#5 Fear of Success

The more I listen for the voice of fear, the more I hear it through the denial we have of our own success - our our innate greatness.  Contemplate again the famous Marianne Williamson quote "it is not our darkness we fear most, but our light..."

I have another reminder that came from Mystic teacher Carolyn Myss when she told a story about how she got started.  As a medical intuitive working with Dr. Norm Shealy, people would ask her all the time if she could teach the "art" of intuition.  She decided she could indeed - there was a system, a rhythm and a reason to it all, and she proudly put the word out that workshops were forming.

Lo and behold her conclusion was that more people came to find out how to control their intuition than how to enhance it.

They wanted to learn how to have things their way rather than the way.

Mostly I have found the same thing after years of observation, so I ask you these questions: do you really want to know what you can tap into?  Do you like the answers you receive? Are you willing to make the changes necessary when "intuition" or your higher knowledge of truth comes knocking at the door of your consciousness?  Do you give yourself real time to listen? Are you willing to act to make change happen now?

If the answer for you is an immediate "yes" then congratulations and kudos galore! This is the very core of the message in the program Fundamentals of Emotional Freedom (which can be yours with this simple click into downloadland.)

Whether you know it or not, you have mastered the ability to move energy as divine inspiration from insight through your will, past fear into faith with true Self-regard, giving active relatedness to a new life generating belief that supports your life choices.

THAT, my friend, is an awesome synopsis of successfully moving energy through the seven chakras and allowing life's blessings to fully inform and activate your experience. The colors represent the guiding light of each vibration, and knowing how to navigate the territory brings speed - and ease - to the journey.

For many of us though, the answer to big insight is some variation of NO!  And why should it be otherwise when so much in the World is in such an unbelievable state of turmoil?  And so we say no - I don't want to change my life.  I'm not ready to leave my job.  I can't handle moving my location.  I'm afraid of coming out to be who I am...and on it goes.

So be it. 

We argue for our limitations and they are ours.

Each of these arguments has one thing in common. A belief that triggers fear.  Fear that we won't be accepted. Fear that we won't be part of our group.  Fear of loneliness and disapproval.  Fear that we won't succeed. Fear of innate survival diminishing.  Fear of loss. This is 1st chakra territory, the area of belief and unconscious resistance in the energy body.

Until we are able to look at our beliefs and challenge our assumptions it will be close to impossible to move on without fear dogging us every step of the way. The "no" doesn't really keep us safe (or happy) - it just keeps fear from activating.  No amount of behavioral change will really work because the underlying belief will continue to run our circuits, and all manner of successful reasoning and procrastination will result.
 
Now if we can move beyond a flat out "no I can't" to "YES (but not yet)" or "I will when I'm ready" then this is a frame of reference I can address successfully today.  This attitude is more about relatedness than it is about belief, and moves us to the governing body of the 2nd chakra and conscious choice.  Now we have the opportunity to discern how we can relate to our fears, and changing our behaviors can be a successful path.

Do you want to be the change you seek? Then you can do this.
 
Remember that fear fuels itself through the 4th chakra of the heart where faith also lives.  If we are to transform fear into faith, we must look at the system of actions that bring us into the 2nd chakra activities of relatedness, then look through the 3rd chakra power of Self referral so that we can arrive at the possibility of transformation that exists as the gift of 4th chakra faith.

There is a path to this system and it is neither esoteric nor beyond reason. 

For today let's focus on the 2nd level of relatedness.  The following is some copy from my Spiritual Warrior Coaching Manual.  I use it as an appendix of helpful information when addressing individual areas of action - or lack of action - once the possibility of change is firmly agreed upon.  So let's say you know something's got to give, but somehow you are still in a flummox about beelining toward your intuition about change.

What's needed is some clarity about how to relate to what it takes to get from your intention to your action.

These are relational tips you can employ in the process of successfully navigating territory that may seem vast or overwhelming, and they address...

The 10 Robbers of Time

1.    Floundering.  Too much going on. 

You need to be specific.

2.    Wheel spinning.  Busy work. 

Stop and re-access what is truly important from what is convenient.

3.    Fire fighting.  Crisis management.

Begin today to orient toward fire prevention.

4.    Vacillation.  Can’t decide?

Get tough and do something…anything to create action in one direction!

5.    Dawdling. 

Keep your goal in mind and make a deadline.  Write it down.

6.    Spraying. 

Focus on one task like a laser beam and stop spreading yourself too thin.

7.    Switching. 

Have persistence and develop a passion for closure.

8.    Acquiescing to arm-twisting. 

Practice saying NO! “No” is a complete sentence.

9.    Rehashing.  Reminiscence and regret. 

Make today count and stay in the present moment.

10. Perfectionism.  Avoiding the risk of failure.

Strive for excellence rather than the illusion of perfection.

ok -  now you've got the skinny on some 2nd chakra strategy.  It's not as esoteric as you might think. Go for it...and contact me if you want some personal guidance.  The system can be learned and will offer you gifts beyond measure. Next time I'll readdress where to go from here... ps "like" our Yokibics facebook page for updates and more opportunities to connect.


Have fun!
Gael

#4 Fear of The Unknown

Today I was musing on our long history with the emotion of fear - how taken we humans are with it - and I swiped some old quotes to give you food for thought...

"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark."
---- Francis Bacon

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."
--- H.P. Lovecraft

"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly."
---- Coleridge

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
--- Frank Herbert, Dune - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

"A man who has been in danger,
When he comes out of it forgets his fears,
And sometimes he forgets his promises."
---- Euripides - Iphigenia in Tauris (414-12 BC)

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all"
---- James Graham - Marquis of Montrose

"I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me."
---- Will - Macbeth

"Being frightened is an experience you can't buy."
---- Anthony Price - Sion Crossing (1984)

"What we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope."
---- Publilius Syrus - Moral Sayings (1st C B.C.)

"Solitude scares me. It makes me think about love, death, and war. I need distraction from anxious, black thoughts."
---- Brigitte Bardot

"Why are we scared to die? Do any of us remember being scared when we were born?"
---- Trevor Kay

"A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice."
---- Edgar Watson Howe - Country Town Sayings (1911)

Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it."
---- Lt. John B. Putnam Jr. (1921-1944)

Whatever fear is for you, and however it shows up, for the Mystic fear is a doorway into the question of faith.  Big one that is. Governed by the 4th chakra of the heart, the quest is alive for each of us.  Do not get stuck in the details of your fear of things unknown, as if finding the answer to spiders, and death and all things dark will provide the answer. 

What deserves your faith is the larger question.

What -

deserves -

your -

faith?

Fear and faith...they ride the see-saw of energy anatomy together, and once recognized you have a process for addressing fear that will continue to be gold for life.

Just for today, get away from the scary stuff.  Stop looking for the answer to the thing you fear and write yourself a list of five principles you can put your faith in instead.  It is a worthy exercise, and one that speaks to your own truth rather than some form answer from someone else. 

Find what it is that you can put your faith IN, and you are well on your way to taking mental, emotional and spiritual energy OUT of fear based worries and concerns.

Let us know how it goes.

Namaste,
Gael

#3 Fear of Feeling

 

I believe that emotional freedom - the sister topic of emotional genius - is the new frontier in human consciousness.  Daily we are gifted with new ways of knowing the body - and our investigation into the realm of the mind has fascinated us for eons whether through investigations of the unconscious, conscious or super conscious mind, the study of psychology and the intellect, or the delving fascination we have with psychic and intuitive abilities. But recognizing the source and purpose of emotions? In my experience we have misunderstood their role more completely than all of our misconceptions about body and mind put together.

Emotions are the gateway into how our energy circuits are running - a soul connector - and there isn't a bad one among them.  There is plenty of inappropriate or misguided response though (response-ability) that gives the emotion itself a bad name.

Here are a couple of examples from my work in the territory of the emotional genius...

Feeling angry?  That's a popular one to misunderstand. One might be coached to "get over it" or sided with by friends who are on your team with "yeah you're right! The rest of the world is against you/me/us!!"  But here is where anger is your guide and teacher. Where are your boundaries about the subject? Really.

Are you doing all you can to create clear words and a strong will in the area? Are you willing to make the changes you are being called to make in order to co-create a different outcome? So much easier to be "angry at the boss" than to get up and out and create a different life.  Yes, the answer to the presence of anger might be that drastic.
 
No wonder we don't "understand."

Anger serves to tell us change is required.  Listen to it well.  Be honest with yourself.  Be honest with others.  Be willing to be the change you wish to see. 

The emotion of anger will always involve your will and your word.

What about grief? There is indeed great reason for the expression of it in the world - more than enough to go around.  Death itself has been built into the program of life. There  is no escaping the powerful appearance of grief in your life at one time or another. Yet like all emotions, grief is meant to ebb and flow. Deep sadness when caged is like sinking into the bottom of a well. It serves to bring us deeper and deeper into awareness of what we really value - and it holds the potential of letting go. A more authentic version of our former self becomes the gift. 
 
How many survivors of even the worlds worst atrocities have come out on the other side helping mankind in a way that only they could when fully embodied and fully charged?

Grief stimulates the 3rd chakra and is the harbinger of a more genuine you.

Fear? A natural request to place your faith wisely.

Pain? What insights are you being given?

Apathy? What get up and go is necessary for you to care about something greater than yourself?
How about the emotion of joy?? Ahhhh....

Joy is inherent in the system just like all the other emotions. It is not reserved only for the special few, yet joy too is meant to ebb and flow - to rise and fall - to sing it's song in your life - in every life! It doesn't do well if you try to hang onto it.  It was never meant to sit static like a crown jewel.  Joy arrives unbidden as a result of transforming the entirety of your emotional body into a functioning alive system - not despite it.

What practical key then can I leave with you? What wish for your success?

•  allow yourself to change outdated beliefs about how miserable things are 

• stop brushing off your feelings as if they don't matter.  They do. 

• be willing to learn to identify what feelings you have. 

• become able to develop good discernment about what choices are available to help you transform your emotions rather than stuffing them away. 

• become able to pause when a feeling arises and recognize it without judgment. 

• validate validate validate yourself. 

• be willing to let go. 

• recognize that the joy you seek is already there. 

• know that becoming an emotional genius is an inside job unrelated to circumstances outside your control. 

• and the most important one: be willing to be new.

 
We are all destined to become masters in this life. Whether or not we can achieve that destiny depends upon the clarity of our objective.  

 
May you be blessed in yours.

#2 Fear Defined

Fears. What do they look like? How do they show up? Are they the same for everyone?

Apparently not, but that doesn't mean we don't all have them.

I researched our worst fears and found everything from a to z...

• snakes
• being alone for the rest of my life
• ants
• not being able to raise my family in this financial climate
• death
• cancer
• clowns
• big dogs
• being on a plane and getting sick (if you can relate, see the My Fearless Flyer Audio Program.  I created this one just for you...)
• being in a house on fire
• getting lost
• heights
• getting old
• spiders
• deep water
• the dark
• being without emotion for anything in life 
• losing my children 
• getting a disease 
• losing respect for myself
• mice

Read more here for a full selection from some folks who submitted their top five.

Lest you think any of this is marginal compared to your own fears, or that fears get more - or less - "real" with age, I came across this study on a website called Building Church Leaders that cited 10 of the worst fears of today's youth:

Fear # 1: "Something bad may happen to my family."

Fear # 2: "I can't get a good education."

Fear # 3: "I will not be able to make it financially."

Fear # 4: "I (or someone I know) will be a victim of violence or crime."

Fear # 5: "Peer pressure scares me."

Fear # 6: "I can't tell right from wrong."

Fear # 7: "I cannot find time to do everything."

Fear # 8: "I feel like I have to have sex to be accepted."

Fear # 9: "Someone I know or love will die of AIDS (maybe me!)."

Fear # 10: "I will never have a happy marriage and family."  
  

It's heartbreaking.  And that's the point. These fears tap into the deepest well of human experience. When looking for solutions, I know we are most able when we see the mind-body-spirit connection in everything we experience.  No fear is trite. None are meaningless.  Each has a deep message in the journey of self discovery and in our search for authenticity.

As with any journey, we must know where to begin - how to take the first step. We can start by identifying fear even - especially - when we have no solution. Our own particular fears are the gateway to our experience of faith, and that is a matter of the heart.

Just for today - spend a moment with your journal...what do your fears look like?     

Once you have your list, consider this insight from the wise teacher Pema Chodron:

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”

 Ahhh...truth.

More from me on that idea as we continue this series.  Meanwhile, what does facing fear look like to you?

In service,
Gael

photo credit: Bob Alba

June Series: #1 Facing Fear

We wrapped up the May Blog Series on Conscious Eating with posts containing plenty of tips on coming back to dining at home versus fast grabs, and some of the ways you might make it easy and sustainable.

Recent statistics on food waste in the USA, combined with increasingly shocking stats on hunger inspired me to get with it and share some ways to bring it back home and keep what you eat cycling from fridge to table to tummy.  Have fun going back to the May posts if you missed it!  

June brings me to another topic, perhaps less joyous but just as practical and necessary for a sustainable future - facing fear.  I'll share my own take plus resources for you from several vantage points.

For today I offer you some material from the Mystical point of view.

The Center for Sacred Sciences says this about the fear of "being on the path":

"Almost everyone who walks a spiritual path will experience some form of fear.

Initially, we may be afraid of what family and friends will think of our spiritual interests. We may be afraid of our teacher, or the teachings, or of certain practices, or going on retreat. Later, we may develop a fear of losing all interest in worldly affairs, going insane, or finding out something about ourselves we don't want to know. We may also become afraid of such things as impermanence, death, or even God. But all these different kinds of fear are actually rooted in a single fear, which is the fear of Enlightenment itself."

For more on this, go to the article Facing Fear on the Path. It's short but meaningful and well worth the read.

Noting the Christian mystic, St. Teresa of Avila in Interior Castle, who compares what happens on a spiritual path to a silkworm turning into a butterfly, she additionally warns:

Note very carefully, daughters, the silkworm has of necessity to die, and it is this which will cost you most.²

The necessity to die. I quote Marianne Williamson who speaks from the perspective of Course in Miracles as she reminds us "It is not your darkness you fear but your light."

So if we put these two ideas side by side, what then is expected to die exactly, and why are we afraid of it?

For starters we must die to the idea of our former self.
We must die to the belief that we are "alone" on the journey.
We must die to our smallness.
We must die to our need to blend in, stay safe, not stick out.
We must die to our plan and open to what is planned for us.

We can find ways to do this - we must.  The journey is ongoing, but I remind you how very necessary it is, and that you are not alone.  Each and every one of us must cast off the ties that bind us and rise to the occasion of our biggest self and our truest vision.

Whether the way you do this is deeply personal in the quiet of your own soul, or live out loud "look at me now" stuff, the breakthroughs are what will enliven and sustain you, and me, and us together.

Each step you take toward the most authentic expression of your deepest longing will give you greater presence and a deeper connection to fulfilling your dharma - the reason you are here. Once in alignment with this, you will not be afraid.

May it bring you great joy.

More to come in upcoming posts - what's your take?

namaste,
Gael