Dear Friend and Reader:
Yesterday, we asked you to write to us and let us know how you deal with fear. Here are some of your responses.
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First of all I feel it.
I think I turn fear (and other negative emotions) to anger, and then deal with my anger, and find my way back to fear. It certainly is a process. Usually I cry first (and in the middle and at the end).
I have a best friend of about 30 years now who also (gladly) serves as my therapist when needed. She is the person to whom I vent my fear, and she is a great listener. She says things that make me know she understands, never patronizes and doesn’t ever just agree with me for the sake of agreeing with me. She helps me apply logic and is a big help for me to get past just the emotion of the fear/anger. Everyone should be so lucky to have such a friends. She’s a Capricorn, to say the least.
The fear I refer to is not like a fear of snakes or a fear of heights; it’s more like of success or failure, being disliked or abandoned, not being treated fairly. I have big issues with injustice, and injustice is something we should all fear, don’t you think?
I don’t drink alcohol too much, but occasionally and I find it certainly helps dull the jagged emotion of it all. This especially helps when the fear is unfounded or just needs to go away or fall away. At least, drinking helps pass the time until I feel better and come to my better, calmer, more rational senses.
There are other types of therapy one might indulge in which could not be mentioned as freely as others due to the legality issue.
I don’t use prescriptions or pills; however, natural herbs and healthy eating help keep me grounded physically which helps me think better and feel better. I don’t eat junk: no sugar or processed food, no fast food, etc., and when I say this, I don’t mean not ever because that’s not true, but it certainly is my style to eat wholesome and healthy foods.
Masturbation is a very quick and effective way to take the edge off, like a big breath of fresh air. Then facing issues is a little easier.
Oh, and breathing helps me face anything better. Remembering to breathe, take time to just breathe and forget any panic that may be around.
I also remember other times in the past when I felt really afraid and that things always got better and I have not yet perished. It helps my grown children when I tell them this when they are worried about things: have some hope, and watch what happens.
Believing in miracles helps. Meditating certainly helps. Clearing negativity is a big, big necessity to effectively deal with anything, especially fear. My negativity and certainly any negativity in my personal space, including people and their mouths and attitudes, needs to go away. I use the words “clear” and “peace” a lot when I meditate, and when I am quiet (not speaking words to those around me), it says a lot because I usually talk a lot.
Meditating, getting quiet, and taking time (actual time, with the clock ticking, more than just a few minutes, usually at least a day to deal with any upset, often way more time while still dealing with every day life), these are my most effective tools. Things take time. Fear needs healing. Healing takes time.
Debbie
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When I’m alone, and feel fearful, I pray for other people and think of the earth turning on its axis and orbiting the sun as we all go through the experiences and feelings that each day brings. Thinking about people I love and/or talking to someone I trust helps, if they’re available. I like hearing a familiar voice when I’m feeling fearful.
When I’m at work, and feel fearful, I go into the bathroom and hang out there for a while by myself.
When I’m in a crowd, and feel fearful, I either hold onto the person I’m with as long as I need to, or, if I’m alone, I find a safe, quiet spot.
Julia
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For a temporary release from fear, I do write in my journal, trance meditate, talk to people and occasionally smoke pot, drink a glass of wine and take a Xanax. Although, for long-term release of fear, I go back to studying A Course in Miracles. It really is the perception of our life events that need to be reexamined.
My brother, age 59, crossed over to the other side a few weeks ago. He had a lung mass he was very secretive about. The stress of his death made me want to smoke (he most likely had lung cancer). I had not wanted a cigarette so badly for the two years since I quit. The craving was motivated by fear but I did not give in. Cigarettes had been my greatest (or so I thought) strategy for dealing with fear.
Rebecca
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I recognize beneficial patterns of behavior, and then I copy them. I have found that fear is often a programmed reaction because I don’t possess the knowledge of how to respond beneficially. The easiest, most effective way I have found to eliminate those anxiety routes of behavior is to really observe (participate with) people who exhibit characteristics and abilities that I wish to emulate. That person might be a hero in a movie, my children exploring new territory or a friend who has a knack for social interaction, in settings large and small. I’ve found that valuing the traits of those I share my time with leads to increased abilities and enjoyment for us all.
Christina
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Ah-ha, fear! I’ve just decided that fear is the dirtiest word on the planet. Fear can wear a worry costume!
My mother always says I worry too much about everything, which basically translates to fear of the unknown, or everything that could be. Jesus, this is no way to live! I’ve been working on finding the source of this fear for years, and have found some coping mechanisms. Whenever fear pops up like a jack-in-the-box clown, I’ve been focusing on the moment, instead of freaking out. In the moment, all is well.
Also, grabbing the fear bull by the horns and confronting it is very helpful: I ask myself, “what is this I’m fearing now; is it harming me now; why is this fear issue popping up now; is this collective anxiety?”
When I get oil anxiety, I focus on how getting off oil is the pathway to needed change and a better future. When I get (lack of) money anxiety, I focus on my abundant garden, beautiful children and all we have at this moment, and trust that we will have what we need when we need it. And we always do.
Whenever “but what if?” pops in, I say, “but right now I’m stirring the tomato sauce, and all is well.” It’s really hard to re-train the brain from tattooed-in knee-jerk fear reactions, but it’s definitely very possible. Just be willing to look at your fear-monster and you may see that it’s really much smaller and has much less power than you think – it just knows how to scream loudest!
Rachael
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Seven years ago I was treated for post traumatic stress disorder after leaving an abusive arranged marriage with an alcoholic in a brand new continent — the U.S.A. I’d moved there a week after the wedding from India and met him only a week before. Whatever.
Fear was my only companion for what seemed to be the longest time. It has taken me since then to reach this point in my life where now my biggest fears are things like “have I sent the right email,” “I wonder if I use these choice of words will I hurt his/her feelings” or even “will i lose another tooth,” but nothing like crazy paranoid fear for my life, exacerbated last year by the increasing “terror” prevention methods used on foreign-born residents and being interrogated at a conference.
I moved out of the U.S.A. and that brought my fear down by half; the rest was working through the internal blocks after the divorce: I’ve come a long way.
So, your question: “what did I do with fear?”
I lived through it, I wrote it, I resisted it, I fought it. Then I blasted through it by giving into it.
Last July, starting on the 13th, i cried for four days — triggered by a flashback — that finally released it.
Its been healing cleanly since then.
Anonymous
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I was greeted by a snake on my way into my office this morning. I took out my phone to snap a picture. I got close to the snake. Too close, I guess, because the snake scurried away disappearing into a bush. I try to get close to my fear; to greet it back when it greets me. The more difficult feeling for me is the anxiety that sometimes comes after choosing to make a decision that is NOT based in fear. I tend to then feel guilty, as though these decisions are wrong. I’m learning to take this as a good sign, though, as I did with the symbolic meeting with the snake.
Christine
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With fear (personal or planet wide), I tend to meditate, focus on where the fear is centered in my body, then breathe into that area. That then tends to bring the fear outwards, so I can write about it, take action (if possible), take Bach Flower remedies (where appropriate etc.
The important thing is to not let the fear get trapped where it can paralyze thinking/being; although it can seem scarier initially to release it than to suppress it, its really not!
Cynthia
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I try to engage my fear in a localized way, and am learning to recognize what it does to my body. Practicing insight meditation for the past couple years has helped me to be honest about when fear is present and pay attention to where it lives in me and how I dance with it.
I’ve realized that exploring fear on an intellectual level often creates more anxiety for me. I’m currently experimenting with treating fear as a kind of entity which holds a message. Often, giving my fear the space and time to communicate to me what it needs helps me to overcome paralysis and ease into clarity and action, as ignoring it has only resulted in binge drinking, insomnia and smoking too many cigarettes. We’ll see how that goes…
Anonymous
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Today’s Oracle takes us to Feb 16, 2007 – SCORPIO – Weekly
Would it not be beautiful to cycle in and out of balance, in and out of awareness? You can do it, but you must replace the cycle of your consciousness sleeping and awakening with another reality. That could be shifting from companionship to solitude as a conscious and even daily act; it could be remembering and honoring your past as a devotion that helps you stay in the present; it could be applying all your life energy to some moments every day of experiencing the reality of another as fully and as deeply as humanly possible. All that matters is that some form of alternation awareness replace the troubling cycle of awareness and the lack of it.
Friday 25 July 2008
Mercury (26+ Cancer) quincunx Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Mars (14+ Virgo) septile Chariklo (5+ Scorpio)
Chiron (19+ Aquarius Rx) quincunx Varuna (19+ Cancer)
Psyche (12+ Scorpio) sesquiquadrate Hades (27+ Gemini)
Chiron (19+ Aquarius Rx) sesquiquadrate Kronos (4+ Cancer)
Venus (15+ Leo) quincunx Jupiter (15+ Capricorn Rx)
Mercury (27+ Cancer) sesquiquadrate Ixion (12+ Sagittarius Rx)
Sun (2+ Leo) sextile Amor (2+ Gemini)
Ceres (19+ Cancer) quintile M87 (1+ Libra)
Mars (14+ Virgo) square Juno (14+ Sagittarius Rx)
Eros (10+ Leo) square Pandora (10+ Scorpio)
Venus (16+ Leo) semisquare M87 (1+ Libra)
Mercury (28+ Cancer) septile Logos (20+ Virgo)
1992 QB1 stations retrograde (23+ Aries)
Sun (3+ Leo) quintile Sedna (21+ Taurus)
As this post was unfolding I spent the day with a friend who is (or was) in a fairly intense state of fear (I’d give it 6 on a scale of 10). After listening for a few hours, and offering the usual bromides (sex, drugs, Bach, yoga, homicide), I got down to brass tacks: “Do you know your True Name?” I asked. She –who is a high priestess in several venerable Wiccan lineages– just stared at me. “Ummmm…” The amount of time it took to process the question meant ‘no.’
“Find it. Use it,” I said. It’s the one true thing, a matrix of sound –think of a smoke ring made of music– that circles the heartdrop from which ‘you’ are derived. Heartdrop=that originary sperm/ovum encounter from which the rest of your body expanded, like a accordion out of a spitwad.
Nomenclature is tricky here: we call it a name, but in reality it’s just the first coherent emanation of your heartdrop. Because of the relationship of desire to language and language to identity, it’s audible body is the first and easiest to ‘get.’ It is the only mantra you’ll ever need, or in truth actually use – cause most other mantras are somebody else’s heartdrop song translated through yours.
And because your True Name is the croonwave of the *heart*drop, it is the very quiddity of courage. When courage is a coeur-thing and not an adrenal thing, it is activated compassion, and thus, fears’s true antidote.
Find it. Use it. It’s like nothing else, and will be indispensible in the months to come.
Love and more…
S.