For those who have faced the fear and those who will.
What Fear Is:
In the process present here for dealing with fear, fear is the hunted, not the hunter. Fear is the quarry you must stalk and confront and unmask, to reveal to yourself that all that separates you from yourself is an ILLUSION.
Fear is not what you think it is.
Fear is not who you are underneath your façade. Fear is not the real you that you must somehow fix or improve or overcome.
Fear is a very useful signal along the path to freedom.
The stronger the fear, the closer you are to what you are seeking. If you want to stay safe (i.e., stuck where you are), fear tells you to stop what you are doing. But if you want to be free, fear lets you know you are on the right track, it is a signal to push ahead in the same direction, to pick up the pace.
The Emptiness of Fear:
Much of what we call fear is thought. For example, a car swerves out of control in front of you, and everything goes into slow motion. Adrenaline rushes through the body at the moment of danger, and evasive actions are taken to avoid a collision. In that moment, there are no thoughts, there is just a oneness with the situation. Instead about thinking about what to do, there is just doing the next thing.
Many people report that in situations when they are truly threatened, there is no fear. The whole experience arises in each moment – there’s turning the wheel of the car, there’s stepping on the brake – but there is no experience of anyone doing it, of making conscious decisions.
So, we can consider this phenomenon, some of our best evidence that fear:
a) Does not help us,
b) does not protect us,
c) does not take care of us.
“Fear” comes in afterwards.
Only later there are thoughts of what might have happened.
What most of us think of as fear is primarily a mental process of imagining situations that do not exist in the moment.
Where Fear Comes From:
Separation (fear) | No Separation (no fear) |
self | Self |
Isolation | Oneness |
Abandonment | Connection |
Fear | Clarity |
Deprivation | Plenty |
Anger | Forgiveness |
Illusion of Control | Letting go |
Suffering | Bliss |
How to Address Fear:
Fear is the experience of being identified as a separate self. FEAR and SEPARATENESS are synonyms.
And yet, avoiding fear, resisting fear, fearing fear, are greater problems than fear.
If we had learned to believe that the sensations we call “happiness” meant that awful things happen to us, we would now have the same reactions to happiness that we have to fear – We often operate out of beliefs.
Realization of non-separation is the ultimate (and only) “control”
We are desperate to control because we believe ourselves to be separate, alone and vulnerable.
When I am not separate, there is no one to protect.
I am invincible – I can be defenseless.
The only way to be invulnerable is to be completely vulnerable, and, for us to open to total vulnerability requires that we go beyond out fears and to know that we have never been separate from our true nature, from all that is.
Many of us see ourselves as victim to fear, as if fear is chasing us through life and we must elude it.
I want us to switch this around. We are going to become the hunters and fear, the hunted.
Question Every Fear Thought
How do I know that?
Is that true?
Who says so?
Is that my experience or is it a belief?
Look to see how fear is set up in your mind:
Learn to Ask:
Is that happening NOW?
Is that true NOW?
Who says so?
Learn to explore:
Assumption
Speculation
Rumor
Prejudice
negativity
And yet, avoiding fear, resisting fear, fearing fear, are greater problems than fear.
If we had learned to believe that the sensations we call “happiness” meant that awful things happen to us, we would now have the same reactions to happiness that we have to fear – We often operate out of beliefs.
Realization of non-separation is the ultimate (and only) “control”
We are desperate to control because we believe ourselves to be separate, alone and vulnerable.
When I am not separate, there is no one to protect.
I am invincible – I can be defenseless.
The only way to be invulnerable is to be completely vulnerable, and, for us to open to total vulnerability requires that we go beyond out fears and to know that we have never been separate from our true nature, from all that is.
Fear of the “unknown” is actually fear of my own imagination.
Many of us see ourselves as victim to fear, as if fear is chasing us through life and we must elude it.
I want us to switch this around. We are going to become the hunters and fear, the hunted.
How do I know that?
Is that true?
Who says so?
Is that my experience or is it a belief?
Look to see how fear is set up in your mind:
Learn to Ask:
Is that happening NOW?
Is that true NOW?
Who says so?
Learn to explore:
Assumption
Speculation
Rumor
Prejudice
negativity
What if we replace those voices that warn and threaten us….
- Cheri Huber.
