In this video on how to deal with fear and worry we talk about how confronting fear and worry is the best way to transcend them. Most of us are intimately familiar with fear and worry. For some they are infrequent visitors. For others they may be constant companions. Whatever your relationship with fear and worry, recognize they are of your own creation and you have the power to transcend them.
You need not be a captive of your fears and worries. Your mind is the jailer and the jail cell. So it is completely within your control to liberate yourself.
Many of us go through life walking in a cloud of our inchoate fears and worries, which color every life experience. When fear and worry are your constant companion you stop noticing them. Yet they influence every aspect of your life, and make your default setting one of unease.
Instead of avoiding your fears and worries confront them. It is the only way you will ever be able to resolve them. It is the only way to free yourself from their influence. The unnamed and unspoken fear is far more insidious than one that has been named and quantified. When we identify our fears and worries they become manageable.
A useful practice is to sit down in a meditative state (or at least with as much calm and presence as you can muster) and make a list of your top five fears and worries. Write them out in as much detail as possible.
Then beginning with your top fear or worry allow yourself to imagine the worst case scenario coming to pass. Imagine it in graphic detail. Allow the emotions to arise within you that might come if this thing came to pass. Feel the fear, anger, and grief that may arise and let them pass through you. Let it play out to resolution in your mind’s eye.
Then notice that the witness of the thoughts is still there. Notice that the witness of your thoughts, which is your simple presence, is the stage upon which the drama unfolded and that it is unmodified by the experience. Your witnessing awareness confronted the worst thing you could possibly imagine happening to you, and it survived.
Now imagine your top fear or worry playing out in the best case scenario. Imagine it in graphic detail. Allow the emotions to arise within you once more. Feel joy, love, and excitement and let them pass through you. Let it play out to resolution in your mind’s eye. Recognize that the witness of the thoughts still remains as the drama unfolded, unmodified by it.
Your witnessing awareness remains the same in pleasure or pain. It remains unmodified by the best and worst thing you can imagine happening to you. It is the infinite presence that endures lifetime after lifetime.
Go through your fears and worries one by one. Imagine the best and worst case scenarios. Let yourself experience all the emotions associated with each. Continue doing so until they no longer hold an emotional charge and you can identify more with the witness than the drama of your mind.
This may take time. Maybe you will need to make several top five fear and worry lists before you feel at ease. Nevertheless confront them and name them one by one. Give your fears and worries no place to hide. Dissolve them one by one in the light of your awareness.
#transformation #personaldevelopment #mindfulness
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