Embracing the fear- Posted by Sally on December 10, 1999 at 00:38:22:
Hi All~
This article helped me alot,I thought it might help some of you
also. We "change the thought" with mindful awareness" of it,,,,we do
have a choice. Every moment, every day.
Changing the Thought
by Susanna Thorpe-Clark
What is the reality of your life? Do you wake every morning full of joy
and enthusiasm for the day ahead? Do you feel content, fulfilled and
satisfied with the life you are creating? Or do you think you need to
make a few changes? Perhaps you have looked in your mirror and found
that one or two beliefs and behaviours are not serving you, and not
contributing to a life you could really claim is happy.
In my experience, few of us are truly happy with life. Oh, we all have
peak periods when the whole world is smiling at us but it seems to me,
that the older we get, the more disillusioned we become. At 21 the
world can look full of promise, at 41 we don't necessarily view it in
quite the same way. We lose our innocence and our naiveté and begin to
realize that the life we imagined ourselves having hasn't quite
happened the way we thought it would.
Climbing the ladder of success rarely leads to a state of constant
satisfaction and fulfillment. Neither does the quest for fame or
fortune, for these usually provide only momentary bliss. But living
through outside, worldly events is what we believe will make us happy.
To be rich or famous. To have a successful career. To be in a blissful
and loving relationship. To be a captain of industry or recognized by
our peers as exceptional in some way. We all look to something outside
ourselves to satisfy the craving for happiness, and fulfillment. And of
course, we rarely find it there, or if we do, it doesn't last long.
Sooner or later that bubble bursts.
If you find that life is not providing any sense of satisfaction and
you aren't getting out of bed full of the joys of spring, then may I
suggest you do something about it. To begin with, you could start to
take responsibility for what life is dishing out, by acknowledging that
you are the one who is actually creating everything that is happening
to you. You could acknowledge your own power in this creative process,
because you are extremely powerful. It's just that you haven't realized
it. The mirror of life shows it all to you. All your beliefs, all your
fears, all your fantasies are being played out right in front of you.
Just open your awareness to them. They can be found in your dreams, and
in moments of silence, or in the mirrors playing out around you
throughout the day. And once you have identified what it is that you
hate about yourself, what it is you judge to be wrong, then you can get
rid of that judgement by changing the thought.
The key to a new life lies not just in the changing of the thought, but
also in the acceptance of the fear itself. And that act of acceptance
is where the shift begins to take place, because it stops the judgement
that we have that it is wrong, or bad, or silly, or stupid. Conversely,
if we continue to ignore it and to pretend that it doesn't exist, we
will find that we continue to create it, for the thought is still
there, whether we acknowledge it or not. The universal rule says that
what we think, we create. Energy particles attract other energy
particles, and thought is energy. It is really very logical.
Once we have looked at the fears, and put them out on the table, as it
were, and begun the process of elimination, then we can create a more
positive reality. One where we have everything we could possibly desire
and one where we are content and at peace with who we are. So how
exactly do we change these thoughts of ours? How do we find out what
those deep-seated fears are?
The first question we might like to ask which will take us towards this
mighty shift in our consciousness might be:
If I had a magic wand and anything were possible, what would I be doing
with my life right now?
And the second question is:
What excuses am I making (realistic or otherwise) for not doing it?
To focus on what it is that we really want out of life gives us a
greater understanding of our purpose, because deep down inside we know
what that purpose is. It is what we really love doing. It is what gives
us pleasure. It is what gives us an enormous sense of satisfaction. It
is what we find easy.
To answer the previous questions honestly, allows us to see whether we
are on track or not. Whether we have deviated from our path, as we
wander through the forest of life. Each of us has our own unique
purpose in life. It is what we agreed to do; to learn to do or to teach
others to do. Sometimes we are focused on it from birth, but more often
than not we have allowed ourselves to be distracted. But even
distractions are valid. Distractions also give us other experiences and
learnings, so none of it is wrong or wasted. Sooner or later we get
back on the right path.
To help focus on our purpose, those forgotten agreements made long ago,
we might like to answer a few more questions. For instance:
If I only had three years to live,
1. What aspects about myself would I most like to change?
2. How would I like to spend these remaining years?
3. How would I like to be remembered?
4. What contribution would I like to make?
And the crunch is:
What excuses am I making (realistic or otherwise) for not doing these
things?
The excuses are the fears. They are our conscious understandings of why
we make the decisions we do, but which just limit our lives. They are
the negative thoughts that we pull in to obstruct what it is we truly
desire from life, because we are frightened.
Fear is not logical. There is no good reason why we would want to
negate our dreams. But deep inside is a fear, perhaps that by
fulfilling the dream, we will be called upon to be or do something for
which we feel we are not ready.
The fear may be only one single thought. But the excuses on top of it,
may be many and varied. Some of the excuses one often hears are:
No one ever gives me a chance;
Everyone is against me;
My husband/wife wouldn't want me to do that;
Nobody ever listens to me;
No one respects my opinions;
I didn't really want that job anyway;
I really didn't like that person anyway;
I'm really happy where I am;
I'm not clever enough to do that;
I never win anything;
Nothing good ever happens to me;
It doesn't matter what I do, it just never turns out the way I want.
And the bottom-line fear?
I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH;
I AM NOT PERFECT;
I AM NOT WORTHY.
In my experience, my bottom-line thought is the same as your bottom-
line thought. We are all in fear. Of course, the excuses we conjure up
are many and varied, and extremely creative. You can hear them every
day being expressed in a hundred different conversations, and they are
not the truth. Listen to yourself. Hear what it is you tell your wife,
your boss, your mother. Tsk, tsk, now you have to add dishonest to your
list of the things you most hate to admit about yourself. Nobody tells
the truth very often. We are too frightened to admit that we aren't
nice, and that we aren't good enough, or to admit that we failed.
The only way to turn life around is to admit we are scared. Yet we can
take pleasure from the fact that we are in good company. For everybody
runs their life from fear. No one is excluded. Even the Queen, the
President, the Prime Minister and the Pope run their lives from fear.
It is the human condition. And whilst we (and they) deny that we are
afraid, we continue to manifest all those situations in life, where we
are confronted by these fears. The mirror will constantly reflect what
it is we most fear about ourselves. And we can recognize when this
button is hit, because it is when we feel really uncomfortable. When we
want to change the conversation. When we want to run from the situation
we are in. When we want to be anywhere but where we are. Because to be
where we are means that we have to confront our denial.
If we look at the Queen of England, we can see how her greatest fears
are being played out via her children. Likewise if we look at the
President of the United States, or indeed any other well-known public
figure. What they most fear, they create. Scandals of one sort or
another. Skeletons in the cupboard and past misdemeanours which are
embarrassing to admit. They may also appear out of control and
certainly no more perfect than you or I. The fear is right there under
their nose, and under ours too. It is embarrassing for us to be exposed
by the truth, but only because we think that the truth is unacceptable.
The world sees us in all our colours, for we show our fears in
everything we say and do. In how we express ourselves and in how we
behave. We pretend to be strong and we pretend to be in control. But
anyone who knows us well, or who takes the time to look, will see that
we are hiding behind the thin façade of our ego/personality. Instead,
we need to stand strong and be who we are and realize that nobody,
including us is perfect. We all do things that in hindsight we wish we
hadn't and would prefer nobody knew about. So why pretend that we are
anything but human? If we feel guilty about something we have said or
done, it just tells us that we have not learnt from that experience.
Guilt is simply a lesson not learnt. Nobody should feel that by having
done something reprehensible they are unworthy. And if people treat us
as though we are pariahs when they hear the news, then recognize that
they are judgeing us and that what we judge in others is what we judge
in ourselves. They have only come down on us like a ton of bricks
because they have done something similar themselves and feel bad about
it, or because they are involved in playing out a control game. Either
way, it's their problem not ours.
Our greatest challenge is to find our own worthiness. To believe in
ourselves, to be ourselves and to allow others to be themselves too. We
need to lift ourselves above the humdrum and the ordinary and free
ourselves from these fear-based thoughts which run our lives and run
our society.
So how do we go about this? What is the trick to achieving freedom?
What do we need to do to allow the ego/personality to feel secure and
safe? To begin with, we need to allow all those feelings of fear to
come into our consciousness. This might seem scary, but they only need
to be there, for a moment. We do not have to go into any huge dramas or
relive any dire circumstances. But if we suppress these thoughts then
we cannot let them go because we don't know what they are, and we need
to be consciously aware. Once we have the understanding of what is
inhibiting all those wonderful dreams from being fulfilled, then we can
do something about them. And how do we do that? We say to ourselves 'I
desire to change the thought'.
Such a simple little statement holds within it the key to freedom. All
we need to unlock the door is the courage and the willingness to do it.
So what is it you want out of life? Is it to be rich; to be famous; to
own a successful business; to be promoted up the ladder; to find a
loving, compatible partner; to own a luxurious house in the best part
of town; to win a million dollars? What is it that you think will make
you happy?
When I first came to look at this, I created a BIG list of all the
things I thought I wanted. All of these were material possessions, or
something like love, which I then still believed would need to come
from somebody else. So I created my list. Then I looked carefully at
each item on it, delving behind each statement to see what fear, if
any, I held in place against it. For example:
I want to be loved.
Am I scared of love? Yes
Why?
I want to be successful.
Am I frightened of success? Yes
Why?
I want to be promoted in my job.
Do I really want to be promoted? No
Why not?
And so I continued ........
It didn't hurt to be honest. In fact, it was rather a relief.
Eventually, I got down to the bottom-line fear, which was that I did
not feel worthy. I was frightened that I would never be good enough,
and that no one would ever love me or want me. It is sad, but it is the
truth. My belief system was that I couldn't imagine (outside of my
wildest dreams, of course) that anyone would find me lovable.
When I hit that one, the intensity of the emotion was very powerful,
because it is a terribly sad thought, and I felt very sorry for myself.
But I stayed with the thought just long enough to say 'I embrace this
fear and I desire to change the thought'.
I must admit to being a little unsettled for a few days after this, but
the truth is that I was as pleased as Punch to think I had been able to
look my fear in the eye, and say, 'I do not need you anymore, go away.'
The enormity of the deed, however, did rather shake me up, and I began
to question whether I had really got rid of it. Would it come back?
Would I go back down that black hole? More fear.
Recognizing that doubt was a kind of fear, and that I was really scared
that I wouldn't be able to make the change permanent, I kept
reinforcing 'I embrace this fear and I desire to change the thought'. I
did feel lighter, however, as though a huge weight had been lifted from
my shoulders. At last I could look at what the mirror was showing me
and laugh at it. The relief was exhilarating. After a while, some weeks
in fact, I took another look at the list of dreams I wanted to create.
I realized that although I was still wanting material goods and
external happenings (nothing wrong with that), the bottom line was that
what I wanted most of all was to wake up every morning feeling joyous
and enthusiastic for the day ahead. And in the evening, when my head
touched the pillow, to feel fulfilled, satisfied and at peace with
myself. I was no longer worried about achieving this or that, or
obtaining this or that. Suddenly, I was looking at life in a new way. I
had shifted my consciousness without knowing.
From such a simple act of desiring to change the thought, I have gained
a freedom I never thought possible. I no longer worry about money, or
not having any. I don't worry about being robbed or having car
accidents. I don't worry that no one will love me, because I realize I
am very loved. I just didn't see it before. Life has changed, and I am
very pleased with the results.
It is all very well for me to tell you that I have the key to life.
That what works for me is going to work for you. It may not. There are
many, many different ways to make the shift in consciousness that is
required to lift life to the next level. All I can say is that by
acknowledging my fears and then changing those thoughts, I have
improved my life. Fear no longer plays a major part in my life. It is
not that I have totally eradicated fear, because there always seems to
be something more that comes up out of the depths of my psyche to
remind me that I am human. The lessons continue to present themselves
and the challenges never go away. However, I do now have a wonderful
sense of freedom, and I am no longer bound by those negative thoughts
which kept me chained and suppressed. And, more importantly, I have
discovered joy.
If you do not feel you are able to meet the challenge of greeting your
fears, then do not despair, because there is still light at the end of
this tunnel. There is still one wonderfully freeing thing that you can
do for yourself, and this is to accept responsibility for every action
and decision that you make. You can still look at the world around you
and see the consequences of your past actions, and determine that all
your future ones will be done with consciousness. You can set the
intention that you will wake-up to yourself. That you will become aware
of everything that you do and say. If you manage to do nothing else in
this lifetime, please know that the simple act of acknowledging your
own power in the creative process will help you fly to the next step
when you are ready.
Good luck, and may great joy, happiness and prosperity be yours
forever.
What I have learnt
stays with me.
Those I have journeyed with
stay too: in my memory.
But now?
Oh joy,
love, life and laughter
await.
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