re making a choice, Petra,” I said. “You’re choosing to walk into the horror show. Why do you do that?”

I’m beginning to realize that most of the fear I’ve experienced  in life has been anticipatory. My scary pie chart would look something like this:

Enough of that. Here’s to staying off roller coasters and out of horror shows.

Now, “deadly” sins are cardinal sins. You don’t just die if you commit these. Committing a deadly sin puts you in danger of eternal damnation, and each of the sins was traditionally paired with a specific punishment in hell. For being prideful, for example, you could expect to be broken on the wheel, for feeling envious, you could expect to be put in freezing water, and for feeling angry, you could expect to be dismembered alive.

Besides the emotions of pride, envy, and anger, the list has also included the emotion of despair. The fact that emotions made it onto the list at all explains a lot. I have often wondered how emotions came to be so suspect–how feeling, acting, and relying on them came to be taboo. But I can see now how being threatened with eternal damnation for feeling an emotion could motivate you to suppress it.

Carl Jung

But I have also been accused of feeling that I need to “earn my keep” in the Universe–that I must always do, and cannot just be. I’ve never really known how much I should be doing and how much I should be leaving to the Universe.

The other day, I read a quote by Abraham Hicks that’s really been bugging me:

Trying too hard IS resisting… for this reason — think about this — if you decide that you want to go to the grocery store and buy a quart of milk, do you ever find yourself trying too hard? Or do you just go get it?

And the reason you just go get it is because you have absolute knowledge – you KNOW. You know you have the ability to go, you know you have the money in your purse, you know the milk will be there when you get there. In other words, there is no doubt and so there is no trying against anything. And so whenever you’re trying too hard, what is happening is there is a part of you that is not believing that it can be.

That all makes sense, but what’s bugging me is: where is the dividing line between trying enough and trying too hard? Where is the dividing line between praying and moving your feet? I mean, do you sit on the couch and pray for a quart of milk, visualize a quart of milk, believe in a quart of milk, have faith that a quart of milk will come to you. . . or do you just go to store and get it? What do you take care of yourself, and what do you leave to the Universe?

I’ve wrestled with this a lot, and forgive me if it’s too obvious, but here’s what I’ve come up with:

My to-do list

• Everything within my power

The Universe’s to-do list

• Everything else

It’s that whole you-can’t-win-the-lottery-unless-you-buy-a-ticket argument. I buy my ticket, and the Universe lines that up with the winning numbers.

But maybe I’ve become over-invested in how the Universe answers my prayers.  I mean, isn’t the lottery-ticket analogy basically saying, “OK, Universe, I want money, and here’s how I want you to provide it for me”? If I were the Universe, that’d piss me off. If my son said, “Mama, let’s go to the beach” and then said, “OK, get your purse. Do you have your car keys? Get in the car and start it. Back out of the driveway and turn left when you come to the end. Did you remember my skim board? Turn your blinker on, and then turn left on Thompson Road. Did you remember to bring a towel? OK, now turn your blinker on and turn right on the highway. Watch for traffic!” I’d say, “Forget it. There’s no room for me in this.”

But if I focus on the “what” and let the Universe figure out the “how,” doesn’t that mean praying and not moving my feet?

I’m so confused.

Me? I’m a dog. A therapist once told me, “You seem to think you need to earn your keep in the universe.” She was right. I don’t know where it comes from. Want me to fetch the ball? OK. Want me to sit? I’m on it. Want me to roll over? Play dead? No problem. Just love me!

Our cats, on the other hand, fully expect us to please and love them. And the funny thing is, we do.

There is much about the religion that I was raised in that I no longer embrace, but the following quote, which is attributed to Jesus, still has me thinking:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:25-34

This is apparently the creed that my cats live by. It works for them. Could it work for me?

Kris Wiltse’s illustrations for the “Curious” and “Trusting” cards from the Mixed Emotions card deck.

“Mama,” he calls down the hall, “I’m sad.”

“About what?” I ask, trying to determine whether this is just another ploy for a “sleep-over” with me.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Well, your sadness is just a feeling you’re having. It’s a messenger that has some information for you. What is it trying to tell you?”

After a long pause, he says, “Connor gave me a stick and made me hit Tunji with it.” (Tunji is Connor’s dog.)

“I’m your mother,” I say, “and I know how hard it is to get you to do something you don’t want to do. There’s no way Connor made you hit Tunji.”

Long pause.

“So, you’re feeling sad because you hurt Tunji?” I say.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Tunji forgives you,” I say, knowing that he’s just one tail-wagging ball of love and fogiveness. ”Now you need to forgive yourself.”

“How do I do that?” he asks.

“You need to love yourself,” I say.

After a bit, he says, “I still feel sad. Can you tap?”

“Sure,” I say. And after two rounds of tapping, he goes to sleep.

Adrian was born with an instinct to provide and defend by killing, which we don’t really value or create a natural outlet for in the 21st century. Being male, he is the result of thousands of years of natural selection, in which only the best hunters and warriors survived. He loves animals, though, and is often conflicted. One minute he wants to hunt rabbits and deer to provide meat for us, and the next minute, he wants to help a local farmer’s beef cattle escape so they won’t get slaughtered. Sometimes his wires get crossed and he hurts an animal he cares about, such as Tunji.

When Adrian feels sadness and doesn’t know what to do about it, he talks to me. Sometimes, he refers to an undefined jumble of negative emotions as a “clump,” and we sort through it to figure out what he’s feeling and why. This typically happens at bedtime, when he begins to reflect on his day.

Kris Wiltse’s illustrations for the “Sad” card from the Mixed Emotions card deck.