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Way 2 - Healing Fear

Fear is at the heart of every problem. One of the most effective ways to resolve a problem is to heal the fear within. What most people don’t realise is that fear along with all emotions comes from us. It comes from within us as a response. It is a result of our thinking and our way of looking at something. It is how we act and react that generates our fear.

Fear basically comes from separation. So any place we push away such in judgment, attack or withdrawal we will generate fear. We will project out what we are doing and see the world doing this to us and it will frighten us. We will reap what we sow though most of us don’t realize how much our thoughts generate our feelings. Wherever there is no love, bonding, understanding, joining or any of the healing principles that bring us together, there will be fear.

Fear is trying to deal with the future before it arrives, which is impossible. The more we are not living in the here and now, the more frightened we will be and the more our lives will be dictated by the negativity of the past.

Courage comes from the French, couer, meaning “heart.” To the extent we are broken hearted, we will be frightened. Dissociation, independence, lack of relationship, cynicism and bitterness are all forms of fear. When we have lost heart through past experiences, our fear increases and we act in self defeating ways. We then either withdraw or attack hoping that someone will come to find us and save us with their love. We don’t realize how self defeating these behaviors are. But if we are without a partner there is a major element of this going on in spite of what we tell ourselves. Where there is scarcity in any area we are typically afraid to receive and acting in a self-defeating manner.

Confidence, from the Latin, con fides, meaning “with faith,” means we use our mind faithfully rather than attack ourselves by fear thoughts or attacking others or the situation with judgment which we see returning to ourselves. We are faith-full. We use our minds to think and choose positively knowing our experience will come from those thoughts. We are not sugar-coating our feelings or the situation, we just know that it cannot have any ultimate power over us. So we entrust the scene to unfold in the best possible way. Through this power of our mind focused for the good we turn scenes that could have symbolized suffering, destruction or death into a means to attain peace.

Our minds are powerful. They literally make up the world we see. Any attempt to diminish the power of our mind is a misguided effort to diminish our fear. This will only increase it in the long run because it replaces our ability and responsibility to change and improve our lives and makes us dependent on a fickle world that does not seem to have much care for us.

One of the most common fears at the root of every problem is a fear of the next step. This comes from lack of confidence and fear of the unknown. This fear is generated from an unhealed past that we project onto the future, expecting it to be as painful as the past, hence, we are afraid. There is also the fear of loss in which we see the next step as one in which we will lose something vital if we were to move into a new level of success. This comes from a conflict within, the result of us having a split mind in which we want two different things. To move in either direction brings the fear that the other side will lose. This can keep us distracted, paralysed or delayed for a long time and begin to feel intolerable to the point that we repress one side of our mind. This is the side which is projected out as the obstacle in our way. Fear also comes from power struggle and the authority conflict. These conflicts outside us begin as conflicts within. Two different parts of our mind wanting two different things, even fighting for them, makes us fearful.

Only through resolution of the conflict, integration of both sides into a great whole. This brings about a greater integrity that has us focused without reservations or obstacles toward success. Our resistance to authority, being told what to do, even if it is true, keeps us frightened. The extent to which we resist or attack authority figures, is the extent of our fear of people in authority and how much we see God as a stern, judgmental figure rather than a living Father who only wants to help and only wants what’s best for us.

We could receive the answer form within which would resolve our fear but our fear of being told what to do even from our own higher mind causes us not to listen. We fight to be our own authority even when we are mistaken or failing. We are afraid to give up our way because we think we will lose our freedom as we lose our independence, not realizing that we experience much more freedom and truth in interdependence. Most importantly, fear comes from our thoughts and our beliefs. Beliefs comes about through choice and become static, continuous thoughts. What we feel comes from what we think or believe. Fearful thoughts or beliefs lead to fear.

All fear comes from judgement and attack thoughts directed toward the world around us. Fear does not have its origins outside us. As we think and act, so we see the world thinking and acting toward us. We project what we are doing and, then, experience ourselves as feeling vulnerable and being attacked, which keeps us from intimacy and joining with others. At this point, we lose sight of the fact that the situation or feelings began as thoughts in our mind. They are thoughts is at some level a choice which bring about self-fulfilling prophecies. Our thoughts literally build the world we see, heading us toward life and happiness or toward suffering and death. As we become aware of the myriad of fear thoughts in judging others, the situation or ourselves, we can choose to give up these thoughts. One of the many ways to heal the fear at the root of the problem is to change the fear thoughts and negative beliefs, thereby opening us to a level of confidence, opportunity and giftedness, which quickly and easily resolves the outside situation.

To do this, first we must become aware of the thoughts we have generated around a situation. Many of us do not even realise that we have fear thoughts, which become self-fulfilling, prophecies and run our lives. We do not realise how we attack ourselves by such thoughts. Our fear brings our problems home to roost by bringing about the very thing which we are afraid would happen. Our fear weakens and paralyses us, keeping us from feeling confident or acting effectively.

Exercise

This exercise can take out the underpinning fear that holds a problem in place. It removes the self-attack, incumbent in any fear.

Make the choice to not attack yourself any more with your thoughts.

At least five times today for five minutes, reflect on a problem you wish to resolve. Choose one of the following and state as specifically as possible:

• In the situation regarding ________, what I am afraid, will happen is ___________.

• What I do not want to happen is ________.

Realise that each of these thoughts is a direct attack on yourself, eroding your confidence, your safety, and your success.

• This thought is generating my problem.

• This thought keeps me from moving forward.

You will notice that after 5 or 6 times of doing this 5-minute exercise some very significant fear or self-attack thoughts will surface. At the end of each practice period say:

• I don't want to keep attacking myself like this. What I choose now is ________.