Facing Your Fears: Freedom Awaits!

​Facing your fears is not an easy feat, as I’m sure you well know.  Fears are always based in the past and future.  Even if a tiger is chasing you, fear kicks in at the future possibility of death.
 
Speaking of death, is this not the greatest fear?   This is why the ego seeks to control, well, just about everything.  This is also why many spiritual traditions have used confronting your own death as a spiritual initiation.
 
Death is inevitable, in all ways.  This is because we live in a reality of cycles of change.  We “hang on for dear life” to whatever tangible thing we can, be it material possessions, our beliefs, our daily habits, or our relationships. 
 
Unfortunately, fear makes us vulnerable.  It has us willing to give our power away to an outside source that promises life, or even everlasting life after death (such as Heaven).  We don’t think too clearly or trust ourselves and the universe when enveloped by fear.
 
It’s easiest to just not confront those demons, and that little kid inside that is hiding to protect itself.  
 
As the changes on this planet accelerate, we are awakening to the truth of the Void, the space that from the lens of fear seems to be an empty black abyss.  This Void, sometimes called “Zero Point” contains ALL possibility.  This includes fear, which is asking to be confronted when we go toward creating new possibilities.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have been feeling an increased intensity of this “Void” energy.  As November approaches, we have an opportunity to uplevel, meaning come into even greater harmony and alignment with the highest and best good and outcomes for all.  This is NEW, meaning unknown and being created from the Void. So be compassionate with yourself as you may be experiencing some fear around the new and unknown, and also as you release the comfort of the old.
 
We start slowly and gently facing our fears.  There’s nothing to rush toward or force, and more to be gentle and loving with.  The loss, the grief, the trauma is not something to judge but also not something to ignore.
 
There is freedom available when we simply allow space to notice our fears.  We hold the loving space to be honest about any fear that may arise.  This comes from a detached perspective, you as the divine witness of it all, even as you notice the palpable experience of the fear.  You notice yourself swimming in fear, yet also as the witness of that swimming.
 
One step at a time, our loving attention opens us to more freedom to go in the direction of our greatest dreams, not without fear, but despite the fear.   We are aware of the fear, yet choose love and trust more powerfully than the fear.  This means going in the direction of what we want MORE of, not less.
 
Recently, I had the gift of facing one of my own fears.  I have been historically quite afraid of heights.  About a month ago, I was in Moab, Utah with our off-road club.  We were heading up a trail to a spot known as “Top of the World”.  The picture on this post is one of the brave souls at this spot, not me of course. As the four-wheel drive vehicles made their way to the top, I decided to walk the last part up with our dog.  I arrived about 10 minutes before everyone else.  There I was, just Bailey the dog and me, as I stood about 10 feet from the edge of a cliff.  I don’t remember ever being so high up on a cliff before.  From cliff to ground is about 3000 feet.   My body shook with fear, and I imagined the dog getting off the leash and running straight off the cliff.  I breathed and noticed more.  I noticed images of me falling off the cliff, and the pull to jump.  I flashed on many dreams I’ve had of falling off a cliff.  I breathed and noticed more.  
 
I noticed this thought: 
This is all an illusion.  It is temporary.  If I fell off this cliff, I would wake, just as from a dream, to a new place.  This was no ordinary thought, but a knowing inside me without doubt, of my eternal nature. 
 
Since this experience, I have been at some places I would normally experience fear of heights.  In Arches National Park, I walked along a narrow path aside a drop off that might have normally illicited my fear of heights but did not.  My husband began to notice that I wasn’t as afraid of heights.  Just last week, we were at Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona.  From cliff to the Colorado River is a mere 1100 feet.  There I was, easily (and mindfully) walking up to the edge, just a couple feet from it.  Wow!  Right??  Next thing you know I’ll be able to sit and dangle my feet over the edge, as a friend did when we were on that 3000 foot high overhanging cliff in Moab!
 
So what happened that had me have such a shift, after a lifetime of fear?  I actually confronted my fear.  I didn’t try to make it go away, I just breathed and noticed.  Most often, we will do anything to avoid experiencing our fears.  Sometimes that is the most appropriate thing to do.  Other times, you have the safe space, be it by yourself or with a loving witness, to actually go there.  
 
I brought up fear of death because it is the most powerful universal fear we all have.  You don’t need to go straight to that one.  You go where you feel safest to begin.  Fear of death has many layers, beyond this lifetime, to the universal experience of feeling separate from Source as we are sent out as Light for the Divine to experience itself, to have something to love.  That’s the ultimate one, that we are separate.  What did we do so wrong to be so rejected?  Forward that to this lifetime, to those core wounds that say we are not enough, we don’t belong, or that we are broken.  Hey, I’m just laying it out for you straight up, no pussy-footing around on this one. 
 
Because when is enough enough?  We are so comfortable in our illusion of protection, in living the lie that we ARE separate, and that we live on a dead planet to be used to fill ourselves up with material comforts that give us the illusion of stability and permanence when we know deep inside that we can’t take that with us when we die.  Death takes on a different meaning when we face our fears and be honest with ourselves that we ARE eternal beings, that we ARE all Divine, each unique yet totally a part of a unified reality where EVERYTHING is GOD in its unending possibilities of expression.
 
There’s so much fear, I promise you you’ll never be in lack of getting to face it.  Your loving attention heals.   It is why you are here.  All the fear, all the challenges, are here to have you evolve and grow!  It’s okay to be honest with yourself and take a look, and also honor where you are ready to do so.  You could start by looking at your negative judgments and anger, as they are quite a good indication of fear.   Sometimes that’s an easier place to start than fear of death, of losing loved ones, of aging and disease, of grief and sorrow.  
 
Being open to change can be scary!  And boy is the world changing fast.  Yippee!  Who would have thought we’d be so AFRAID of the possibility that life can be fun, joyful, abundant, that we actually CAN create a planet where all beings thrive and are loved, respected and cared for?  We are so accustomed to living in fear and looking for what’s bad and wrong that surely this kind of viewpoint is Pollyanna thinking.  I think not.  This post is about facing fears, not avoiding them and focusing only on positive thinking. Our loving attention, our trust in ourselves and the Divine, gives us the courage to be honest with ourselves and our fears.  This attention heals, opening the space for our ability to create from an abundance of possibility instead of from the limits of our fears.  It takes commitment and bravery to step outside the fear-based socially agreed upon limitations and go into a knowingness, a Field of possibility, that is beyond the mind, beyond show-me-the-proof, and beyond the scientific method and logic.   
 
Be gentle on yourself, and on the people in your life that you see are in fear.  We all cycle through fears.  The choice is to notice more when those fears and reactions come up, and to lovingly be there for whatever we are experiencing.  Then we are free to choose to trust even more, to open to the new, to go in the direction of seeing all there is to be grateful for and enjoy in this now moment.  Maybe the Star Trek phrase, “…to boldly go where no man has gone before” is really about boldly loving and trusting more than anyone has loved and trusted before.  All is healed, harmonized, unified and transformed with our loving compassion and  attention.