What could our fear be distracting us from? When we’re in a fear state, what are we actually missing out on? What are we not doing as a result of our fear?
In this podcast, I talk a lot about our emotional frequency and vibration – most often about positive frequencies like trust, love, gratitude and acceptance. This week we’re looking at fear because of the huge amount of power it has over us – when it doesn’t need to. It’s also something people don’t like to talk about too much. But I feel we need to talk about and look at seven steps we can take to pull back the curtain of fear in our lives. need to look at what we can do about it.
This is something I’ve been considering a lot about this week as I’ve witnessed the media coverage, and social media commentary, here in Australia in relation to COVID-19. We’re in the middle of a Delta outbreak, a lot of the country is in lockdown and there is a huge discussion about vaccinations. There is an energy of distrust and fear on all sides of the debate.
And it’s not just in Australia – fear seems to be pervasive in the collective consciousness globally, particularly in relation to COVID-19. The uncertainty, illness, and death have brought fear into our local communities. Then there’s fear for ourselves in terms of how we should or shouldn’t be responding.
It feels like a pandemic of fear – just as much as it’s a Covid-19 pandemic.
Then I started to think about my own experiences of fear with high functioning anxiety. I can see how over the years my fear stopped me from achieving my heart’s desires.
What I also learnt from my journey with my anxiety is that love cannot exist in the space of fear, and fear cannot exist in the space of love. You simply cannot hold two emotional frequencies in your body at the same time. It’s impossible.
All of this got me thinking about how fear is actually a huge distraction for all of us in our lives and it is distracting us from what we really want – which is to feel more love, more connection, more happiness, more joy, and more excitement in our lives.
Fear Distracts Us From What We Really Want
In very simple terms when we’re in fear – personally, as a community, or as a country – it stops us from moving forward to where we would like to go. It distracts us and consumes precious energy that could be much better used to go toward positive and inspiring experiences. It keeps us stuck and small versus expanding and growing. It can be very time-consuming.
This is really the essence of what I’m wanting to talk about – is that our fear at a very elemental level can distract us from our higher purpose and the journey inwards towards greater happiness and peace.
Our fear keeps us in the illusion. Our obsession with what’s going on on the outside distracts us from finding peace and joy and calm within. It keeps us from feeling the feelings like love, connection, and growth that is our birthright to experience.
We Can Pull Back the Heavy Curtain of Fear To See Our Full Potential
In many ways, this is a conversation about recognising fear is a heavy curtain that is stopping us from seeing the full potential of who we are. It is about pulling back the curtain of fear to see and embrace who we truly are – which is great love and great joy. The opposite of what we as a society are experiencing a lot of the time.
Given the busyness and information overload it can be confusing for us to understand what is going on and the impact of fear on our lives. When we move away from focusing on fear on the outside we can move into our inner wisdom and what truly resonates with us and what we truly want.
The Buddha talked about the lotus emerging from the mud. This is our time to do this – to move through into the peace of all understanding, into the experience of our true limitless, dynamic, and loving inner self.
We have all travelled such a distance to be here. It is time for us to blossom like a flower, and to move forward and into the true nature of ourselves here and now. It is a journey from feeling limited to limitless. It is our birthright to move into the next level of ourselves.
This is only possible by letting go of our fear – by letting go of our concerns of what others will think or say or do. This is only possible by moving into vulnerability and into true acceptance of who we are, and all of our experiences in our lives.
Personally, I can see how my choice to focus on my fear stopped me from experiencing some very important things in my life. I look back over my life and I see how it stopped me from taking action on what is most important to me – it stopped me from creating new relationships, from travelling, from trying new things and it has stopped me from stepping into my purpose and from sharing about things that are most important to me. (As you can see this has changed a lot now!!).
At the community level, the same thing happens – our fear is distracting us from what’s most important. The example we have in front of us is our fear about Covid – it’s distracting us from, or at least taking the focus off, other things that we would like to deal with as a community such as feeding those in need, or looking after the planet.
And what I’ve also noticed is that fear can be so ingrained within us and can be so connected to our everyday life, that it keeps us in our old patterns, and in our programmed ways of doing things. We continue to do the same things day in, day out because we feel safe in our comfort zone.
How to Pull Back the Curtain of Fear and Moving Beyond Our Comfort Zone
So what can we do to pull back that heavy curtain of fear and see who truly are? What can we do to find that peace and joy and calm within, that will help us do the things that we want to do in the world?
What can we do to move beyond our comfort zone and away from fear so that we can feel stronger within ourselves, show up and do those things we want to do in the world?
If you’re feeling stuck, frustrated, or unhappy with your life – then I’m talking to you.
So what are the steps we can take to push aside that thick veil of fear and begin to live life in a different way?
1. Understand the Curtain of Fear Is a Huge Distraction
Understand that fear is a distraction to what you really want. It is an emotional frequency that we can choose to buy into or not. Like every other frequency, we can choose to feel it or we can choose to feel another frequency. Remembering again here that fear cannot exist in the frequency of love and vice versa.
2. Understand the Source of Your Fears
We all have fears – what I’m talking about here is understanding that our fear can be a distraction to what we really want and that we can do something to manage it.
So now could be a time to do a little mini-reflection. What is creating fear in your life?
Let’s take a minute and let me ask you:
- What is your fear blocking you from doing?
- What is your fear stopping you from seeing?
- What is it stopping you from feeling?
Sometimes our fears about things can be so ingrained that we can’t see how they are distracting us. Asking ourselves these questions is the best way to start to understand how fear distracts us.
3. Choose What You Focus On
The key to pulling back the curtain of fear is to be aware of what you choose to focus on.
Where are you choosing to direct your gaze in your daily life, in your personal thoughts, in your consumption of media and the news and in your relationships?
What are the stories that you choose to share and tell with your family, with your friends, with your partner?
Something I’ve done yet again in the last few weeks with our situation in Australia is to reduce my consumption of media. I saw how the “drama” of the story was pulling me into negativity and fear. I did this because I could see how this whole story was sucking my energy and distracting me from the things I really wanted to focus on.
This focus can be on any other positive emotion that feels better to you such as feeling neutral, feeling allowing, feeling accepting, or focusing on love rather than fear.
Every second of focus, every element of your focus will have an impact on your future experience. Remember the words of masters and sages throughout the ages – “When we sow love, we create more love, when we sow fear we create more fear”. It really is the law of attraction in action.
4. Understand When We Let Go of Fear There Can Be A Vacuum
Something I noticed on my journey with fear is that when I let go of fear there was actually a vacuum in my mind and my thought patterns. There was a space where I had the opportunity to feel new feelings. My old habitual thought patterns had been to feel fear so when I made a decision to stop that the space felt quite empty. So I realised it was really important to fill that vacuum with positive feelings and a focus on positive activities and thoughts.
The research says that our brain and body actually become addicted to a set of particular feelings. This is what keeps us in the habit of our lives. It’s also said that it takes about two weeks to have a withdrawal from the old feelings. So just be aware that this vacuum is something that can hang around for a while and it’s something we need to consciously be aware of and address.
5. Focus On What You Really Want
The great opportunity when we let go of this fear is to focus our energies on what we really want. It could be focusing on renewing or strengthening your personal relationships, it could be your health, or could be a new project for your business or career. It could be moving to a new home. Imagine what you could do when you have fresh space, fresh energy, and fresh time to do what you really want. It’s so exciting!
Because of the vacuum I mentioned earlier, it can be a bit scary when we have this space and time to do what we really want. But let me tell you it’s a really amazing place to be.
So use this energy to focus on what you truly want. If you’re not sure of that then do something every day that inspires you. Look into things you are curious about.
Small inspired steps daily can make a huge difference in your life. I recently started a new hit routine it’s short and to the point, it’s a 4 minute set of exercises I can do three times a day and it’s making all the difference to how I feel and to my personal strength when I’m doing yoga. This is just one example of small inspired steps that can make a difference.
6. Accept Yourself and Others
Sometimes fear can come up for us in the form of anger or negativity towards ourselves, or others and their choices and situations. This is another form of distraction from what we really want.
The key here is to accept ourselves and others – that we are all on our own journey and making the choices we think are right at the time. I’ve found this a really great way to reduce negative feelings that will bring down my own vibration.
Acceptance is a really huge topic so I encourage you to listen to Episode 21 of this podcast which is devoted to this idea of acceptance and allowing. It has a very powerful and positive frequency.
7. Choose to Add Love, Not Fear to A Situation
Very often when we feel negativity, anger, or that something’s wrong we want to try and “fix the situation” by adding our viewpoint. What this can often do is expand the negative frequency of that situation.
So in these times, it’s really vital to actually look at how we can put more love into a situation – how can we add more life to the situation rather than take it away.
Yesterday I was in a situation in a group chat where a couple of people shared some social media content that I found really confronting and disturbing. When I saw it, my immediate urge was to share my concerns that the information was not trustworthy and fear-based. I realised though that even if I said this in the most diplomatic way it would not go down well. (Bring on the idea of acceptance I just spoke about!).
So instead of voicing my views, I chose to share a video I’d mentioned earlier of a beautiful group singing healing mantras. At that moment I got a huge breakthrough because I made a conscious choice to add love into the situation rather than more fear. I had deliberately chosen a calm approach rather than ramping up a situation by adding more fear to it. 24 hours later I know I made the best decision yesterday.
So what does this adding love to a situation look like in practice?
Imagine you’re in a situation when a partner, family member, boss, colleague, or friend says something you could take personally. Adding more love to the situation means:
- taking a moment and not reacting in that space at all
- not saying anything at all later
- adding something completely different into the mix – that takes the conversation into a completely different place.
The idea here is to take the negative resistance out of a situation and add love in. It takes practice but it is so worth it. I have done this myself and it really works
Understand Your Choice of Frequency Will Affect Others
Just as your choice to carry the frequency of fear will impact you, it will also have a bearing on others. As I’ve said before we are frequency and vibration so our energy will emanate from us and impact others.
I noticed this just yesterday in a conversation I saw how my concerns about a situation took the conversation into a place it shouldn’t have gone to. As I was talking I realised what I had done and pulled the conversation back up out of the negative and into the positive. So it can happen really easily and just quickly we can fix it.
Imagine if we all spent 5 to 10 minutes a day sending loving kindness out to our friends, family, community, and the globe as a whole. This is what the Buddhist Loving Kindness meditation does. I feel sure if we all did this on a daily basis we would have a vastly different experience of our planet because we would truly be pulling back the curtain of fear to be focusing on others and sending love to them.
Over To You
As ever on this podcast it is over to you. I’d love you to consider what I’ve shared today and to think about how you could possibly pull back the curtain of fear in your life to reveal more of who you are and more of what you want.
I’d love to hear your feedback on this.
Please share this podcast with anyone that you think may benefit from it and please also rate and review this podcast. Every rating and review helps us reach more people so I’d love you to do that if you can.
Thank you so much and take great care as ever and I look forward to talking to you soon.
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