Have you ever had this experience: you are having a reasonably good day, and then seemingly out of the blue comes some big fear thought? You meet that, it dissipates and next thing you know another fear gets lobbed over the net. It’s foul and you know it, but you hit the ball and engage with it anyway!
So many teachers speak of just being with fear, not judging it, pushing it away, or denying it. Well, I am a thinker and a doer, so I like to know how is it that we can be with fear in a self-friendly manner. And, I am always discovering and inventing new ways to live in self-rapport. This blog is a treasure trove of tips for these things. Here’s my latest:
I have recently been using this statement – fear is in the mind, when a fear thought shows up. Sometimes I’ll have a thought, my left brain kicks in and wants to know is this a fear thought or something else? I crack myself up sometimes! But it’s always a fear thought, if it separates you from the fullness of who you are meant to be! Strip it down to its lowest common denominator and all judgment, worry, anxiety, depression, etc. is fear talking.
Being with fear and identifying it as simply “fear is in the mind”, is that compassionate awareness that isn’t immersed, and under the spell of fear, nor is it pushing it away.
A couple of weeks ago I read the world news reports and felt it very discomforting, so much unrest, so much violence. Then I remembered again – fear is in the mind, fear is in the world too. I can’t fix it, or make it better, but I can bring that compassionate awareness to me and everyone else. That being with is the way out of fear, but it has to be genuine and wholehearted.
We all feel fear, it’s encoded in our survival instincts. Some fears don’t seem to make sense, some do. Some fears don’t even seem to be our own, maybe they are the fears we picked up from someone else. We get it, fear just is. Why not find a compassionate way to be with that fear.
And now unencumbered by the need to do something about fear, new vistas open up revealing wide open fields, ours for the joy of living and the loving.
So that’s my new tool, it’s been working for me. If any of you try it, I would love to hear your experience of it.
I really like the way you explain about how to be with fear when it shows up. I have really been coming to terms with this too lately by trying to look at a fear objectively when one comes up and disassociated from it like it must be something happening to the old me. I’m less triggered and more curious about the what and the why without focussing or analyzing my fears too much so as not to give too much power over to them. Ultimately I get that my mind is a powerful computer able to come up with stuff involuntarily which is not really coming from the awakened ME who gets that I am always loved and supported no matter how scary things appear to be. I accidentally hit your post dated last March called ‘Friend’…how eloquent and perfectly stated.
Beautifully stated Pam!