fear

FEAR OF NOTHING HAPPENING

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FEAR OF NOTHING HAPPENING 

Unrestful doing

Sometimes we frantically and unrestfully do.  We just do.  Do as much as we can while simultaneously attempting to not pay attention to the feeling that what we are trying to do, the impact we are trying to have, the change we are wanting to make, may in fact not be happening.  If we stop the incessant activity for even one second in order to pay attention to what is actually happening, we might recognize that the way we are approaching whatever it is we are doing, is not working.  Yikes, but then what?  If it’s not working we fear we won’t know how to make it work so we just keep doing what we know and hope that something magically happens or that no one (including ourselves) notices that nothing has in fact changed.

This underlying anxious feeling that nothing might happen perpetuates the doing and even intensifies it.  We get caught in a vicious cycle of feeling like we can’t stop or else something catastrophic may occur.  We might feel failure.  We might feel disappointment.  We might feel confusion.   We might feel powerless or at a loss.  So we just keep doing, and keep hoping that something will change, because feeling all of those other things feels like too much for us to handle.  Rather than feel all of those things, the doing keeps us numb and in denial of the situation at hand.  It keeps us from facing, accepting or being present with what is really occurring.  We choose to feel numb and disconnected rather than feel failure, confusion, loss and powerlessness because choosing numb and disconnected, while not exactly comfortable, is in someway easier.  

The question we often don’t want to face is, “what if nothing works?”  Other flavors of this question can be “what if I don’t know how” or “what if I can’t”.  We fear what will happen, what will remain or what will be, if what is can’t be changed.  What is seems unacceptable to us and this un-acceptance keeps us feeling powerless.  The experience of this can be paralyzing, while creating ceaseless thought loops that keep us internally restless and externally doing to keep us distracted from feeling.  The doing isn’t productive in its attempt to accomplish what it hopes will change. It is however productive in is capacity to keep us engaged so that we don’t have to pay attention to what’s not working and feel the feelings and potential threat that come with those feelings.  What if nothing changes, then what?  What will be lost?  What do we fear will happen if nothing happens or the change or impact we desire to see doesn’t reveal itself?  Threats to our survival, resources, reputation, how we view ourselves, our purpose, and what we think we want to have or do, can all be perceived to be at threat.   

STOP, RELAX, REPEAT 

Feeling is how you know

What happens if we stop the doing?  If in one swift moment we simply stop the activity, both inner and outer?  What remains is that we must feel the fear of nothing.  Of nothing changing, of nothing occurring, of not having the impact we hoped for.  We must feel what is, when what is, is not what we like.  That which feels unchanged and which we feel powerless to change.  When we end the running that we do with all of the activity, we are left with our fear of hopelessness and powerlessness to what is.  We absolutely must get to this point, because if we don’t we will keep avoiding without recognizing the power that we are to create change.

See the power for change, impact and “happening” seems to be outside of us we when are caught up in the fear of “nothing happening cycle”.  Unless we directly feel that loss of power, we don’t find the power inside of ourselves because we are too busy avoiding feeling powerless.  It seems like a paradox to the mind, and yet it is only through surrendering to what we are actually feeling and experiencing (in this case powerlessness), that the light can reveal itself to us.  That light being the light of your very own consciousness that recognizes itself and recognizes the power it’s been all along to change or create the impact that is desired.  We can’t see that light if we are busy avoiding what is.  We are clouded by the fear of all of the potential perceived threats we have about what isn’t happening and our restless strategies to avoid feeling.  

When just for a moment or two we stop the activity we open into the space of our own unknown.  If while inside this space we dare to relax for just another moment or two we can begin to feel again.  Perhaps we feel some uncomfortable feelings, and perhaps we simply just feel.  We un-numb ourselves and stop denying what is.  We cease resisting and alas feeling returns.  With feeling back online we become more present, more aware and innately know “what” to do rather than just doing stuff to avoid feeling.  We attune and listen.  We are led and follow.  We work with what’s there rather than resisting it and trying to change it into something else.  We drop in and towards.  This is how we create.  

Knowing what to do in order to create change or impact isn’t far away, it’s just masked underneath the fear that we don’t know what to do.  It’s masked underneath the feeling of powerlessness.  Again our power to know is masked underneath our fear that we don’t know, and we avoid feeling that we don’t know like we avoid the plaque.  That avoidance manifests itself as doing, as inner and outer incessant, restless activity.  In order to lift the mask we must first be present to our sense of powerlessness, accept it, and allow the recognition of our power, or our creator self, to reveal itself to us yet again.  Your power is right here even if you don’t know or see right now.  Nothing is out of your reach. You must only stop, relax and repeat.  Repeat often.  This will help you will feel again and feeling informs action.  Feeling is how we know and how we do from a connected, restful state of being.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

YOU’RE THE LIGHT

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YOU’RE THE LIGHT 

Fear busting

In essence we are all light.  We are not the forms, the identities, or the names we been given or have given ourselves.  We are pure, radiating light.  Even though this is true most of us do not experience ourselves as light.  Rather we experience ourselves as a body and a personality that has thoughts, ideas and assumptions about what it is and what it’s not.  The more thoughts we have about what we are, the less we know what we actually are.  Thoughts create filters from which the light that we are bends and distorts itself.  The more thoughts we have, the more twists and turns the light that we are takes, and the further we are from knowing ourselves.  We become more identified with the forms and we forget the formlessness from which we came.  This makes our experience of ourselves feel dense, solid, and often scary as we are disconnected from true source of self.  We come to trust only what is physical, which is ever changing and provides no true stability, as we’ve lost sight of the light.  

Fear of anything, regardless of what it is, is simply the loss of remembering self, or said another way, a forgetting of the light.  When fear becomes the dominant lens that we look through the light can seem scary or overwhelming to us.  That which provides rest, relaxation or levity becomes a threat, because it threatens our perspective of fear which feels very real to us and is our only known source of stability.  Even though we may desire reprieve from the feelings, thoughts and sensations of fear, we desire more the stability in what we know, in what is familiar, even if it is unpleasant.  

If we let go of our perspective of fear then we are left in uncertainty.  We feel exposed and vulnerable and open.  Rather than guarding ourselves against potential experience we open ourselves to experience.  Experience is what it is regardless if we are open or closed to it.  The only difference is in how we will experience it, how we will relate to and interact with it, and how we will move and participate with life or not.  We can’t control experience despite our often galant efforts to do so.  We are not the deciders of what occurs, but we are the deciders of how we experience what occurs.  This is our free will, our choice and nothing or no-one can take that from us.  We can only willing give away how we experience what is.  This occurs when we default to programs and conditioning that say we are powerless and where we choose to believe that we have no other choice.  Understand those beliefs and perspectives are required in order for one to disown their power to choose how they experience.   

BRIGHTEN UP

Moving towards fear

Fear creates an experience of vigilance or an over attunement to our inner and outer environment.  This may be thought of as sensitivity, but it’s a sensitivity in which one feels powerless or threatened rather than a sensitivity where one feels more connected and at peace with the light that they are.  As we open and become less defended we actually want more sensitivity, more attunement and more subtle awareness.  This is an indication of spiritual developmental progression, a movement towards remembering self.  Yet we want it rooted in power and trust, not powerlessness and fear.  When rooted in power it is the experience of co-participation with life, with the unfolding and there is agreement with what is occurring.  When rooted in powerlessness it feels as though it is happening to you, as though you can’t turn it off and you have just have to be subjected to whatever is occurring in your inner and outer environment. 

The funny thing about fear is that it all comes down to us not knowing what is going happen, yet how could we know what isn’t yet and why do we ever think that we should know.  Fear is simply the resistance we have to not knowing mixed in while some thoughts that something bad might occur inside, or on the other side, of that not knowing.  While we become overly identified with the physical so much so that we’ve come to gain our sense of stability in it, yet its blatantly obvious that there is nothing stable about the physical.  Nothing is more certain than birth and death of forms, yet we continue to try to find our source of stability inside of them and get shaken up when they start to destabilize.  

The way I see it is that nothing should be taken too seriously, even our fears, especially our fears.  The moment we take them seriously is the moment we move further away from the light.  I have a practice of opening into that which feels scary or unknown.  When I feel fear I notice my tension, my clenching, my resistance and then I notice that I am the one doing all of those things – tensing, clenching, and resisting.  In that moment of recognition I open and allow my experience rather than continuing to close off from it.  See the experience is what the experience is, but I get to experience it how I want to experience it.  Moving towards the uncomfortableness rather than away from it is key, is pivotal, is required for transformation of how we experience what we experience.  In turning towards and opening, there is allowance to feel.  To feel the feelings about the experience which may feel intense for a few moments, and then after that there is peace.  There is no longer resistance.  There is simply openness with the fear, with the unknown.  Presence, breath and ease return.

The return of presence is the return of the light.  No longer is our resistance to our experience blocking the light.  Now we can see, less distorted, less filtered.  This is the process of allowing the light that you are to become brighter and brighter.  The brighter the light, the clearer you feel even though all is still a mystery.  The unknown becomes exciting rather than scary.  This is how you shine, how you radiate and how you move into greater coherence, greater wholeness, greater knowing of yourself.  That is the entire spiritual game. Knowledge of self is the ultimate outcome.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

FEAR

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FEAR 

Perception of powerlessness

What is fear?  Fear is the thought that something bad might happen or the perception/belief that something bad is happening in this moment.  Fear often comes with a cascade of emotions and bodily sensations such as panic, powerlessness, unsteadiness, tension, pain or uneasiness.  Fear is almost always found right along side of uncertainty, where the uncertainty is undesirable by the perceiver.  The hallmark of fear is a sense of unavoidable, uncontrollable doom of which you can do nothing about.  A sense of powerlessness to circumstance floods your mind.  The typical reactions to this powerlessness are to brace yourself for potential impact, become apathetically detached or fight it all costs.  

You have all heard the saying that “what we fear controls us” and it’s true.  We give our free will or our power to whatever it is we fear.  It then decides for us rather than us being the decider.  We forfeit our chooser-ship-ness and allow ourselves to be chosen for by the thing out there or over there that we deem as frightening or unwanted.  We do this blindly.  In a way you could call it an act of faith.  Faith in our conviction of powerlessness in which our blind act of handing over our power reinforces.  

Why do we so blindly and obediently give away our power?  Partly because we don’t actually know that we have it.  Your free will is your power.  They are synonymous.  Most do not know or are unfamiliar with their own power, meaning they don’t realize themselves as having free will.  There are no classes in our early educational system that talk about that fact that you are free being, that you have free will or that focus on simply allowing you to be yourself.  Rarely are your natural impulses allowed to be expressed, but instead the opposite is the case.  We are told what to do, where to go, when to be there and how to conform.  Very little if any attention gets placed on the inherent nature of our sovereign, free self.  No wonder we are such a lost and confused society.  We don’t realize our free will because it has become so entangled with the culturally accepted norms of our society.  Often to be in your power, or choosing for yourself rather than based on what others may view as right, gives the appearance of being set apart from them.  There are certain others that may want nothing to do with you if you decide for yourself and it is contrary to how they view.  You may view some of those others as being very important to you.  They may provide for you physically or emotionally, and since our most basic need is connection we will do whatever it takes to not lose connection with others less we feel isolated, alone or unsupported.  This is how we innocently give away the power we didn’t even know we had.   

FEAR’S REMEDY

Knowing your inherent freeness 

Yes you are already free.  In this moment you have all the freedom and free you will ever have, no matter what the circumstances are that are currently showing up on your screen of life.  Your free will has always been intact.  The fact that this has probably not felt like the experience you always have is only simply because you have not realized this basic truth, that you are already free.  You still believe part of you to not be free yet, which means you don’t experience seamless freedom.  You believe you need this thing or that thing, this person or that person, this situation or that situation, and so you manipulate yourself (which includes conforming, compressing or not being yourself) in order to try to get what you think you need or want.  You develop strategy, sometimes very efficient and effective strategy, but there is no trust, only reliance on strategy.  This means you can never truly relax or rest, hence the tension, unease, pain and discomfort of fear prevail in your experience.  

People often view freedom as external, meaning being able to do the things they want to do, live where they want to live, be in relationship with who they want, have their body function in a particular way, etc.  Inner freedom has nothing to do with this idea of external freedom or being able to do what you want or have the things you want.  See if we view freedom as an external phenomenon than all the ducks always have to be lining up in the right rows, and if one one duck falls out of alignment then the system crashes and we are not free again.  This is not true freedom.  Even though many people think that they want freedom, and that they will be free when their circumstances of life line up with their picture of what they think they want, most people don’t actually want inner freedom.  Instead they want the external picture of what they think freedom is. I am not suggesting that you should not have preferences or desires and not move towards them.  I personally believe you should follow those impulses.  Instead I am simply pointing to the fact that freedom does not live inside of them.  Freedom lives inside of you.  How can you be in the worst, most undesirable situation and still recognize that you are free.  That’s true inner freedom.  What would that take?  What would it take to simply be yourself?  It takes only one ingredient.  That ingredient is trust.  Trust in yourself.

I’ve noticed an interesting dynamic over the years.  Despite the fact that many people think that they want to be free, sovereign and realized in their power, in actuality most people really don’t.  They want someone to tell them what to do because they feel so lost and uncertain inside.  They want someone else to direct the ship, to support them, to take care of them, to provide certainty for them so that they don’t have to decide for themselves. They want an authority figure so they can just rest already because they are so tired of being scared and lost.   So much so that they are willing to give their free will up and over for it.   What lays underneath it all is that ultimately people don’t want to be wrong, alone, unloved or unsupported.  These are our greatest fears, and because we are unwilling to face their potential and see through them, we live in the dark and lack trust.  While in the dark we grip to anything that we can, anything that seems to maybe know, because we feel we do not.  Self-doubt is the story we hold dear and remain steadfastly devoted to our conviction in our powerlessness.  To wake up from this all, to stop blindly giving over your free will, you must directly plunge into what you fear most so that you can experiential develop the trust that comes through doing so.  This is not something that will just automatically occur.  You must take an active role in this process to wake up to the truth that there is nothing to fear.  That fear is only a perception, a story and that you can find your way through it to the other side.  

Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

Un-fear yourself!

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Un-fear yourself 

A look at your beliefs

43947471 - fear.If you are human you have experienced fear.  Fear is simply the belief that things are not working or going to work out for you.  It comes with the thoughts that you will be hurt, won’t be taken care of or loved, that you are on your own, separate and isolated.  Fun times🎉, not.

The addiction to believing that things aren’t working out for you is strong and it literally destroys life. Patterns get deeply engrained in your nervous system and cascades of chemicals, like adrenaline and cortisol, get released into your blood stream when you have thoughts that say “things aren’t working out”.  This sets up withdrawal symptoms when you start questioning your fear based thoughts. Who would you be if you believed every situation was working out for you? Crazy? Delusional? Psychotic?  These are the labels we’ve learn to give people who see the light in every situation.

The emotional-chemical cascade will do its best to hijack your system so you continue to feel separate, unsupported, empty and not cared for, as this is what has been the norm for most people’s lives to varying to degrees. This is “comfortable” in that it’s known, and what is known feels more safe than the unknown, even if the unknown is more true.

Life is always working for you 

Shifting perspectives

42024392 - child, excitement, ecstatic.Fear and excitement are the same energy, simply viewed through different lenses. To un-fear yourself you must see how everything is working for you. How the relationship that just ended is working for you. How getting fired is working for you. How the painful sensation in your body is working for you. How your current income and resources are working for you.

This reframes your thinking from a lack-based perspective to a presence-based perspective. It’s much more fun to be in presence than it is lack. There is excitement for the unknown possibilities that are emerging based on your belief that everything is working for you, instead of worry for the unknown possibilities that are emerging based on the belief that things aren’t working out for you.

The catch is you must change your perspective before it will be reflected differently in your life. You can’t wait for your perfect life circumstances to magically arrive and then decide to see that life is working for you. If you attempt to do this, then even when you have achieved your ideal life you will not see it. You will be unable to perceive it because you haven’t shifted your underlying belief from lack to presence

You must see how life is already working for you now despite whatever circumstance you are experiencing. Then as life continues to unfold you will see the perfection of it because you have already changed your belief to align with it.  These patterns are underlying in most people’s nervous systems and sabotage our desires & dreams often silently without us even knowing they are there. They are masters of deception and require commitment, persistence and dedication to bring them to light for the ultimate goal of shifting from fear silently controlling your life, to living your life based in freedom.

Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado