A Series on Fear - Part 1: How Do We Recognise Fear

Dear Friends,

I am starting a four-part series on fear this week. So it will run for the next month. I believe it is important we become aware of fear and the different ways it plays up in our lives, and more importantly, how we can address fear when it does crop up. I hope this is helpful.

Fear is that which holds us back, constricts and confuses us. We miss out on life because we are afraid. We fail to express ourselves because we are afraid. We fail to do what we want to do because we are afraid. The list is endless.

Fear is dangerous, especially because it gives us a false sense of protection, creating the illusion of a safety net. It takes whatever form it needs to take to keep you where you are. Sometimes it looks like being sensible or prudent or wise, even brave or courageous, but its looks are deceiving because you cannot be wise in darkness. You need light to illuminate the truth for you. Fear doesn’t exist where there is light.

More specifically, it does not exist in the present moment, and it cannot stand in the presence of truth. That is why you will notice that when you are afraid your mind is in a different time and space from your body. You are either thinking of the past which no longer exists, or imagining the future, which does not, and may not exist as you imagined it. We are either afraid that something will happen, or that a thing that has already happened, will happen again. So, we become trapped in a non-existent time and space, ignoring, and thus wasting, the present.

So, the first indication of fear is that your mind has travelled to a different time and space from where your body is in the present. If you are standing in front of an angry, hungry looking lion, you are not afraid that the lion is attacking you, you are afraid that it will attack you, or because you remembered it attacked someone you know last week. As long as the lion is not attacking you, what you are afraid of does not and may never exist. The lion might attack or just get bored of growling at you and walk off, we don’t know.

Let’s talk about truth and fear. We cannot be afraid once we have acknowledged and accepted the truth. This acceptance of truth is actually what sets you free from fear, but you can only access the truth in the present. The truth about the past is known in the present. The truth about the future, is created in the present. Fear cannot stand in the presence of truth. Why?

Because truth is being in a state of conscious awareness. That means you are wide awake. There is no room for fear in such a state. It is just not possible. You are standing in front of a hungry/angry lion. The truth is that it may attack you, or it may not. Once you accept the uncertainty of the future, you get closer to the truth, and you experience freedom from fear.

Let me say it again. The truth is that the lion will either attack you or it will not. The truth does not prophesy an end, it clarifies the present. So, you are standing there and you know this truth - attack or not - how does that exclude fear?

It excludes fear because you know things can go either way, and you are not attached to any outcome. You may be badly or fatally injured, or even just out of breath, but you have no attachment to either occurrence. That is hard! But it is doable - I may live. I may die, but in this moment, I will continue to be myself.

The key here, is that you are in acceptance of what is. You are not thinking of what has been or guessing what is to come. And in this state, fear has nothing to latch on to. There is no cover of darkness. You are awake. You are aware. So, it will struggle to pull you out of reality, if you remain so.

Being awake means being free from the noise of your ego. ‘This is good.’ ‘That is bad.’ It is all noise! The truth is - it is what it is. Whether it is good or bad is your choice, it is not a statement of fact. And I feel like we all struggle to grasp this, even though we see the truth of it around us. It is what it is. Nothing is good or bad without your approval. But we let our egos make this blinding decision for us and fear steps in. It is what it is. Accept it. And continue being yourself and living your life - awake and aware. If the lion mauls you, so be it. If it doesn’t so be it too. But to live in fear is to die.

The lion example is a bit extreme. To be sure, getting to that point of being truly fearless is a process, but the principle remains the same in our daily lives.

“What if they don’t like/approve of/accept me?” They may. They may not. If you don’t accept this truth- which looks like uncertainty but is actually a message saying: “don’t worry about what they think. Just be yourself” - you become fearful and begin adjusting yourself because of your inability to accept truth’s counsel: “Just be yourself.”

And that is how fear makes us lose out - we contort ourselves into illusions of what ‘should’ be, wasting precious energy, and dying inside. We think we are bad. We think we are wrong. So, we conclude that we should be anything other than our true selves. We forget that we are what we think we are. Fear doesn’t.

Fear kills. It is destructive. It suffocates your hopes and dreams. It buries you alive and pretends that it is keeping you safe. That is why you have to stop and ask yourself, is this reaction/decision/counsel etc giving me life? Is it allowing me to express myself now, without attachment to any outcome? Or do I have, in fact, an illusion of safety that is suffocating me?

Recognise fear for what it is - a fraud that cannot exist or show its face in reality. It hides behind events in time and space that do not exist.

Accept the truth: the past is gone; the future is unknown, and you have the present to use as you please.

Based on this truth, remove attachments to regret and to a particular outcome - it is a waste of energy on non-existent things.

Instead, be aware now. Be conscious now. And act with this level of consciousness - be awake to the reality of now. Energy spent in any other time and space is a waste.

Where are you now?

Who are you now?

What do you want to do now?

Be present. Accept the truth, then fear goes away.

And remember, it is what it is.

Love,

O.F.P.