Let’s Start With Fear

October 6th, 2013

Yesterday in my post Discovering Miracles I described the journey I was embarking upon for the next 40 days. Today was day 1. The focus is fear. I got a little nervous because my fear of loss held me hostage for three years now and I’m just beginning to struggle away from it. Fear of any kind can cripple your life. Most fears are fears of a loss of some kind that cause us to obsess and keep us from experiencing the joys that are right under our noses. Even though I was wary, I knew this is where being able to change my life and discover miracles should start.

Surprisingly, the first exercise in dealing with fear was a comforting one. All I had to do was agree to witness my fear. Not confront it. Not poke at it. Just witness it – like from across the street. Ok, I can do that. I had to set a reminder on my phone with my affirmation throughout the day : I am willing to witness my fear. Then I had to pay attention to the kinds of things that triggered it. Tonight there will be a meditation and a journal entry in which I must answer four questions about what I learned about my fear today. We’ll see how that goes.

I had one question though: How did she (the author) know I had fears? Ahhh…we all do. Very safe place to begin. Every reader has some fears that keep them from being all they can be. I know my fear, and I’ve given some thought to what other people might fear. Here’s what I came up with:
– not having enough money
– losing their job
– not being married or in a relationship
– getting too old to have a child
– worrying about what others think about them
– setting a life goal and fearing you can’t accomplish it before you die
– becoming ill or disabled and not being able to work
– being diagnosed with a fatal illness
– losing your parents
– losing your children or a child either physically or emotionally
– losing your home
– aging
And I could go on and on. And they all deal with loss or a hole or emptiness of some sort.

I have made great strides in my journey to heal myself and battle my fear. Almost to the point where I was ready to say, “I don’t need this book.. I don’t need to spend 40 days improving my life. I’m happier now than I’ve been in years, so why should I do this? Because fears, no matter how hard you battled them down, come creeping back. Mine do. I suddenly find myself in a puddle of tears over people I lost either to death or estrangement. Up til now my MO is to just cry it out and go on with my day. This book is making me see that I can do better than that. And I can start by just witnessing my fear.

And so, as another day goes by, day one of subtle shifts for radical change seems to be going well, I’m going to keep an open heart and mind, I’m going to follow the program because there’s a gift of peace in there somewhere, and…I have written.