How Do I Handle the Fear I'm Feeling?
How we can manage fearful thoughts, we might have about losing our job, money, getting sick, or the fear of something happening to a loved one.
Habitual fear is the enemy of growth. It is rare for circumstances to force us entirely out of our habits, patterns, and comfort zones - which is precisely what is happening right now. People all over the globe are having to drastically alter their lifestyles and livelihood in response to the corona pandemic.
Fear, not only of the virus but of businesses closing down. Forced closure of not only companies but the activity of the world. The emptiness of cities. Before, we were absurdly busy, noisy, lost in the world. Now all this is turned off for a while. Like an enforced Stillness.
Enforced Stillness could be precisely what many people need. Perhaps this is a time for awakening if you can go beyond your fearful thoughts.
You still must live your life. Do not let fear in this whole scene be the one that is controlling your life. By having fear, you can create the symptoms in your head.
Without awareness, You are at the mercy of an energy field we call thought. It lives in you. You are possessed, so to speak, and you don't know it.
The moment you realize this, then you will start mastery over your fearful thinking. Firstly ask, "Why am I making myself suffer by negative thinking all of the time?"
Let’s look at the construction of thoughts or how they operate in your human system.
Things that you fear may not be happening now, but they could happen - so says the mind. The ego-mind directs you to think about it now, in case it does occur.
If what you fear does happen, you will face the situation in the moment. With the power of conscious awareness, you would face the sickness, suffer the loss of money, even face the loss or suffering of a loved one. With the power of your true presence, you can face that.
What you cannot do is you cannot overcome these problems, or face them when they exist only in your imagination. When fears haven't even happened yet. Therefore there is absolutely nothing you can do about them. They will simply become more amplified, causing higher anxiety. It is a total and imaginary realm that is making you suffer. The more you feel afraid of something, the more it really wants to help you attain what the fear is. It’s going to get a hold of you.
Change your perception from, "Yeah, I'm doing it," but can't help myself from doing it. To, No, you are not doing it. It happens to you.
They are making you unhappy. These thoughts have no useful purpose. I'm not helping myself or anybody by thinking about these things, by projecting bad things that could happen.
The next step is to realize it is not the real you doing it.
When you become aware of what's going on in your mind, you will have a moment of Freedom.
Before, you had no free will. Without awareness, you have no free will, you are at the mercy of your conditioned mind.
So what do you do? You have recognized that what has been happening to you serves or fulfills no useful purpose. This aha moment is an essential realization. Before, you have an assumption in your unconscious mind that unless you worry a lot, then you are not controlling your life.
This is the delusion: The more you think about the problems of your life. The more you feel you need to continue thinking to hold it all together. You need to worry about your life. Or worry about the issues of the world. If you don't worry, the problems are liable to fall to pieces. This is the underlying assumption.
Of course, it is a delusion; the worrying, fear-thinking does not want to end. You need to know that it has momentum. And you cannot fight it. If you fight it, it gets stronger. You give it added energy.
It's not by willpower to stop it (except for brief moments). You stop it simply by first recognizing not only the futility but the destructive nature of this type of thinking. You begin to see that the narratives in your mind produce a lot of unhappiness.
At that moment you have a choice. You can continue being dragged along in the stream of fearful thinking, or you can say, I choose now to take my attention away from fearful thoughts.
But where does it go? The fearful thinking wants your Consciousness to have your attention continuously.
So a mini-battle ensues. No, don’t go there, I want to. No, Yes.
Here is a simple way to gain some freedom. Bring your attention elsewhere.
My recommendation is to feel your inner body. Say you wake up in the middle of the night with these negative thoughts. Instead of continuing to think, direct your attention to the internal energy field of your hands. Hold it there. A simple decision to feel the inner aliveness in your hands becomes an anchor for stepping out of the ego-mind by being present.
You feel the energy within the hand. It's very subtle at first, so you need to be alert so you can feel it.
The alertness that goes toward your body is taking you away from thinking. Suddenly your hand feels more alive than it did before. That's only the beginning; you can feel both hands simultaneously.
Then you realize you can feel other parts of your body. For example, your feet and legs. Then you become aware of an all-pervasive sense of aliveness through your entire body, your energy field.
The fantastic thing is, by the way, you may also be mindful of your breathing, which is natural to your body. The breath flows in the breath flows out.
The more you become aware of the body, the more you will become aware of the breath. The more you're aware of your breathing, the more you become aware of the body. This breathing will happen nice and low in your belly or Tan Tien.
There's a beautiful aliveness there. And what happened to your mental activity? It has subsided almost wholly or entirely. Because you cannot be aware of your inner-body and, at the same time, think. A few fragments perhaps but not sustained streams of thinking. It is not possible because the attention has gone away from the conceptualizing or ego mind and into the inner body - your true self.
Don’t look now, but you just meditated!
Here is some wisdom regarding Fate: if your fate is for you to have the coronavirus, you will be affected no matter where you go or where you try to avoid it. If your fate is not to have a virus, then you can be in the middle of all the people carrying it, and you still will not get it.
During challenging times, have a happy face.
Our positive part does have a positive effect on helping people.
Smile all the time! Even with a mask on the smile will show through your eyes.
Everything is temporary. If you fall down, pick yourself up and try again.
In gratitude, Lisa
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