How about no more fear this time of year?
In the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks, fear is more in our face than ever. It has me asking myself: How can I not be afraid with all that is happening? How can I not think of the potential threat on my life, my family, community, state and country? The reality IS that we have been threatened. The physiological response to threat is fear, the message to project ourselves from danger. Based on what I’m reading and hearing through the media, this fear has our world crippled and paralyzed with terror.
Isn’t this the goal of those who terrorize; to cripple us in a way that affects our entire life?
This global fear is not different that our individual fears. With both, we may feel powerless, yet we are not. We may not be able to change the circumstance, however, we are at choice to have an experience outside of feeling terrorized.
On an individual level, when fear strikes, we contract, and hide out, physically and/or emotionally, resulting in a feeling of victimization. In this state, we feel there are no other choices than to be a victim of whatever adversity we are facing in our lives. Our flight or flight response has been so over worked that our bodies have become no longer familiar with the feeling of peace. Perhaps we have become addicted to fear, chaos, and so we live in this continual state, not knowing what is possible otherwise. We reach for external comfort such as food, alcohol, shopping, sex, drugs, etc. to supply us with a temporary fix of calm, only to chase it with more of the same.
Winston Churchill said: Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision. Now is the time to DECIDE more than ever that we have the ability and power to experience courage as these terrible attacks continue. We have the ability to rise above our personal stories of fear as well as the collective fear and shift our attention onto all that is right and good.
How?
The first step is within you. Stop and spend some time considering all the ways you are terrorizing your life. How are you killing your body, mind and spirit? How might you be abusing yourself or another with your thoughts, words and actions? Notice the thoughts that have you perpetuate your internal terrorism. (“Internal terrorism” sure sounds dark, because it is.”)
Now is the time to stop this cycle. Whatever cycle of abuse that you identify in your internal world is driven by fear based thoughts and beliefs. THIS is where your power lies.
Applying this same concept to our collective fear is appropriate. Identify those fear based thoughts that might hinder you from doing and being your most powerful, fearless self. We all have a choice. We can cripple ourselves over fear, or we can rise above it and focus on courage AND make choices that keep us as safe as possible.