Chapter 6
Releasing Fear
I took refuge in silence. So fearful of saying the wrong thing, I saw words as the most powerful thing in the world, never to be uttered without deep considered thought. My mother could kill with a word and was nearly as good with a look. I worked hard to compose my face so that my thoughts were also hidden. By the time I was twelve these habits mostly ensured I remained invisible and safe.
Grow: Soul Survivors, Vol. 3
People who grew up in a rigid family system with harsh rules and poor communication naturally have low self-worth. Others fared all right at home but faced a brutal regime at school. Whatever the source, fear, guilt, lack of self-belief, poor boundaries and perfectionism are just some of the ways in which lack of self-love can manifest.
Children instinctively understand that no matter what madness a parent or guardian may display, their survival depends on them. To lose them is death. So we do what we have to do to survive. When we become adults, our habits stay with us. These habits are all based on fear. We fear being seen at all. More precisely, we fear our real selves being seen, as it was never safe to allow such vulnerability in the past. As we embark on a journey of releasing baggage, we begin to realise that habits that once worked for us are now working against us.
In the work of reshaping our lives, the bottom line is the need to feel safe. We may never have felt safe, or it may have been an infrequent experience. One way to start overcoming fear is by using affirmations, which are powerful present-tense statements of intent. The phrase “I am becoming...” is useful because once you intend growth to happen, it does. Therefore to state that you are becoming a certain way is true. It may be an infinitesimal growth each day, or it may be a quantum leap, but either way it is true. And it is very important to only state things to ourselves that are true. We are hardwired to need truth for survival. If I want to cross a busy road, I need to look both ways to assess the oncoming traffic. I need to see what is real and what is right in front of me, or I will get killed. “I am becoming safer every day now,” is a positive way to start feeling safer moment by moment, day by day. It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In the work of letting down defences, we must be gentle with ourselves. Practising being more open with someone we already trust would be wise. Practising mindfulness calms the self in the time of transition. To commit to sitting down each day, and just allowing ourselves to be as we are, is in itself a transformative practice.
Overcoming Negativity
How do we restore equilibrium when life gets us down? When there is a pile up of challenges and we feel dispirited? On a physical level, this is a good time to pay attention to self-care, eating good quality food and taking exercise to release stress and ground us. When we are stressed, we become dehydrated. When the body issues a dehydration alert, more stress hormones are released into the system, making things worse. So making sure we are well hydrated is always a good idea. Taking a break and doing even a ten minute walk has positive psychological effects which last for two hours afterwards. Doing deep abdominal breathing during that ten minute walk doubles the benefit because during times of stress we tend to use only the top one third of our lungs, which worsens the stress. Deep abdominal breaths reverse this, releasing the relaxation response which cancels out the stress response.
Another avenue to explore is to be aware of our thoughts. When we feel negative, we are thinking negative thoughts, which close us off from many options. Kinesiology is a complementary therapy that uses muscle testing to identify and correct physical, emotional or spiritual imbalances. John Diamond, an Australian psychiatrist and kinesiologist, talks about the “homing thought.” This is a thought that summarises our purpose in life, and it can overcome any negative influence, idea or situation. For example, my personal homing thought is: I was born to be a healer, writer and animal helper. What is your homing thought? Write it down and practise using it so that it is at the ready when you need it most.
Challenging the Inner Critic
Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviour.
Keep your behaviour positive because your behaviour becomes your habits.
Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Gandhi
It is estimated that we have over 60,000 thoughts every day. Ninety percent of them are the same as the ones we had yesterday. Many of them are negative. A belief is a thought that we continued thinking until we started thinking it was true. Once we believed it to be true, our perceptual filter eliminated all evidence to the contrary. Then we started acting like it was true. This is how people believed that the world was flat. They believed it, and they thought Columbus was going to fall off the edge of the world. So a belief can feel true, and seem true – and still be false. Beliefs are the framework for our lives so it is important that we choose beliefs that allow us to live our best lives to the fullest.
It’s important to know ourselves well enough to identify the beliefs that are running our lives – the ones that work for us, and the ones that work against us. How can we advance our self-knowledge? By looking at where our lives are stuck or not working. This will indicate to us any useless beliefs that need to be changed to improve our lives. Our beliefs form a framework for our lives. My Dad used to say about me as a joke that I was “as free from money as a frog from feathers!” We both laughed because it was true, or seemed true at that time. I loved my Dad, and therefore I subconsciously took this joke on board, because the subconscious mind has no sense of humour and accepts exactly what we put in there without discrimination. The subconscious mind has logic of its own, and it believed that in order for me to continue to be loved and approved of by him, I had to stay free of money. And I did, until I began to understand that for me to be constantly broke was not his intention or desire for me. And it was not what I wanted any more either. So I changed my belief about money being scarce, and my finances changed for the better as a reflection of that new belief.
So how do we go about changing our beliefs? Awareness of what we are thinking is the first step. Then making a decision on a moment by moment basis to choose or create thoughts that are positive. Once we do this often enough, a new neural pathway is laid down for this new habit of thinking positively. When a negative thought creeps in, as it will, just think “Cancel, cancel,” and focus on what you DO actually want to happen. There is no quick fix to create a habit of thinking positively, but if we have become stuck in a cycle of negative thought, then an energy medicine tool such as Emotional Freedom Therapy (see Resources section) is very useful for getting us back on track.
Being careful with your thoughts can lead to interesting experiences. For example, years ago I directed my thoughts carefully and visualised a trip to Tibet. I imagined everything in great detail, with the flights connecting and all going well. Here is what happened on the actual trip: The flight to China had a tailwind and arrived in Beijing an hour early. Despite being unable to speak Chinese, I was able to change my onward connecting flight to an earlier one. When I arrived in Chengdu, where I was to catch the flight to Tibet, I was wandering around lost, looking for my hotel. Despite having no map, I looked up suddenly and there it was! The next morning I went out of the front door of the hotel and a hundred metres away was the only travel agency in the city that sold airline tickets to Tibet. (This was in the days before the Internet.) I made friends on that trip that lasted for years. And on it went, everything just dropping into place, easily and effortlessly, even better than I had imagined it.
Usually, however, we unwittingly allow our thoughts to work against us.
We can be so harsh on ourselves. I often ask clients to say out loud a common negative phrase that they say to themselves. Mostly they won’t. I ask: would you say that to your child? Your best friend? No. But we can be relentlessly critical and self-denigrating. It is because we have internalised the critical voices we heard outside ourselves as children. As adults, we now understand – intellectually – that such phrases and words are not to be used with those we cherish. As adults, we know that the old nursery rhyme that “sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you” is wrong. Words can indeed hurt you, and go on hurting, all your life, until you heal that hurt. So we silently use these harsh pronouncements on ourselves. As children, we may have been “brought down a peg or two” by adults. One of my secondary school teachers informed the entire class that we would never amount to anything and would be lucky if we got work in a bean factory!
The voice of the inner critic is also the voice of the ego. It is always fearful, negative, separatist and pessimistic. It always contracts us as opposed to expanding us. It sounds authoritative but is based on fear. With practice it can be redirected to produce a kinder and more useful running commentary. We now know that our invisible thoughts, feelings and beliefs shape our visible world. As the physicist David Bohm says, “We live in a universe that is both visible and invisible.”
So our external reality is only limited by our capacity to understand who we really are and then act accordingly. Sounds simple! And like many vital concepts, it is simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy.
Imagination and Self-Talk
We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
Arthur Schopenhauer
To change our external world, we need to refashion our inner landscape first.
Our self-talk mirrors our imagination. In a battle between imagination and will power, imagination always wins. When we keep our self-talk positive, the highest desires that we have consistently imagined manifest, when teamed up with appropriate action. Self-talk is frequently anything but logical. If I believe that “Nothing ever works out for me,” even if there are exceptions showing evidence to the contrary, these are discounted to fit in with my existing perceptual filter that.....nothing ever works out for me! Using problem-solving, rational, critical thinking to “solve” why you feel a certain way just does not work.
The mind will always spew out negative self-talk and judgemental thinking which separates us from others. There is no point in trying to stop it doing what it does. Left to its own devices, the mind will think anything! But we can step off the treadmill by mindful awareness of the present moment. This brings us back to the here-and-now.
The Stop Light Technique
One technique for bringing us back to the present moment is the Stop Light. Imagine a red traffic light. Each time you find yourself in a negative tailspin, imagine a Stop Light. Then redirect your attention to everyday items around you. Name them, out loud if you are alone, and silently if not. “Washing machine, fridge, cooker, cat etc.” What this does is bring you back into awareness of the present moment. In the present moment, you can choose to focus your attention on more useful thoughts such as “I am relaxing now. I am beginning to feel better now. I am becoming calmer now.”
When we are future focused, we are usually anxious. When we are past-focused, we are usually feeling sad or stuck. In the here and now, we take back the reins of control from our ego. And that feels better.
In the Now, things may be okay. Or not. But at least they are real, unlike the scary scenarios thrown up by the ego. When my father was terminally ill, I tried to be mindful. When I said to myself, “In this moment, all is well” I instantly thought, “That’s a lie. Things are not well at all in this moment.” It is important to say only true things to ourselves. So instead I chose to think: “In this moment, things are as they are.” And THAT was true. And it brought me a little closer to acceptance of how things really were. In that acceptance, some small comfort was to be had.
Recognising Truth
Be hungry for truth.
Marese Hickey
When trying to identify what is true for us, a useful barometer is to notice what is happening inside us, to notice the energy vibration involved and ask: Does this feel light or heavy? Constrictive or expansive? The lighter and more expansive option is the one that is in line with our internal values. This is also a means of tuning into our own internal experience, and finding out what is right for us. It increases our trust in ourselves to be able to answer our own questions.
Acknowledging the truth of who we really are unleashes a torrent of vitality in us. To find out who we really are, all we need to do is choose. Choose what we want, honour ourselves first. In doing so, we can offer our authentic vital selves to the world and offer a model to others of how to be healthy, happy and the real deal. That is why loving ourselves first is not selfish but is actually of benefit to everyone in our lives.
Words can have resonance for us too. They can help to heal us. When they resonate with you they may bring tears of recognition to your eyes. This is innate recognition of something that is true for you. If this happens to you, notice carefully what the words are, and what that truth is, because it is something your soul is crying out for. Someone says something kind at the right time and it goes straight to the soul. Sometimes we are starved of the truth for so long that hearing or reading the truth can be like arriving at an oasis in the desert: we drink greedily, needing to replenish our dying souls. When you begin the journey to loving yourself, beware! Anything in your life that is not truthful or does not match your ever-increasing vibration will have to go. It can be painful to let go. But it is necessary. This is the work of the heart. It is like pruning a thorny rose bush hard in autumn, getting down to what is still vital and alive, cutting out dead wood so that come summer, there will be an abundance of blooms. You may bleed in the pruning but you will recover and be the stronger for it. The fruit of letting go is increased strength of purpose and clarity of vision.
Visualisation: The Safe Place
Switch off the phone and make yourself comfortable. Take a deep breath in and as you breathe out, allow your eyes to close. Focus your attention on your breathing. As you breathe in, imagine you are breathing in deep relaxation. As you breathe out, you are beginning to let go. Soften the eyes, the chest, and the belly. Let the shoulders drop as if you are leaving down your burdens. Imagine that there is a gateway that leads into your safe place which is surrounded by a protective shield. Open the gate and go on through. Close the gate behind you. Allow your safe place to be as beautiful as possible, a place that fills your soul and soothes your spirit. Allow yourself to notice what it looks like, the colours....what it sounds like...use all your senses....but especially notice how good it feels. Take your time. Now capture all of the elements of your safe place by bringing finger and thumb together on one hand. From now on, you find yourself making that finger and thumb gesture at least a hundred times a day, consciously and unconsciously. Each time you do, it releases within you these same feelings of being safe and protected at all times. These feelings grow stronger within you with every hour of every day that goes by from this moment onwards. The safer you feel, the more you relax and allow your life to improve in a way that is meaningful for you. As you open your heart, you allow it to heal. As you heal your own heart, you help the ancestors and others in your life to heal their hearts too. When you choose to open your eyes, you return to the everyday world feeling safe, relaxed, open and free.