Fear: A True Transformative Teacher
A PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW
Fear. The fundamental thing we all face at some point. For me personally, I had a run in with fear that quite literally shook me to the core of who I thought myself to be. This up close, and very personal relationship I developed, lasted much longer than I like to admit, however, it eventually taught me something that nothing else could. It took me to the depths of my mind, deep down the rabbit hole, the vastness if you will, and showed itself openly. Unfortunately, I was too busy running from it that it took me years to face the music, to understand that fear is not something to be frightened of, and to see that it was exactly what I needed to move beyond the walls of resistance I had built up around myself.
There’s a lot of chatter about fear in the world. Don’t go to fear, don’t be afraid, there’s nothing to fear, fear is the only thing in your way, you name it, you’ve heard a number of slogans designed around fear. These simple phrases are much easier said than done. Try telling that to someone who is in the depths of hell feeling stripped of any controls or ability to move past this horrible feeling. It’s certainly not what the struggling individual seeks to hear during such horrific inner turmoil. It makes it sound like the people touting such simple phrases have never visited their own living hell. To say fear is nothing lacks compassion or empathy for the experience someone might be going through. From my perspective, having gone through such terror, I could never look at someone suffering and tell them what they are going through is really nothing. That is for the person to eventually discover on their own.
Although fear can grip you, take hold of your life, ruin you in so many ways, it can also be the biggest teacher you can have. Maybe it’s not such a bad guy after all. Maybe it is leading us through the darkness so we can get to the other side. Maybe it acts as a protector, a protector from what we perceive to be a threat, but it really isn’t. The only way to truly know this, to truly understand its purpose, to get to the bottom of its role, to see what the big cover up is really about, is to go through it. You can conceptually ponder all day long, think about it until you are blue in the face, however, when it’s your time to see through it, when it’s your time to be invited to the underworld, then you will have the opportunity to move beyond it.
COMMON COVER UPS
No matter what level of fear you may experience there are common traits that we share when going through this uncomfortable emotion or feeling. Whether it is a specific fear in the world, a phobia, a fear of changing something in your life, any number of reasons have commonalities. For instance, most fear is accompanied with an underlying discomfort of the mind’s story about the unknown. Fear sets in when you do not know what the future brings. If you struggle with change of any kind, typically you are scared of what life will be like in this new way. You are not yet familiar with it, so it can appear fearful to the mind. Maybe you desire to move to a location you’ve been dreaming about your entire life, but you can’t quite muster the strength to do it because you are afraid you won’t meet anyone. Maybe you think it won’t live up to an idea in your mind, or that you will fail in your endeavor. These thoughts can block you from doing something you really wish to do.
The ego mind wants to have constant control. When it doesn’t know something, it feels out of control and the terror sets in. If you are terrified of spiders, what is it about the spider, which is significantly smaller than you, that is worrisome? Is it the fear of being bitten or poisoned? Is it the pain involved? Do you think it is going to jump on you? Do you think the spiders will multiply and crawl all over you like the movie Arachnophobia? Does the sight of a spider send chills up your spine? What exactly is the fear all about? Chances are if you trace your concerns far enough, it will end up seeming irrational, sometimes bordering on paranoia. The fear of flying, another common fear, falls into the ego mind’s insecurity about losing control. Since you are not flying the plane, all the cards are out of your hands and into whomever the assigned pilot is. Should the plane malfunction, crash, or fall from the sky, a real fear of dying in such a horrific way will be completely out of your control.
Whether you experience fear from anxiety, panic, phobia, paranoia, losing control, or any other trigger, they have one thing in common, they are covering up something much deeper in our unconscious mind. It’s easy to identify what you are really afraid of when you see the object in front of you, or you know the thought that is creating the fearful imagery in your mind. It is a much taller order to discover what fear could really be covering up. If you have dealt with fears in your life, they can transfer from one circumstance to another that may have nothing to do with each other yet fear still arises. Because fear will arise, there must be a much deeper cause for such terror, than what the eyes see, or the ego mind believes.
A COURSE IN MIRACLES SPEAKS ON FEAR
There are many schools of thought on fear. Psychology has its perspective, religion and spirituality have their take, and each one of us can interpret our own fear as we see it. However, A Course in Miracles has one of the most interesting and in depth descriptions for what fear is truly about. In fact, it helped me tremendously during my own experience with what seemed like an irrational fear taking over my life. To summarize, the Course explains that there is only one reality, and this reality is in God. It clearly says this world is simply an illusion and it is not real. We are merely having a dream in our minds believing it is real. In this dream, we truly believe we are separate from God, or we are separate from the whole. We have decided to run wild with the ego, the creator of the world, and make our own individual world apart from God.
This concept seems simple enough to ponder. If you are someone seeking answers to life’s mysteries, this concept may intrigue you. You might feel drawn to its teaching and it might really resonate with it. Others will not. However, the Course isn’t looking to gain a following, it is stating what it defends as the truth. This truth, is not what our ego mind wants to hear, so most of us will block out such nonsense and close the book looking for answers elsewhere. Yet, it’s perspective on fear is the only thing that made any sense to me. It spoke to me in a way that I could understand. The Course relays that the only reason we experience fear is because we have a conflict in our mind. That conflict is the belief in separation. Separation equals fear. God equals love, plain and simple.
When you experience fear, the Course would explain that you are simply making the error real, therefore you are fearful of your return to God. The error is the belief in this world and the belief in separation. Because we are misguided and conflicted in our own minds, the ego projects outward onto a world stage a number of different distractions to avoid looking at the real meaning behind fear. We spend hours in the psychiatrist’s office looking at our fears, working through them, just to go on experiencing fear in a different situation. Although therapy can do wonders, most of it never gets to the deeper essence of fear. It still remains a nice little secret in our psyche just waiting to be uncovered. With each scary encounter there is another opportunity to see fear clearly, if only we could just take the plunge.
WORKING WITH FEAR - A DIFFERENT TAKE
One of the most challenging things to do is start looking at fear. Instead of hiding, running, panicking, and bolting the other direction every time it arises, taking an honest look at it can do wonders for the barrier you may have created. Stopping, wrapping your arms around it, befriending fear, and emptying yourself from any preconceived notions about what you believed fear to be, allows you to shift your perception into understanding it, rather than believing in it. Using A Course in Miracles, whenever fear arises, a simple acknowledgment that you are merely believing in separation instead of love can begin to ease your mind. Could it be that simple? To simply shift perspective and admit what it might be about? You mean, you are not really afraid of snakes, but rather your mind is projecting an outward distraction of a snake to hide the real reason for the fear in the first place? The only way to know if there is truth to this, is to give it try.
In my own experience, I spent many years not knowing what was happening to me. I had a sudden eruption of energy surge through my spine and into my head that sent me on a roller coaster ride of physical symptoms and radical shifts in my awareness which eventually pulled me into incredible darkness and fear. I became increasingly terrified of the amount of energy surging through my system, all of which seemed out of my control. I never knew when the next energetic rumbling would occur, therefore it left a great sense of fear of the unknown. This wasn’t just a little bit of fear from time to time. This was monumental! I would wake up in the morning trembling to the core. There was nothing threatening me, nothing in my room harming me, however, there was this underlying fear of where this indescribable awakening was leading me. It often felt like I was being erased, which brought out a true feeling of fear of death. And it wasn’t just a fear of dying, it was much greater than that. It was fear of non-existence itself, the fear of absolutely nothing. That one thought was grasping a hold of my mind.
IMPLEMENTING A REGULAR PRACTICE
Turning to A Course in Miracles allowed me to move with fear, instead of being taken over like the Exorcist. Looking at it for what it was, a protector of separation, a protector of this world, began to make so much sense. Each time I felt fear arise, I would acknowledge that this fear was really about my belief in the illusion and my disbelief in God. I was taking responsibility for buying into the ego’s dream and creating my own sense of fear. The wholeness of God would not do such a thing because as the Course explains God is only Love and did not create anything else.
The fear I was experiencing was manifesting physically because of my belief in being separate from the whole. My mind was projecting out of it’s source, which is in the mind, and putting into the body. The terror would cruise through me because my ego mind was petrified of its non-existence, not the non-existence of God. By moving the problem out of my body and back into my mind, I began to practice this each time I experienced fear, which was regularly, and still occurs from time to time, but with much less vigor. I switched from confiding in the ego and moved into trusting spirit. I allowed spirit to show me the way, to show me the depths of fear, and that the only way to experience such great fear was in my hands. I could choose to see differently. And when I sided with the ego and allowed the fear to consume me, I used it as a learning tool to choose another way next time. Fear brought me to the most transformative moment of my life. It forced me into trusting the truth, instead of floundering around with an illusory mask.
Unfortunately, all of us will experience some level of fear and a death of our identity in order to return to the whole. It doesn’t seem like there is any other way around it. We must walk through the fire. Sounds fabulous, doesn’t it, so encouraging and reassuring, right? No, it sounds awful, which is why the ego continues to avoid this inevitable meeting, this inevitable switching of the guard.
If I could leave you with any words of encouragement when working through fear, just remember it is only the ego that is afraid of death. The real essence of who you are in God, has never been altered, never been harmed, and is awaiting each one of us to return to peace.