Crazy Little Thing Called Fear

Fear.

Such a simple word, considering its wicked punching power.

When you were afraid as a kid, you likely hid in your closet, or under your covers, or even just under the protection of your own ten fingers. Becoming an adult may have lent us greater wisdom, but we still have the same survival instinct when it comes to fear…we hide!

Of course, as adults we’ve developed a few new hiding places. Closets are out; life drama is in, as in “my life is just so crazy.” Bed covers are replaced by over eating, junk food eating, over talking, over thinking, and stalling, as in “I’m still getting ready to get ready!” And rather than our fingers, we hide behind over work and overwhelming over scheduling. Sound at all familiar? Here’s some good news…you’re absolutely not alone. Even better, there’s a magic bullet available to help you change your fear from an enemy to an ally.

The first thing you must do to make fear work for you is to get underneath the fear. Our fears aren’t our real problems. The real issues are hiding underneath. To move out of fear and into action, you have to become aware of, to understand, this underlying issue. Your awareness of your body and its chakras is the key. Have a stomach full of knots? Could be your sacral chakra is revealing issues with personal power. Chest feel tight and achy? Maybe your issue lies within the heart chakra area of relationships. Listening to your body can give you the first clues to understanding your true issues.

Second step? Stop thinking of fear as your enemy, as a thing that must be removed, like a cancerous tumor, from your body. Fear is a natural emotional response, and at times it can be quite helpful. Fear can help us to stay safe in risky situations. It can make us aware of things that need our awareness. This kind of fear springs from instinct.
The fear that mucks us up, slows us down, tries to keep us small…it comes from ego. But you can transmutate your fear into something much more useful, like excitement, with a simple exercise…BREATHING! Fear and excitement…they both stimulate an anticipatory response in us. But fear stops us while excitement stimulates our passions and helps us be our true and authentic self. Breathing helps us to unplug from our fear. It cleanses us of “bad” and leaves room for “good.”

Why do we give up so much power to fear when it deserves so very little? For one thing, there’s some social reward to playing into our fears. We can dictate others behavior by working from a place of fear and by ensuring that the “others” know this. And fear can be a strangely comfortable place at times…when being there allows other things, such as those that push us out of comfort zones and into our authentic selves, to be temporarily put aside.

By recognizing that fear will always be a part of us, by seeking out the real issue hiding under our fear, and by using our body awareness and breathing to change our relationship with our fear, we make it a non-issue. So stop struggling against it! Fear is not our enemy, it’s not all bad; and it never has to dictate your actions. Go on…move into your action place. All you have to do is feel the fear…then do it anyway!