Running Through The Fire
by Emily Eldredge
Recently, my mother shared with me an astounding tidbit she saw on National Geographic.
“Would you believe,” she said, “that the animals in Africa most likely to survive a fire are not the ones who run from it – they’re the ones who run through it? Those who run away get tired, collapse, and are engulfed by the flames. Zebras, on the other hand, are especially great survivors because, rather than running away from the fire, they run through the fire.”
“What a powerful analogy for the healing process,” she continued. “The fire is fear. If we run away from fear, we die. However, if we simply turn around, face it, and run through it, we survive. And discover that on the other side is simply scorched earth, fresh for rebirth. And the fire is no longer moving towards us but away from us, no longer a threat to our survival.”
Wow. Who would have thought that actually running through the source of one’s fear would be the way to survive… and even thrive?
Diane Rehm (drshow.org) recently featured a gentleman who wrote a book called The Science of Fear: Why We Fear Things We Shouldn’t and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger. He comments on a phenomenon that occurred post-9/11: “A lot of Americans were afraid to fly… So we got into our cars and drove… But flying is far safer than driving. It’s so much safer that, even if there had been a wave of fatal terrorist hijackings, flying still would have been far, far, far safer than driving… Researchers found that the switch from flying to driving lasted for about one year. And during this time there was a spike in auto fatalities… The estimated number of Americans who were killed because of the irrational decision to drive rather than fly: 1,595.”
3,000 people killed in New York, and 1,600 more killed on the road… because of an unreasoned fear.
Most “fears” and defense mechanisms are simply energies within us that we create or are taught to create during childhood. At the mercy of our environment and dependent on others for survival, we unconsciously devise strategies for getting our needs met and walls for protecting ourselves from those who may be violating our boundaries. Internally, we all have multiple personalities, reacting in different ways to different situations, depending on what served us best as children. These personalities are not to be feared or fought – they are simply trying to help. They are doing exactly what they were designed to do – to protect us from a perceived or actual threat.
As we grow older and more independent, these outdated and unnecessary personalities continue to operate. However, that’s like running an updated computer on an outdated operating system. The old programs need to be removed, allowing the higher versions to be installed, opening the space for us to be who we truly are…
I frequently venture inside myself to unpack this concept of fear. It’s one thing to tell myself, “Fear is an illusion,” but when I’m swimming in that fear, the experience is truly intoxicating, like a poison warping my perception of what is truly worthy of fear. For example, if you’ve had a few glasses of wine but tell yourself, “No, I’m not drunk! This is all just an illusion!” it won’t negate the fact that your tongue feels like lead and the room is spinning around you! Best to simply wait and allow the body to release the toxin.
This, too, will pass.
Sometimes I won’t even realize that a fear is operating within me. I may be in a situation, reacting a certain way, and it isn’t until I stop, take a breath, and become aware of my body that I sense the resistance to an uncomfortable energy within me. “Oh! I didn’t realize that was there!” I relax the space around it, accept that it’s there and that it’s okay, and – POOF! – it usually disappears.
Sometimes, though, fear can be so intoxicating that my only choice is to surrender to it. Surrender: what a magnificent gift. Because, when I finally do, all resistances dissolve, and the “fear” floods in. I surrender by lying down, breathing into my body, and simply telling myself, “I surrender,” “I accept that I feel afraid,” or whatever feels right to say, whatever feels the most freeing.
And, in that moment, as my muscles release, my breathing deepens, and the fear floods in, the most spectacular awakening occurs. It finally dawns on me that:
1. It isn’t “fear.” It is just energy. I’m the only one who is feeling and labeling it as “fear.” Energy comes and energy goes. As Einstein says, it is neither created nor destroyed – just transformed. Also, energy follows thought, so the only qualities and powers given to energy are the ones I give it.
2. The “fear” is almost always irrational – never a life-or-death situation, though I may have given it that power. It is typically the fear of experiencing more fear or some other uncomfortable emotion that I’d rather not feel, like anger. And what is anger? A message that something internal or external is not in alignment with our truth, with our love of self. Worth listening to.
3. My resistance to feeling it is what has given it power over me… which is always more power than it deserves. When I let go of my resistance to it, I allow it to return to its natural flow of the Universe… to love. And I discover that it really, truly was just an illusion. And that I will survive whatever it is that I think I fear.
I often compare this process of awakening to what happens when your foot falls asleep and then wakes up. As the blood starts to flow again and the vessels stretch and the muscles twitch, it experiences the pain of awakening before it can walk again. Only, in this context, it is the heart that is waking up… thawing out from years of contraction and denial.
In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle beautifully describes what happens when we allow this fear and pain inside us to melt: “The energy that was trapped in the pain-body then changes into vibrational frequency and is transmuted into Presence. In this way, the pain-body becomes fuel for consciousness. This is why many of the wisest, most enlightened men and women on our planet once had a heavy pain-body.”
My God, if that isn’t ever a brilliant and inspiring statement. You mean, this pain is useful for something? You mean, Buddha and Jesus and all of these enlightened teachers went through this, too? You mean, all of this pain that I am feeling can miraculously transform into exuberant love and indescribable joy? You mean I can actually be free of fear?
Yes! It’s just energy that wants to flow again – that’s all! It wants to be loved and returned to the current of universal love that flows through us all. It’s the welcome sigh after holding your breath, the flood through a dam that electrifies a city, the relief we feel after a long cry, the spark of flame negating all darkness. It is the essence of our being – altered by the intentions of a fearful mind. Nothing more, nothing less. Fear is nothing to fear.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and even that we don’t have to fear!
Actor Will Smith has said he’s driven by fear. “All it takes is just one person telling me I can’t do it, and I’ll use the fear of failure as fuel. I keep going because I doubt myself… It drives me to be better. I’ve learned that the mastery of self-doubt is the key to success.”
He has learned to recognize that the feeling of fear is not something to fear. He feels the fear and does it anyway, thereby disempowering the feeling altogether and invigorating his trust and faith in himself.
For me, I take a more measured approach. I know that if I do something from a place of fear, then that is the energy I will attract in return. So I tend to face the fear internally first, recognize that it’s just an illusion based on an old belief from childhood or my environment, which then clears enough Presence space within me to know what it is that I have to do and then do it.
I recently had an extraordinary epiphany when I made a choice I had long feared doing yet knew I had to do. I said to myself, “I’m going to do this. I don’t know what will happen as a result of doing this. I just know that, in this moment right now, this is what I have to do.”
I ran through the fire… And came out glowing on the other side.
www.portaltoawakening.com
Source: www.awakeningpath.com
According to legend, one day a man was wandering in the desert when he met Fear and Plague. They said they were on their way to a large city where they were going to kill 10,000 people. The man asked Plague if he was going to do all the work. Plague smiled and said, “No, I’ll only take care of a few hundred. I’ll let my friend Fear do the rest.”
Anonymous
Find your inner power to
Travel On Through Fear
by Colleen Deatsman
Moisture dripped from soaked branches and thick mist hung like a veil over the face of the forest. It had an eerie feel, even for a nature-lover that had hiked this mountain over 100 times. I walked the familiar path until something strange caught my eye – a new trail of some sort. Intrigued, I followed it and within minutes stood underneath a deer hunting tree-blind. With that question answered, I decided to continue walking through the forest without a path rather than retracing my footsteps. I am good with directions and knew the general bearing in which to head. The further I walked, the stronger the feelings grew – unrest, discomfort, anxiety, fear. What a curious thing to notice.
I stopped and did a quick assessment. I know where I am and where I need to go, I don’t know exactly where I will come out but I am not lost, I know I won’t become lost, I am just as safe here as on the trail, yet I am uncharacteristically afraid. Knowing that I was perfectly fine, I did not panic and kept going. I also kept noticing the environment, myself, and my feelings. I saw this as a powerful awareness exercise and used this occasion as an opportunity to learn.
The further I walked into the unknown the more clear it became that this was a metaphor for life and the human experience. We know where we are and where we need to go, we don’t know exactly where we will come out but we know we won’t become lost when we trust ourselves, we are safe, yet we are afraid. We are so afraid that we will cling to any path, especially the well-worn path, just for the sense of security it brings us, albeit a false sense of security. Sometimes the path that we stick to is not even a path that is headed in the right direction. Paths like addiction, dependency, and shallow spirituality are not fulfilling or healthy paths, yet we desperately cling to them because their familiarity gives us a sense of safety.
This is a trap that we must recognize and free ourselves from. To do so we need only stop, look at our lives, and notice where we habitually act. If we are entrenched in a deeply grooved trail we do not need to remain there. We will not get lost if we wander the forests of our heart and soul. We are just as safe, or unsafe, bushwhacking through new territory as we are on the well-known trail.
It’s different to go off-trail. Different is scary, different is also freeing and expanding. When was the last time you took a different way home, or went off-road down the two-track that you’ve always wondered where it goes? Didn’t it feel exciting and just a bit scary to do so? Why don’t we do this more often? We are busy, sure, but we are also programmed to follow the trail. We have herd mentality. We are like cattle following the leader to the barn, or to the slaughter house as the case may be. This is the trap of our society – conformity without awareness. Through things such as wanderings, ponderings, and questionings we can free our souls and expand our minds.
This mountain journey revealed many treasures. A beautiful stream and meandering deer trails, areas that looked ripe for spring dryad saddle and morel mushrooms and autumn hens-in-the-woods. I found inner power to travel on through fear, trust in myself and my senses, adventure, and I didn’t get lost. Eventually, I wandered onto a trail that led to a hidden intersection with the main trail. I marveled at what I had missed, and what I had found.
I realized that things are not always as they seem and that we are quick to label, categorize, and dismiss things. We place it in a mental box with our past experiences and then move on without really experiencing this new thing. I thought I knew that mountain, but in fact, I knew very little of that mountain. Amazing things await our discovery when we go wandering and pondering through new territories. Cool stuff is missed when we merely plod along the path. It’s the “missing of this cool stuff” that steals the life force energy out of our soul and our life, leaving us feeling unfulfilled, searching, empty, lost, tired, and bored.
Now you know, and you can choose. Keep doing things the same way hoping for a different outcome, or get off the path and look around. Free yourself, free your mind, and free your soul! Just think what might be out there, and “in” there, just beyond the edges of the known path.
Colleen Deatsman is the author of Seeing in the Dark, Energy for Life: Connect with the Source and Inner Power: Six Techniques for Increased Energy & Self-Healing. She holds a Masters Degree and is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Energy Movement Healer, Reiki Master, Certified Hypnotherapist, and Certified Alternative Healing Consultant. Colleen is also an expert by personal experience. She has healed herself from chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome (CFIDS), fibromyalgia, hypoglycemia, hypothyroidism and asthma.
Copyright © 2008 Inspiration Line – All Rights Reserved
Reprinted from http://www.InspirationLine.com
Afraid to Make Choices?
by Chelle Thompson
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make heaven out of Hell and a hell of Heaven…”
~ John Milton
Each of us has the power of emotional choice and we can create permanent change in OURSELVES… at any age. Let’s look at some of the reasons why we’re afraid to make the very choices that could change our lives. Renowned psychologist Barbara DeAngeles, PhD, says to imagine that we are standing atop a mountain… a mountain called our “comfort zone.” It represents the way we’re used to living, risks we take, etc. It’s not called our comfort zone because it’s always comfortable, but because it’s always FAMILIAR. Across a ravine from our mountain is another mountain. Atop that one is everything we want: a better relationship, more freedom, more success, more prosperity, that new job. We say to ourselves, “I know I need to jump, I know it’s time. I’m ready…” Then we stop. Why? Because of FEAR.
First, there’s the fear of failing, or not being able to do it, or making a mistake. Sometimes the greatest mistakes in life come from procrastination or from taking no action at all. After fear of failure, the second thing that keeps us from changing is fear of the unknown. At least our current circumstances, as painful or unsatisfying as they may be, are familiar. It’s almost like we’ve said, “I’d rather suffer with what I have today than to change because at least I know what to expect.”
The third thing that stops us from leaping from our present mountain to a new one is the fear of leaving old and familiar ways behind. For right there next to us on our mountain top are a bunch of suitcases… our emotional baggage. Baggage that represents old anger or resentment we haven’t let go of, childhood patterns that we haven’t changed and so forth. Sometimes we’re not alone on the mountain. Maybe there’s our partner, or family, or friends. We tell them, “Come on jump, I’m ready to change,” and they reply, “No, you go ahead, I like it right here where I am.” Then we have to make a decision between keeping them company or leaving them behind and growing for ourselves. It’s very painful to choose between our own growth and keeping somebody we love company.
The fourth fear that people have for making changes in their life is the fear of letting go and losing control. Letting go may feel scary, but it’s SO much easier than holding on to a familiar, yet painful way of life that no longer serves us. Most of us have a high tolerance for emotional pain. We wait until a crisis or drama happens to finally take action. We wait until the pressure is overwhelming, and THEN we get counseling, join a workshop, start exercising or whatever. If you had a lot of pain or drama in your childhood like I did, you may have a high tolerance of emotional pain because you became used to it while growing up. When we grow up in a home with alcoholism or constant fighting, or if our parents were unhappy and there was a lot of tension, we get accustomed to that kind of tension in our own lives. Therefore, we may not fully acknowledge being in pain.
Dr. DeAngeles explains that sometimes when we’re standing on our mountain and not leaping, though we know we need to, and our tolerance for emotional pain is high, we get a swift kick from “Beyond” saying — “You know, they’re never going to take action unless I give them a push!” That’s when our partner comes home and says, “Honey, this relationship just isn’t working, I’m leaving.” Or maybe we’re in a job we know isn’t right, but we haven’t gotten around to quitting, and one day, all of a sudden, our boss sits us down and says, “You’re fired.” I call this phenomenon an “Intervention by a Cosmic Baseball Bat.”
When in your life has something interceded and forced you to act, even when you were holding back? Maybe it was a car accident that made you lie in bed and re-examine your life, or an illness that forced you to re-evaluate how you take care of yourself. Why not compose a list of these occurrences… contemplate what happened and see what thoughts come to you.
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN FEARS
It’s important, I find, to recall and reuse old tools that have proven helpful in difficult situations in the past. Sometimes we think we’ve moved so far forward that a “Been there, done that!” attitude clouds our memory and limits our options. Fear is an ongoing challenge in this world so we need all the assistance we can muster.
Humor has been a fantastic form of fearbusting for me… whenever I can find, and laugh at, the irony or absurdity in a “crisis” situation, my inner peace is generally restored. The initial breakthrough in my relationship with my mother came when I realized that the seemingly hurtful things she would say were outlandish enough to make great standup comedy lines. I stopped taking it personally, saw the humor and rescued myself from that fearful enmeshment.
Another successful approach for me has been releasing expectations and fear by facing the TRUTH. An analogy that I created several years ago joins with the healing power of humor to facilitate this process:
Many family, romantic and other relationship scenarios can be likened to buying a puppy at a pet shop. The store is out of puppies, so we settle for a duck (or we are a puppy born into a duck family). All the time we’re with this duck, we keep hoping that it will bark, fetch, roll over and act like a puppy. When we become clear that this is never going to happen, we can release the impossible expectations we’ve been holding (for quacking and waddling are simply what a duck does). Then we can re-empower ourselves by choosing whatever action feels right in the clear light of Truth. This dissolves the drama and offers a window of transformation for all involved.
In 1991 I left a successful career in the Los Angeles area, leased out my house with everything in it, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I knew no one. As time went on, the tenants moved from my house, and I was told that the declining California real estate market at the time made the property “unsellable.” Persistent fears of whether my bank account could hold out longer than it would take my house to sell were almost overwhelming.
After a string of sleepless nights, I finally discovered a fear-relief formula that worked. I envisioned every aspect of how it would look, feel, smell, taste and sound for my house to sell.
I “heard” the realtor’s voice over the phone telling me we had an offer; I “saw” myself flying to California; I heard and saw the buyers as we did a final walkthrough; I felt the check in my hand; I smelled the exhaust of the yellow rental truck after we loaded up my stuff; I tasted the teriyaki celebration dinner at Benihana’s Restaurant in Marina del Rey; and I saw myself being fully immersed in my motivational project in Santa Fe with no distracting ties elsewhere.
The house went on the market October 4, 1992. There was just one offer submitted on October 22nd (for almost the asking price), and escrow closed December 4th. It was the ONLY house my realtor sold that month. (She said she knew it would happen though, because she could feel my belief in it.)
All fear is a case of forgotten identity. Most things we fear are the result of a lack of trust and failure to acknowledge our own innate power. My hope for everyone is beautifully said by the Great Sufi Master Hafiz (1320-1389)…
Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living in better conditions…
Chelle Thompson
Reprinted from http://www.inspirationline.com
Fear: The Core of Your Problems
by Jonathan Parker
When you remove false perceptions and illusions,
your true self remains, and you automatically experience
more love, beauty, harmony, and happiness.
The idea that we create our own reality – that is, the concept of the mirror universe – often seems to ring true, but it also raises some troubling questions. Sometimes it’s easy to see this principle at work in our lives, but other times, especially when things aren’t going very well, it can be hard to understand how we set certain events in motion.
Of course, we don’t have as much trouble with the concept when things are going wonderfully – for example, when stock prices are up, or we get the contract we were hoping for, or when our health is good. It’s fairly easy to take credit for the good things, but when our health falters, or when financial problems come up, or when our relationships are in trouble, we wonder what happened!
In many cases, people claim they’ve tried everything imaginable to change things, and yet nothing changes. The reason for this is that most of the forces sustaining reality are below conscious awareness and therefore aren’t known or recognized. We have accumulated wounds, habits, and belief patterns that are embedded in our body, mind, brain, and subtle energy system. But once you discover and understand the source, all the mystery is resolved.
Identifying Fears and Core Issues
Almost every problem we encounter in life is based on some form of fear. The energy of fear can locate itself in any area of the body and create physical and emotional symptoms. As you clear the fear, the conditions often clear up, but unless you eliminate the fear at its root, simply treating the symptoms will only cause the mind or body to create other symptoms.
If, however, in addition to treating the symptoms, you also release the subtle energy that’s causing the symptoms, and shift your consciousness with regard to the underlying issues, the mind and body can return to a state of healthy balance. The energy meridians then open so that the life force can start flowing again, and this causes the body’s chemistry to start working in a healthy way. Ironically, our difficulties can be gifts that reveal where we need to bring healing and where we’re ready for growth, but first we need to get to the root cause, which I call our core issues.
Core patterns appear when we struggle with circumstances over a protracted period, or when we experience a period of growth. Core issues have a powerful impact on all aspects of our life. They carry strong emotions, beliefs, and reactions. When you clear core issues, you become much more empowered to create what you want.
Common Core Patterns
Common core patterns center around issues and emotions such as terror, hatred, fear, anger, worry, feeling unworthy, self-doubt, thinking something’s wrong with you, feeling unlovable, feeling trapped with no way out, feeling helpless and hopeless, experiencing deep feelings of aloneness and abandonment, and others.
When an event activates a core issue, you may feel devastated. You may feel as if your life has been crushed, or you may be frozen in fear, extreme confusion, deep depression, or a sense of abandonment. You may even feel physical pain, such as tension or a sensation of gripping in the chest or solar plexus.
In most cases, core issues accrue over a lifetime and remain deeply embedded unless or until we address them. These issues touch us at the deepest levels.
The challenge with core issues is not the experience or event that triggers them, but the emotional charge that gets attached to them. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs when people keep reacting to a trauma years after an event; they carry the emotional charge and keep re-experiencing it emotionally. They may have frequent flashbacks to the event, and at the very least they experience strong negative emotions associated with the original event.
The same thing happens with a core pattern. The strong emotional charge connected to the pattern keeps the reactions alive. If you’ve experienced terror and deep fear in your solar plexus, or if you’ve ever had a deeply broken heart where you felt pain or agony in your chest, these experiences activate core patterns.
Fortunately, when you manage to release a core pattern, your whole life changes because you also release a tremendous amount of disturbing energy. This frees you from the tyranny of a lifelong problematic pattern.
The Ego’s Role in Core Issues
The ego is driven by many defenses to protect itself from whatever it perceives as a threat to its security, comfort, or existence. Many of the traits that you may think of as being fundamentally human are actually defensive characteristics of the ego. These include emotional reactions, beliefs, judgments, criticism, and blame. The ego relies on survival strategies to cope with the many threats that it perceives due to its sense of separation.
For instance, the ego utilizes the defense mechanism of fear to keep us from danger. This may sound like a good thing, except that most people are driven by fears that have no real basis, and by holding on to these fears, they generate the energies that can create or attract the very thing they fear. This is the mirror universe at work.
The ego’s perceived separation from our divine Source engenders a vast number of fears. Typically, people aren’t directly aware of these deep fears. Instead, they experience them indirectly, such as through fear of the future, a generalized anxiety, or fear of the unknown. All these unconscious fears make up the core issues that we need to address.
To keep from feeling the pain of insecurity and separation, the ego drives us to seek attachments through needing, wanting, possessiveness, control, endless searching, feeling that there’s never enough, and continually looking for external things to bring a sense of fulfillment or completion. Though of course, they never do.
By systematically reducing and eliminating these core patterns, you can expand your awareness to a greater realization of who you are as a being of light and love.
Excerpted from the book The Soul Solution: Enlightening Meditations for Resolving Life’s Problems, by Jonathan Parker. HJ Kramer/New World Library. © 2011. http://www.newworldlibrary.com
Jonathan Parker is the founder and director of Quantum Quests International. Jonathan has university degrees in Education, Chemistry, Theology, Counseling Psychology, and Human Behavior & Development. For over 30 years he has been a counselor, workshop facilitator and author of one of the largest self-development libraries in the world. His outstanding TV programs, “Mind Power,” “Self-Empowerment” and “Winning at Weight Loss” have brought his results-oriented approach to millions. His recordings, workshops, and retreats offer inspiring and life-changing experiences. Audio programs of meditations similar to those in his book The Soul Solution are available at http://www.jonathanparker.org.
Source: http://innerself.com