“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Look – any discussion about fear and doubt and suspicion must begin with acknowledging the power of our minds to create our reality. And our minds can indeed create any reality they wish.
But the trick is that we don’t realise how creative they are. We’re so lost in our minds and so rarely ever present, we aren't aware of how we only see the story of the mind, not the facts of reality. I’m not saying there’s no such thing as objective facts. But I am saying we don’t see them cleanly. It’s always through the lens of our thoughts and emotions.
This is crucial to understand about yourself: How you are is what you see. A fearful attitude creates a fearful world. A loving attitude reinforces the same. Understand this and you’ll see that when you change your mind or when you truly get present, your world will change.
It’s very important to get – Both your choice for fear or love is so powerful because they change everything for you.
What can you do with this?
1. Don’t be mindless.
Do your best to fully show up to life as it is. Be as present, alive and fresh as you can, and experience this moment truly. Not through your beliefs and past experience, but directly, free of filters.
2. Be aware what your filters are.
You have programming, you have ideas, you have opinions and habits of thinking and perceiving. Get really clear on how these might lead you to focus on certain elements and ignore others – especially when you’re exhausted, overloaded, have suffered a set-back, a knock to your pride, and/or are leaning on drink and/or drugs too much.
3. Genuinely ask.
Once you come to an understanding that you have blindspots, that you have places where you don’t see and/or twist reality, genuinely and openly ask for reflection. “What am I not seeing?”. “What am I assuming?”. “How could I be twisting this to meet some unconscious bias?”. You want to grow, and you want people to show you. Don’t just talk to the people who will confirm your own biases. But when you’re angry, defensive, suspicious this is the last thing you’ll want to do. Remember this and do it anyway.
4. Don’t let fear in.
Doubt and fear is always an option; and it seems so rational, responsible, real … and this is its way in.
The suspicious mind will say it’s responsible to process all the information, but it rarely has all the information. It guesses, it predicts, it tries … it rarely knows, but it will create from unknowing anyway.
Let fear and doubt drive and that’s what you have.
5. Decide, and don’t waver.
At the end of the day, you must decide. You must act. But make this decision based on the understanding that there might always be a heart/mind split. There might always be a split between the tendencies of love and fear. Often the open heart says “Yes! Let’s do it!”, and the fearful mind says, “No! Let’s play it safe”.
Know this split, and realise that fear may never go; doubt may always arise. Act anyway.
As Ambrose Redmoon once wrote:
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“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one's fear. The timid presume it is lack of fear that allows the brave to act when the timid do not. But to take action when one is not afraid is easy. To refrain when afraid is also easy. To take action regardless of fear is brave.”
— Ambrose Redmoon
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So don’t wait. Be courageous. Choose love, choose the expansive option.
Get stuck in. Play and explore. You’ll learn in so many different ways about fear and love and courage and trust. But if there’s anything I’ve learnt through my near half-century on this planet is the power of fear to warp and constrict. Don’t let it in.
Go well!
Arjuna