Dear Tara, I heard that your cancer has spread. They tell me you’ll need to undergo some invasive surgeries, not least of which is a mastectomy. They tell me you’re frightened. 

I can’t imagine what you must be going through. It must be almost impossible not to die of pure anxiety after what they’ve told you. 

But I have a message for you. These aren’t my words, either. I wish I could take credit for them, but these words belong to the little voice inside me. I’ve been trying to listen to this voice more often. But I am a slow learner. 

Anyway, the message is: “Don’t let worry in.”

Don’t drink from that bitter cup. Every time you want to worry, simply listen to YOUR little voice. That tiny, faint voice speaking inside you. The one that has always been speaking, since your birth, with a deep sense of assurance and affection. 

In fact, this voice is talking to you right now, as you read these feeble words. The voice is saying, “This guy’s kinda weird, but he DOES have a point.”

You know this voice. It’s a voice that comes from the center of your chest and radiates outward, like a sonar.

You know this voice so well, for it is your dearest and oldest friend. This voice is such a part of your being that you hardly even recognize it anymore. Sometimes, you aren’t sure whether it’s your own voice talking. That’s how close you two are. 

It’s important to note, I am not referring to the voice inside your head. No. That voice is smoking crack. Your head voice is always panicking about stuff. 

Every time your head voice hears bad news, it immediately plays out the worst-case scenario, which always ends with your untimely death. Which is the worst thing your brain can imagine.

But your brain is wrong. The worst thing that could ever happen to you is not death. Death, at its core, no matter what you choose to believe, is a transformation. Death is an emergence from a cocoon. 

But that little soul voice is saying, “Don’t fear things that kill the body. Fear only things that kill the soul.”

Such as the self-torture of worry. Worry will kill your soul. 

Worrying is a fate far worse than death. Worry is poison. Worry is paying a debt you do not owe to collectors who do not exist. 

As I write these words, there is a small bird outside my window. And that little voice inside me is interrupting this paragraph and saying, “Does that bird look worried to you?”

“No,” I reply. “Birds never look worried. Why don’t birds worry?”

“Bird brains,” the voice says. “They are incapable of worry.”

“I wish I had a bird brain.”

“No comment.”

“What kind of bird is that?” I ask. 

“It’s my bird. That’s what kind.”

“Yours?”

“And did you know this bird has a name?”

“A name? Really?” 

“Oh, certainly,” the voice says. “And all its tiny bird siblings have names, too. Its mama bird has a name. Its daddy bird has a name.” 

“Do all the birds on earth have names?”

“They do.”

“Even little ones?”

“Especially them.”

“Who names them?”

“The same one who feeds them.”

“Who feeds them?”

“The same one who watches over them. The same one who knows whenever one of them falls to the ground. The same one who holds them all in His hand, like a mother.”

“Do you watch over me like that?”

“Every moment.”

“Do you love me?”

“What do you think, bird brain?”