"If you don't want to know the nature of fear, you'll never get rid of it." – Deepak Chopra
All this uncertainty related to the situation we are living in is making people very afraid.
The reason that leads me to write another text on this subject is that, as the sentence above says, the more we understand it, the greater the chance of letting it control our lives.
It's no use trying to ignore it or "do it with fear". It is also important to remember that when we suppress negative emotions, there is no soul filter: we end up suppressing the positive ones too, we harden ourselves. For example: often out of fear we end up abolishing affectivity, which ends up becoming indifference. It's a snowball.
understanding fear
According to anthroposophy, fear arises from lying. Explaining better: fear arises because we believe that we are the physical body, and we want to preserve it. This identification with the body and with heredity makes us forget another truth: the
that we have our own heredity, of our Self, that comes from other lives and that, therefore, we are not slaves to the heredity that comes from consanguinity.
Deepak Chopra says the same thing another way, in the Hope in Uncertain Times meditation: “Fear is not related to external events, but self-doubt, which comes from being disconnected from your true self.”
Fear is the parent of other bad emotions: underneath anger is fear, underneath uncertainty, insecurity.
watching the fear
We also need to learn to distinguish what is fear or what is intuition warning us that something is not right or at least not right for now. This process is individual for each one, but the more we strengthen our relationship with our essence, the easier it will be to identify.
For now, one question I ask is, “Even though fear is in the background, when I think about it, does my heart expand or contract?”
Another thing we need to be aware of is whether our fears are disguised as goals. I, for example, realized that my thirst for independence came not from a noble motivation, like serving, for example, but from fear of tomorrow, uncertainty or wanting to control future results.
For that, it's always the age-old question, "Am I being motivated by love or fear?"
When we are aware, we also begin to notice how fear is used to make us make decisions: what is the purchase of insurance, for example, if not a decision based on fear? Or what about the fear marketing used today? “Buy this because it's running out”, “This offer is only valid for another 24 hours”. Of course, not to mention the bulletins about Covid all day that only incite fear and don't present visions of how we are going to deal with the life that presents itself from now on.
Here comes something interesting: Deepak Chopra (never forget he is a doctor) explains the difference between placebo and nocebo: the former means “I must please”, and the second “I must displease”. Nocebo is anything that generates intense fear, causing the body to release bad hormones. Now imagine what all that fear is doing to you: it's the same effect as when someone does voodoo on you, making you believe you're going to die.
Think of our emotions as a glass: the more we feed on the fear that is out there, the less room there will be for love. Joe Dispenza puts it this way: "You can have as many positive thoughts as you want, but if you're feeling fear, that thought will never make it from your brain to your body because it's not aligned with his emotional state."
You may also like
- Understand what the illusion of fear is
- Learn to dissolve fear and anxiety in your life
- Find out where fear comes from and how to deal with it
So feed on love! Don't sit in front of the TV or cell phone to let yourself be dominated by fear. Make conscious choices. I myself have been refusing to buy things from people who use fear-based marketing strategies, and I'm careful not to use them either. Try to imbue yourself with thoughts of love (placebo), with things that make you feel alive. This, of course, does not mean turning a blind eye to the suffering of the world – but that is a subject for another article.
I end with a quote from Marianne Williamson: “Our greatest fear is not that we are incapable. Our biggest fear is discovering that we are much more powerful than we think. It is our light and not our darkness that frightens us the most.”
