Life is Not the Greatest Treasure

I suffer from hypochondria. Whenever I collapse, fall, forget who I am, I start getting scared. I crumble, turn into a little girl and I am afraid. Really, really afraid that I will get sick and die. The fear takes over, terrible fear that makes me almost unable to function, the fear of death. It is irrational, it changes me. Who I am, how I see reality, how I function, changes. I learned to recognize it and see when it's coming. I can see the signs: loosing myself, being distracted, lacking presence, loosing my power, loosing my authority. As I grew into myself more and more I learned to distinguish between me and the fear, me and the trauma, me and the little girl. When I feel it coming I can stop, open and return to being who I am. The fear came back yesterday and, as I was working thorough it, a though came up: the point in life is not to stay alive, to not die. The point is to be who I am. Dying is not a problem, dying is not a disaster, dying is not a tragedy. It is normal and natural, it is just another step, another opening, a graduation. I am here, as this woman, I will then move on to something else, somewhere else. This life is not who I am, this body, this person, is not who I am. The point of me being here right now, in this world, is not to cling to this body and to this person, to preserve her at any cost. The point is to be who I am. Brooks says: we exist only in relationship. He also says: if you merge in relationship with your partner, if you loose yourself, then the relationship doesn't do anybody any good. You don't contribute to your partner, he cannot enjoy who you are, because you are not there, you are some version of what you think he would like you to be. If he merges with you then you don't get to be with him either. The promise, the opportunity of relationship, is gone, lost, and the relationship actually does more harm to everyone involved, keeping everyone unconscious. I realized today that the same applies to my relationship with life. If I merge with my mind, with my ego, my persona. If I merge with society, with rules, ways, systems, I loose who I am and being alive doesn't do me any good. I cannot fully take advantage of the opportunity that being alive presents if I am lost, unconscious, not present. Life, the world, doesn't benefit from being with me either, it cannot experience who I am in all my uniqueness because I am not here, I am lost, merged, collapsed. Life is not the greatest treasure we have. The opportunity of being in relationship to life as who we really are, as God, is.