Fear or Trust - That is the question
In these unprecedented times, we’re faced with new truths and a new reality each morning upon awakening. The days of ‘knowing’ and planning seem foreign, maybe never to return. At the very least, they may not return to the same degree they presided over us in the past.
So if we don’t know and we cannot plan for tomorrow, then what is being asked of us here today? I am witnessing such a polarization taking place within our culture and globally as a civilization. Those who are blindly wanting to go about life as it always was, spiritually bypassing the collective pain passing through our civilization like a wave, and those who are mired in the paradigm of fear. Fear for themselves, for their loved ones, for their business, for their jobs, for the planet.
Today’s discussion is about addressing the fear.
From my experience the only way to address fear is to go right into it with the intention of getting to the root of it and allowing healing to happen at that level. If you believe your fear, you are therefore believing an old projection of your past, shrouded in stories that were true once and have been imprinted into your cellular structure. These stories may appear true now but chances are they are completely false.
DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR FEAR.
Even more importantly, DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT OTHERS FEAR. Their fears are only projections of the stories and imprinting they carry.
So what then can you do with your fear?
Use it as a powerful tool for growth. Period. It is a gateway to deep core healing if you’re willing to dive in consciously.
If you’re willing to dive in and transform your fear, here’s my invitation.
Step 1: Get clear about what you fear
Ask yourself this question over and over again until you get to the core fear beneath it all.
What are you afraid of?
What about that is scary?
Do that now if you’re willing.
At the root of this are similar fears for most humans – fear of death, fear of annihilation, fear of abandonment, fear of being inconsequential, fear of separation. There are core human fears. They are at the root of EVERY fear we experience. Find the root of yours.
Step 2 – Feel the fear all that way to the end
This step will be best experienced if you have a quiet place and are alone, if possible.
This is a step often negated or avoided by most. The new thought movement has us believing that we must refrain from going down that rabbit hole, as it will only attract what we fear. I call bullshit on this belief. As long as the fear is present in your body (most likely as a result of an experience from your past) then it is ALREADY affecting your reality, whether or not you’re aware of it. In fact, it will be impacting EVEN MORE if you’re avoiding feeling it. That’s right.
What you avoid and neglect, persists within you.
It gets stronger, therefore creating more and more of what you don’t want.
So back to Step 2. Imagine your worst fears coming true. What would happen? Follow this scenario all the way through to the end, which typically ends with you or someone else dying. Imagine the death. Feel all of the emotions that go along with it. See the funeral. Hear the eulogy. All of it.
EXPERIENCE THE FEAR FULLY.
Cry the tears.
Get angry.
Allow the fear to pour from your body.
This is the only way through, the only way to truly heal and transform fear is to feel it. No matter how scary this may be. FEEL IT.
Step 3 Ask the fear for guidance.
A part of you may have been really afraid. This is normal. Most of us have never experienced anything quite like this before. It’s ok to feel this way.
Once the intensity of the fear has diminished (if you followed Step 2 all the way through to its natural completion), ask this part in you what the fear is here to teach you?
What lesson are you to learn from this fear?
NOTE: You know you’ve touched into a deep soul lesson when it invites you to GROW in some way, to become more of who you really are. If the answer you get is “To stop trusting people” then go back to Step 2. You haven’t completed the process of feeling the fear all the way to completion.
The full expression of ANY emotion
WILL LEAD US BACK TO WHO WE REALLY ARE.
Always. This is their purpose.
More loving; kinder; more patient; more trusting; able to surrender better, softer, etc.
Step 4 Become comfortable with death
You really don’t need to do this step in order to process your own fear. Steps 1-3 will support that transformation. I’ve included this step here because we live in a death-phobic society and I believe it’s important to address death when we address collective fear. They are intimate bed-fellows.
As natural and beautiful as birth, death is another gateway of the human experience. We fear it because we typically fear the intensity of emotion that comes along with it, right along side of fearing our own mortality. We’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s great to feel the new birth emotions – joy, exhilaration, excitement. But the emotions of death we’re told to avoid: Sadness, rage, loneliness. All of these emotions make up the fullness of the human experience. To deny one end of the spectrum means denying yourself the capacity to feel life fully. You must experience the grief and the anger for a fully lived life.
The heart expands with each fully felt experience.
And this expansion makes it possible to feel more love and more joy when you round the corner to different life situations.
We must face death in order to live fully. Even now. Even here on Planet Earth at this time. Face the fear of death. There is life still to live. Life that can be embraced and enjoyed in the lonely, dark moments.
When you face the fear of death, you will find more joy in the present moment than you ever dreamed possible. And this is the legacy you will leave behind when you do make your grand departure from this Earth someday – a life fully lived, even in the midst of global fear.
This is the legacy I’m choosing to leave.
