Fear stops us from living our best life and EVERYONE is afraid of something.
Fear has the power to hold us back from taking risks, following our dreams or becoming successful at anything we attempt to do.
What many people fail to realize is that fear is nothing more than a conditioned response. It is an automatic response to a frightening or unfamiliar situation. While fear usually happens automatically, there are things you can do to manage it.
Whatever happens in your life has been divinely orchestrated to happen in exactly the way that it does. It is not about whether your life is harder or easier than someone else’s. It is about the Universe always giving you exactly what you need in order to help you grow into your highest self.
Sometimes the Universe’s gifts come in the form of fortune and other times they come in the form of challenges. How you deal with what comes is up to you.
What is Fear
First let’s define fear from Dictionary Reference.com
- A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. Synonyms: foreboding, apprehension, consternation, dismay, dread, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation, qualm.
Antonyms: courage, security, calm, intrepidity. - A specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling: an abnormal fear of heights. Synonyms: phobia, aversion; bête noire, bogy, bogey, bugbear. Antonyms: liking, fondness, penchant, predilection.
- Concern or anxiety; solicitude: a fear for someone’s safety.
- Reverential awe, especially toward God: the fear of God. Synonyms: awe, respect, reverence, veneration.
- Something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of: Cancer is a common fear.
Caution and Fear
Living a fearless life does not mean living a life in which caution is never exercised. I want to make that clear before you read any more of this post.
Just remember that caution and fear are not the same thing. I seldom feel intense fear anymore but I am cautious in unfamiliar situations. Just because I live a life that isn’t fear based does not mean that I don’t use caution when crossing the street or driving down an unfamiliar road for example.
Caution is not fear. It is simply the announcement of a clear choice to avoid outcomes we do not want , and which do not represent who we are and who we choose to be.
Fear comes in various magnitudes. Deep fear — the kind that we can feel in the pit of our stomach, the kind that leaves our chest cold, the kind that stops our heart and generates huge amounts of energy. On the other hand, what I call “shallow” fear — the little fears of day-to-day life that really don’t run very deep (“Oh, I’ll never find a parking space”) rarely have any important or lasting effect and, indeed, often prove unfounded.
Fears are a reaction to something that you believe to be true. You don’t have a feeling about anything unless you have a belief or a definition about the situation.
It is a reaction to a definition or belief that you “bought into” that causes fear in the first place.
Sometimes the specific type of fear like public speaking can be symbolic of what the definition itself is. Therefore the type of fear can actually help you get in touch with what the definition might be.
Public speaking fears may be related to the idea of an internal definition/ limiting belief and may be your psyches way to let you know that you have this belief.
The fear of public speaking is often caused by the “really real” fear that you are about to expand who you are to a wider audience.
Yes, expansion of yourself can cause fear to rise to the surface. And the more people who you allow your reach to go, the greater your chance of criticism and ultimately failure.
The cool thing about fear is that it has a very strong feeling and it will force you to awaken to the fact that you have these beliefs in the first place.
So the fear becomes so great that it will force you to awaken to the fact consciously, that you have these beliefs unconsciously so you will find them, change them, and ultimately transform fear into pleasure or at least acceptance.
That is what fear is for. When you are feeling fear, it is there to tell you that you have a belief that is out of alignment with who you really are.
Use your fear to serve you. Feel it, invite it, allow it and examine what core issue (belief) is causing you to feel this way.
Fine Tuning Your Body
Remember, the physical body is like an instrument. Your vibration is your sound and if you don’t like the music coming out of your body (fear) than tune your instrument to the vibration that is in alignment with the real you (not fear).
Fear is like an out of tune key on a piano. You need to find what belief causes you to feel fear (out of tune) change it (fine tuning) so the new belief is tuned and placed back into harmony with the rest of you.
Fear is your friend if you don’t react to it negatively. Specific fears (claustrophobia, public speaking etc) can give you a big clue as to what beliefs you have “bought into.”
Use your fear to serve you and the more you realize what fear is for the more excited and curious you will be about fear instead of burying and resisting it.
The truth is all emotions are neutral until they are filtered through your belief systems. That is why two people can go on a roller coaster ride while person “A” is loving every minute of it and person “B” is horrified by the experience.
It’s the beliefs of each person that causes how they experience the roller coaster ride and not the ride itself. Same goes with all experiences in life.
Remember though, caution and fear are two different things. One still allows you do to what you need to do while the other will immobilize you if you react negatively towards it.
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