Fear

When it comes to Openings, fear is a powerful factor. Openings often present something new and unfamiliar. This can cause fear. We are not always comfortable with the unknown and want to feel a sense of control. When fear is present, it can inhibit our power of choice and ability to choose whether to enter an Opening.

To take full advantage of Openings in our lives, we must deal with our fears and find ways to diminish their power. We may explore our fears to understand them. We may look at past experiences to see how our core fears developed and the influence our upbringing had on our ability to deal with fear. We may find ways to build our courage and skill at dealing with our fears.

The Power of The Present Moment

The present moment is particularly relevant when it comes to fear. In the midst of fear, we are facing an immediate threat that must be dealt with. Many times, we are in the past, remembering a fearful situation and relating it, inaccurately, to the present. Or, we are in the future, imagining a scenario that has not happened yet. The best place to deal with our fear is in the present moment.

Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, is a master of how to stay in the present moment. He wrote of fear in The Power of Now:

The reason why you don’t put your hand in the fire is not because of fear, it’s because you know that you’ll get burned. You don’t need fear to avoid unnecessary danger – just a minimum of intelligence and common sense. For such practical matters, it is useful to apply the lessons learned in the past. Now if someone threatened you with fire or with physical violence, you might experience something like fear. This is an instinctive shrinking back from danger, but not the psychological condition of fear that we are talking about here. The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now. You are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the power and implicity of the Now, that anxiety gap will be your constant companion. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection – you cannot cope with the future.

Can We Live Without Fear?

Yes, we can. We certainly can diminish our fears and the hold they have on us. Living without fear is a healthy goal. Our interaction with fear, when there is real danger, can be a positive one. It is something worth striving for.

Photo: Three-shots, pixabay.com