This principle asserts that health and healing do not refer to bodily wellness--or indeed to any other external experience--but to a state of mind where we release our attachment to fearfulness as a means of keeping ourselves 'safe,' and allow our hearts to open to the experience of trust and peacefulness.
In this definition, one can be in pain and still be at peace; one can be dying and still be in a state of optimum health. Our work becomes to recognize fear, to accept it as one aspect of our experience, and to be willing to see beyond it. To be willing does not mean we try to force that vision, but it does mean that we do our best to acknowledge that there is something more than our fear; then we try to be willing to experience that 'something more.'
A Course in Miracles states "Only your mind can produce fear. Attempting the mastery of fear is useless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the very assumption that it need be mastered. The true resolution rests entirely on mastery through love. What is not love is always fear and nothing else. Where one appears, the other disappears, and what you share becomes the only one you have."
Fear takes many forms, just as love is expressed in many ways. To become acquainted with the many faces of fear is an interesting exploration. It might be helpful to pause here and present some basic components of our approach to dealing with difficult emotions like fear, or guilt, or anger.
It is helpful to remember that all emotions are:
1) temporary - no feeling you have ever had has lasted forever; in other word, "this too shall pass".
2) innocent - they arise from our conditioning, our belief systems, our culture, our parents, our attitudes; they arise with or without our permission; they are not good or bad, they simply are.
3) not the deepest truth about us or others - no matter how intense the feeling, there is more to you than that; the deepest truth about you is not what you are feeling at the moment, but something that is eternal, unchanging, unsayable.
Some tools that we find very useful in working with difficult emotions are what we might call "the four A's:"
It is our perceptions - our thoughts - that generate the feeling of fear. When we contract all of our energy & attention around a thought, mistaking it for reality, we feel fearful. We forget it is just an idea we are having.
In no way is this principle encouraging us to belittle, ignore, repress, deny, resist, or judge our fear. One of my favorite examples of how to respond to fear comes from my childhood. A giant oak tree grew outside my bedroom, and often the branches would scrape across the roof at night. I knew it was just a branch, but the longer I lay there, listening, the more convinced I became that this time it really was the boogeyman trying to get in. Sliding off my bed and crawling across the floor (so as not to be seen) into my parents' bedroom, I would shake my father awake. He would pick me up in his arms and carry me to the window and show me the tree, branches waving in the wind. He would turn on the porch light so I could see outside. He would tuck me in and assure me he was not angry with me...and the next day he would trim the tree so he could get some sleep!
How often do we treat ourselves as kindly? The feeling of fear was real, with the adrenalin rush, sweaty palms, and accelerated heart rate to prove it...the thoughts that caused the feeling were (as they so often are) mistaken, incomplete, inaccurate, off-target. To deny that we are experiencing fear is to misunderstand the point of the principle. The point is to "turn the light on" your thoughts, so you are addressing the cause, rather than the effect.
"Listen to your fear with a wise ear. What are you afraid of in life? What are you afraid of in yourself? Challenge fear and ask it what it means to say. As you go into the fear with eyes open, heart open, and courage flowing freely, you will see that fear is only an empty room. Fear is only as strong as your avoidance of it. The greater your reluctance to see the fear, accept it and embrace it, the more power you allow it. (from Emmanuel's Book, Pat Rodegast & Judith Stanton)
The power in dealing with fearful feelings is to recognize the thoughts behind them, and to recognize them as thoughts. To sit quietly and let our fearful thoughts present themselves one by one, as we acknowledge "This is just a thought. I will not confuse it with Reality." is to begin to find our way towards peace. Most of us sense that any decisions we make or actions we take that are initiated from a feeling of peacefulness are likely to be more constructive that those that are generated by panic, anxiety or worry.
"You fear to love in an imperfect world. Rest yourself in the reality of Eternal Presence, and know that there are plans deeper, there is consciousness wiser, there are loving hearts more powerful than any that walk the earth. It is not a matter of destroying fear, but of knowing its nature and of seeing it as a less powerful force than the power of love." (Emmanuel's Book)
We can acknowledge our fears without getting lost in them -- in fact, bringing them into the light is what dissolves them. It is when we keep them locked in the prison of our mind, feeding them with circular thinking, that they affect our lives so deeply.
One process that we have found helpful in dealing with fear includes these steps:
Patricia Sun asserts, "You actually end up getting your fondest dreams by going through the portal of your greatest fear." We can experience the value of walking with and through the doorway of our fears (rather than ignoring, resisting or denying them) to the joy on the other side. What would you gain if you went through your greatest fear? What thoughts and beliefs keep you from going through that portal?
"Fear is the mind's reaction against the inherent generosity of the heart. Because the heart knows no bounds to its giving, the mind feels called upon to define limits. Under such tension, little wonder our choices of how to respond to the pain of others seems so difficult." Ram Dass & Paul Gorman, How Can I Help?
"Perhaps to be fearless -- to be completely without fear while still in a body -- is what it means to be truly human. Fear causes us to involute and protect; but to open up and release fear is to provide for another person the optimum possible experience of your presence in their life." Mark Shafer, PhD.
"Fear is an invitation to peace. Fear can be interpreted as our mind's invitation to rise to a higher level of freedom. We are not being called to run away from danger, but toward safety. We always choose between that which affirms life and what merely denies it. Our ideas are like stones of a path we travel. There is not a single thought that does not take us somewhere." Gerald Jampolsky, Teach Only Love
"Books and teachers tell you how to affirm 'I am a Godly person,' or how to overpower negative thoughts with positive ones. But shouting that you're good to cover up a whisper that you're not, is not the same as uncovering that fear, seeing that it is delusion, and discarding it completely." Bo Lozoff, Just Another Spiritual Book
"A deep relationship with someone else is impossible as long as we are terrified of ourselves. Intimate relationships pull everything out--there will be some sort of protecting and some sort of defending. We will use the other person to keep away from ourselves. But if we turn toward ourselves with compassion and a gentle curiosity, even when it's rough, even when we would rather be doing anything else, we become fearless." Stephen Schwartz
"Don't force anything. Let life be a deep letting go. See God opening millions of flowers every day without forcing the buds." Bhagwan Rajneesh
check out Practice Execises on this principle
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