Fear

That is what the letters stand for, and it describes most of what any of us are afraid of. Most of it has not happened. Most of it will not happen. And if it did, it would not look the way we picture it.

The body reacts as if it is real anyway. The heart races, the stomach turns, and the mind builds the worst case and rehearses it over and over. We have all been there.

Fear is a human condition. What you fear depends largely on your life experiences up to now and on how you perceive the world. Two people can walk into the same room and only one of them is frightened. So fear says as much about the person carrying it as about the thing they are afraid of.

The fear worth listening to

Not all fear is the false kind, and it would be foolish of me to pretend otherwise.

Picture yourself walking along a railway line. You hear a train horn behind you, turn around, and there is a train bearing down on you at 200 kilometres an hour. That fear is very real. Take it seriously. Get off the tracks. (Skid mark city, as I once put it.)

That kind of fear has evidence. You can see it, hear it and point to it, and it asks you to act right now.

The other kind is the one I want to talk about. It is built on insecurities, hesitations, rumour, the unknown, or any of a hundred other baseless things. There is no train in sight, only a picture of one painted by your own mind, and you are flinching at the painting.

What the false kind costs you

Those fears hold back your development. They stop you enjoying life. They keep you from new adventures, whether that is new people, new circumstances or both.

Over the many years I have been doing this, people have told me they fear their abilities, or fear learning, or have some other fear based reason they cannot move forward. At the time it seems insurmountable.

When you look closely, it is nearly always the same thing underneath. A picture of what the change will involve, set against what you know now. And the mind decides that making the change will wreck what you already have.

So people stay.

The devil you know

There is a reason people stay in pain longer than they should. The unknown frightens them more than the known, even when the known is hurting them. Better the devil you know, as the old line goes.

Familiar suffering has a shape. You can predict it and plan around it. You know what tomorrow looks like. The other side has no shape yet, because you have not lived there, and your mind cannot rehearse a version of you that it has never met.

So it fills the fog with monsters, because fog is all it has to work with. Doubts, worries, second guessing, the running commentary of what could go wrong. That is monkey mind, and fear is one of its favourite voices. The Monkey Mind page sets out how to tell that voice apart from a real message, by the feeling each one leaves in your body, and the method works just as well on fear.

Fear guards your heart

Fear is a trigger response. Something, somewhere, first set it off, and it has been standing guard ever since.

So when a fear turns up, ask what originally triggered it. Where did you first learn to be afraid of this? You will often find the answer is years old and belongs to a situation that no longer exists. Learn what makes you tick, and the fear starts to lose its grip.

It also helps to ask the fear one more question. What are you protecting? You do not fear losing something you do not care about. Underneath most fears is something you love.

Then give yourself permission to live outside of it.

Facing it

The question that loosens the grip is a simple one.

What is the actual evidence?

Set the picture to one side and look for evidence. Most fears cannot answer that question, and once you have asked it out loud they start to shrink.

What I have found, over and over, is that when you face those perceived fears head on, they dissolve into nothing and become delightful adventures. What you were carrying turns out to weigh less than the carrying did.

All adventures come at a cost. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, the cost is losing the boredom of the life you are living now. Learning new things opens doors you never knew existed. It turns life from a black and white photo into three dimensional colour.

And the worst that can happen? You explore a new side of life and decide afterwards it is not for you. That is a far better result than spending years wondering.

A few things that help

1. Go through your fears one at a time and ask whether each one is real or perceived. Which of them have a train?
2. For each perceived one, ask what the actual evidence is.
3. If a fear is old and stubborn, try EFT. I have seen major fears in people erased in a matter of minutes with it. The EFT, tapping away what holds you back post sets out the five steps, and if you would rather not do it alone, find a local practitioner you are comfortable with.
4. If fear is the only thing stopping you taking a step you think is right, ask your guides for a sign, and ask that it come from three independent places. The Three Source Rule page explains how.

The early fear on this path

One fear comes up so often with beginners that it is worth naming here. People tell me that on an earlier attempt at learning they picked up a lot of negative events, and they are afraid it will happen again. That is very understandable, and it has a cure, which is learning control over your own energy. The Early Pitfall page explains why it happens.

And if you work with other people, remember that some of them live in a lot of fear. Facing their stuff before they are ready can cause them problems they did not need. Ask before you share what you pick up. The Asking Permission page covers that.

Living in love

Living in fear does not protect you completely. Living in love will always protect you far better, and it protects the people you love far better too.

You have nothing to fear. The love of the universe hugs you.

Think about your fears. Which of them are real? Which of them are perceived?

You already know the answer to most of them. You will be your own teacher in this.

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.

Related pages
Denial