by Connie Habash | Oct 25, 2022 | Action, Articles, Empowerment, Fear, Perspective
This post contains excerpts from Chapter 15 of my book, Awakening from Anxiety: A Spiritual Guide to Living a More Calm, Confident, and Courageous Life.
The definition of fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” I find this definition very helpful because it distinguishes actual threat (which would be true danger of harm) from the belief that something could be dangerous. Anxiety is essentially a repetitive state of fear, a state of awareness focused on what could be fearful. We perpetuate the belief that something could be dangerous, and that arouses a state of anxiety.
Sure, there’s a lot going on in the world that is frightening. Those are global fears, of the bigger picture. But in this modern age, most of the fear that really stops us is more personal. It’s about the unknown in our own lives. We’re driven by fears about doing what we truly want to do with our lives, making a career change, embarking on a new relationship, or submitting a manuscript to a publisher. These kind of fears are associated with taking a risk, with what we cannot control. Yet there is a magic about this kind of fear that you may not realize.
This fear or anxiety about the unknown indicates the onset of power. Something powerful is happening in your life. That’s why you feel fearful. It’s actually calling you to step into your power in a new way. The fear and anxiety are letting you know that you’re not willing to simply settle for how it is or how you’ve been in the past. You know that you want to awaken more deeply or express yourself more fully.
When that begins to happen for you, and you’re getting a taste of what’s possible, sometimes anxiety kicks in. It doesn’t want to leave the zone of the familiar – that’s unknown territory! And we believe that the unknown is dangerous, because we can’t control it.
One small way to shift our experience of fear and increase the amount of time every day that we feel good is to change our perspective about fear and anxiety. By looking at it as a harbinger of empowerment, you can redefine it.
There are many acronyms for fear that help us change our perspective about it, but one that recently came by me has been credited to Neale Donald Walsh, author of Conversations with God. He says that when we feel fear or anxiety, we can redefine it as feeling excited and ready. If you think about it, this is true. Fear and Excitement have almost the exact same physiological response. This readies our body for whatever is required of it, such as the need to run or fight.
Let yourself feel excited and ready, and open to the positive possibilities that could lie ahead of you. Fear wouldn’t arise if something powerful, transformative, healing, and awakening wasn’t on the horizon.
Now that you have considered that the fear is here to empower you, and you have a way of reframing it, it’s time to contemplate taking an empowering action. You may not yet have a sense of an empowering action to take in response to your excitement (i.e., fear) about what lies ahead of you. But if you do, it’s time to consider stepping out into that new way of being.
Start small. You could stand in a yoga pose that increases your sense of strength and energy, like Warrior pose or Mountain Pose, and feel the power arise in you. You could roar like a lion or howl like a wolf. Write down empowering words and affirmations. Walk around your home as if you were embodying that newly-found power.
Then, reflect on what small actions you could take in your life that would support your desires. You don’t have to make a huge leap – break it down into little steps, and move towards your vision gradually. You can even ask your fear to give you guidance on how to overcome it. The fear arose to bring about your empowerment.
What little step are you willing and able to take into your empowered action? What small change can you implement? What quality would you like to put into practice? What is the first part of the adventure you’d like to embark upon? You’re now ready to not only release your fear anxiety, but to experience confident, joyful living and inner peace.
Read more of Chapter 15, and the whole journey of overcoming fear and anxiety – order your copy of Awakening from Anxiety today!
by Connie Habash | Jun 9, 2020 | Action, Awareness, Change, Consciousness, Oneness, Polarities, Transformation, Unity
In this current crisis of George Floyd’s wrongful death and the re-igniting of the Black Lives Matter movement, we’re seeing the polarity of Victim-Tyrant playing out through racism.
It isn’t a new polarity – it has been perpetuated over and over through millenia with people of different races, religions, cultures, genders, and sexual orientations. It shows up even within abusive families. It also plays out through the plight of the planet at the hands of the tyrant of the human race. Every one of us can relate, in some way, to being victimized and, if we’re honest, occasionally being tyrannical.
We are now presented with the truth that there’s no going back to “normal”. Our world can’t sustain, on any level, the continued perpetuation of Victim-Tyrant. We must find a new way that transcends this polarization.
This clear realization that black lives matter and the injustice needs to be addressed and rectified is showing us in bold relief that both ends of this polarity need to come to an end. How do we do that? We start by examining the victim and tyrant inside ourselves.
The Tyrant that says it’s my way or the highway, that I am right and they are wrong, that I must be in control and dominate, which means that others must be controlled or worse yet, destroyed. The victim, that declares that I’ve been wounded and they are bad, that I am powerless and can’t do anything about it.
Neither of these positions are helpful or heal. They either abuse power or give their power away.
We are now seeing people come together to transcend these polarities. Who are owning how they have been tyrannical and seeing how they can change. Who are stepping forward into their power without becoming a tyrant themselves.
We know we need unity, in the mundane and spiritual sense, now. But we must be careful about how that is expressed. In the past, sometimes the declaration of unity and oneness carries the subtle demand that you become more like me, that we become one by homogeneity. Especially for white people. That you need to do and be what makes me feel comfortable in order for us to feel united.
There is another way. We can unite and find our sacred Oneness while honoring our diversity and uniqueness. Together, we can all know that we come from one Divine Source (although we may not give it the same name or form). We all have that sacred energy within us. It doesn’t have to express the same or look the same to find our common ground that we share.
There are hundreds of thousands of varieties of flowers – we can each know we are all flowers of this Sacred energy, and see the exquisite diversity of the myriad shapes, colors, fragrances, and textures. In order to experience unity and spiritual Oneness, we must simultaneously embrace differences.
This isn’t an easy, “say it and it is so” transformation. We will need to change ourselves and dismantle the disempowering and hurtful victim-tyrant structures in our culture, justice system, law enforcement, and media. We’re seeing the beginnings of this now, as people are protesting and taking action to create change. There’s more to be done than I can name here or even be conscious of in this moment. It will be an ongoing process of personal and collective growth.
And so worth it.
Let’s all look at how we can transform, release, and transcend the victim-tyrant polarity in our lives and in the world, and find a new paradigm that supports, respects, and honors all beings. It’s a work in progress for me, and probably for you, too. Let’s start with knowing that Black Lives Matter and bringing to consciousness white privilege; as we learn through healing this societal issue, we’ll discover some of the keys to healing our whole planet.
Resources:
The Marriage of Spirit by Leslie Temple-Thurston and Brad Laughlin
This book explores spiritual awakening, and particularly how to transcend polarities to attain unity consciousness. You can read some sample chapters here (chapter 2 and 8 are most relevant):
https://www.corelight.org/the-marriage-of-spirit-sample-chapters/
How White Fragility Supports Racism and How Whites Can Stop It
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/health/white-fragility-robin-diangelo-wellness/index.html
16 Books on Race and White Privilege That Will Show You What’s Really Happening in America Right now
https://www.businessinsider.com/books-white-privilege-novels-racism-antiracism-black-scholars-2020-6
by Connie Habash | Mar 14, 2017 | Acceptance, Action, Connection, Determination, Faith, Neutrality, Oneness, Persistence, Seeking
My family and I were determined to get outdoors to enjoy the lovely weather the last few days, and headed to Huddart Park for a hike on Sunday. We adore this nearby natural gem, filled with redwoods, bay laurels, and tan oaks, and a beautiful (and quite full after the rains!) creek running through it.
We marveled at the wildflowers already in bloom – some dainty, five-petaled white blossoms, and the sweet lavender flowers of redwood sorrel, which I had never seen in bloom before. They were profuse and a delight to the eyes.
Near the last half-mile of our modest adventure my daughter and I stopped at a stream, as we often do, to explore and to enjoy rock face painting. This is something she learned from Katie Hicks at our last retreat at Ananda Valley Farm. Taking a rock about the size of your palm in one hand, you select a colorful rock that can easily be held by the other, and rub it on the rock. After a minute or so, viola – paint is created! We enjoyed decorating each other’s faces in reddish-brown and greyish-yellow designs.
My husband decided to move along the trail ahead of us while we were immersed in our playfulness. He stepped off-trail at another familiar spot along the creek, headed a bit upstream, and sat down on a beautiful, warm, sunny spot on the slope about 10 feet above the creek. It was peaceful, meditative, and relaxing.
As my daughter and I finished up our faces, we headed up the trail to catch up with Michael. We looked upstream and didn’t see him, so we figured he must have headed back to the car. After 30 minutes of waiting for him in the parking lot, he arrived, looking a bit flustered. Upon descending the slope where he had sat in quiet reflection, he slipped and fell on his hip. His knee was scraped, and he was OK, but quite unhappy. Not because of his injuries, but because in the process his wedding band slipped off his finger, and it was nowhere in sight.
We rushed back to the site and the three of us scoured the area, looking in the most likely spots according to his trajectory as the hillside had unceremoniously tossed him downhill. We carefully moved aside compost, redwood pine cones, and twigs, but to no avail; we couldn’t find the ring. Did it fly in the air and land somewhere far? Somewhere we wouldn’t expect? Did it bounce and roll down into the stream, which was a couple feet deep at this spot? I couldn’t see anything in the silt at the bottom
Strangely, I didn’t feel very upset. There was a sense of detachment and neutrality about the whole thing. It’s just a ring. It’s OK if it’s gone, but I believe we can find it. My daughter was the most upset, feeling very sad for her dad. He wondered if perhaps it had slipped off his hand into a pants pocket back at home, or at the gym the previous day and he just hadn’t noticed. Nope, not anywhere. But I had faith – I knew the ring would show up, I just didn’t know where or how.
We decided to rent a good metal detector and give it a go the next day. It was another spectacularly beautiful, warm March morning as we headed back to the scene, metal detector in tow. I moved it back and forth close to the ground on the slippery mud where he had come tumbling down. Michael, however, suggested we check out an area to our left where there was more compost. This would have been a few feet off to his right as he slid and I thought it unlikely, as the ring was on his left hand and would have had to fly across to the other side. But I figured he might be onto something, and handed him the detector.
After a few seconds, we heard the beep-beep of a response, indicating something metal was in the vicinity. I kneeled at the spot as he moved the sensor slower and slower, narrowing down the exact location. With my garden gloves on, I began to gingerly dig through the twigs and redwood needles. Would we find the ring? Or perhaps some unexpected treasure? Or just an old rusty nail?
I cleared about 2 inches of debris and saw a shiny object – there it was, the ring! I was amazed, almost dumbfounded. Within less than 3 minutes of looking, we had found it. I had been prepared for searching for a half-hour or it being lost forever, and here it was, easy to find. We both heaved a sigh of relief and shouted in joy.
Before we had left our house that morning, I remember commenting to my husband, “when we find the ring…” It was a declaration of faith and certainty that it would reappear. That ring of faith indeed was there, ready for us to find. We only had to determine that we would show up and follow our inner knowing as to where it was.
One time, long ago, you had a ring of faith and thought it was lost. But it’s still there, where you left it. Your deep, inner connection to the Divine has never been “lost” – you just lost track of it perhaps when you were very, very young. Be determined. Know the ring, the connection, is there, and make your declaration that you are finding it. Listen to your intuition, your inner knowing beyond reason, and let it guide you to whatever you need to return to that state of deep connectedness and wholeness. Don’t be afraid to dig. Don’t buy into the doubt and give up. It’s waiting for you – have faith, and follow the trail back to your True Self.
by Connie Habash | Feb 8, 2017 | Action, Choices, Intention, Judgment, Love
February – a month that, stereotypically, we turn towards greeting cards with red and pink hearts, roses, chocolates, and are inundated with commercials about diamond jewelry. Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and whether it’s something you relish or are repulsed by, it’s here in our western culture.
I tend to avoid writing about this topic, but this year some new insights flowed in. Many of my clients and students struggle with the feeling of being lovable. This time of year can be triggering, causing some to feel lonely and lacking in romance. Others are disgusted at the commercial aspects, the commodification of love. And many of us continue to explore what is love, and what is the nature of our lovableness?
Valentine’s Day causes us to ask – who loves me and who do I love? How can I get love, have my needs for it met? I want to feel special, noticed, attended to, romanced, made love to, nurtured, and cared for. Naturally, we all want to be loved.
Spiritually, the question – as you probably know – is to ask: who can I love? How can I love others more? What is Unconditional Love? But to be frank, most people aren’t thinking about that on Valentine’s Day. They’re looking at their love life either with hopefulness and gratitude, or wistful longing.
It is a very basic psychological and emotional need to be loved. Scientific studies have shown that primates do not thrive unless they are held, loved, and nurtured as infants. We humans are no exception and in fact clearly need love and attention. However, if we are to truly feel loved and lovable, we must find the source of what love and lovableness is, whether we’re in a relationship or not. And we must find the blocks within us to feeling lovable as we are.
M. Scott Peck, author of the classic personal growth book, The Road Less Travelled, describes love in as clear and honest a way as I have found:
“Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”
Here, he asserts that love is not a feeling, happening to us, but rather an intention and an action that we choose. We often feel that love comes upon us passively; it is out of our control, given to us from another. But this is not correct. We experience the feeling that we call love because we have allowed ourselves to receive and experience it flowing through us. In essence, we open to and become love.
Those moments when we feel head over heels in love? When we receive a meaningful gift, a passionate kiss, a warm hug, an expression of appreciation or gratitude? Those are the result of releasing our inner blocks to the love that is there all the time, within us. We feel it within us, not outside of us.
By giving, we become the action of love. By receiving, we open to that love. By making ourselves vulnerable with someone we trust, we feel love. By offering an act of kindness, we become love in action.
When we see and feel love in this way, we come to understand that we have always been loved and lovable. It is the truth of who we are. We realize this when we release whatever is in the way of being that Love, the Love with a capital L that transcends the need to have someone to love or to love us, that transcends having a “reason” to love someone, that transcends whether we are “getting” what we want or not. This is Unconditional Love, the love without any conditions, reasons, or agendas.
Our task, then, is not to get the love we want, it’s to become that Love. When we are Love, there’s no question of whether we’re lovable or not. When someone is loving towards you, in a sincere and unconditional way, do you have any doubt that they are lovable? Don’t they just ooze lovableness by the fact that they are embodying what it is to be loving? We know we are lovable when we are loving towards others.
However, one of the blocks to becoming that Love is our difficulty with loving ourselves, yes? We have so many judgments about ourselves that it’s hard to let the love in from others. We have difficulty loving ourselves because those labels and judgments distort our self-image, making us unable to perceive the Love that is the source of Who We Are. Similarly, we hinder our ability to love others due to those same judgments and comparisons. Judgment and comparison create separation: between us and them, between the fragmented parts of ourselves, locking what we perceive as undesirable in the basement.
Love doesn’t judge or compare. Love embraces what is whole-heartedly, sees right through to the essence, accepts completely. Love doesn’t analyze. In contrast, Unconditional Love transcends thought. It is Being in the purest form, which gives rise to delight in All That Is.
Not so easy to transcend those thoughts, you say? It’s not as simple as thinking “I am lovable. I am Love.” Although that is helpful, we all know that plenty of other thoughts come in to the contrary.
Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith says that if we want to be beautiful, it’s not enough to say “I’m beautiful.” We must think beautiful thoughts, and then we become the essence of beauty. We focus our attention on all that is beautiful around us, appreciating the beauty of kindness, immersing in the majesty of snow-capped mountains. Filled with attention on beauty, we radiate with more beauty ourselves.
To feel and experience being lovable, our thoughts, words, and actions need to similarly be immersed in love. As Scott Peck asserts, this is love as a choice, an intent, an act of will that counteracts that which would impede it.
If we are either withdrawing from those we love, on the defense, or constantly demanding their attention, we are not letting love flow freely through us. We need to let go of our expectations, especially of perfection, and forgive ourselves and others. Our lovableness, though it is inherent in who we are, won’t be experienced unless we are attuned to Love by our thoughts, words, and actions. Otherwise, we see and experience more of whatever we think, speak, and do – and if that is judgment, it won’t be an experience of Love.
This Valentine’s Day, recognize the Love that is who you are. Acknowledge that, deep down, you are already loved and lovable. Then, do your best to attune yourself to the energy of Love. When you get down on yourself, what would you want someone who loved you to say? Practice thinking those thoughts. When you feel critical towards another, consider how you can be authentically more loving and accepting. If you see harm being done to another, how would Love guide you to help heal the situation? It will take some time to overcome the old thoughts and ways of being, but you can do it. You can become Love.
by Connie Habash | May 8, 2014 | Action, Beginning, Challenges, Change, Goals, Right Action, Uncategorized
I like to walk on the treadmill at the gym, since I don’t have a nice hilly area right out the door to walk. When I say “like”, however, that may not be the most accurate description.
For the first several minutes, I constantly look at the time – how much longer? It feels like a lot of effort, my legs feel stiff, my muscles cold and complaining. I question whether I can really do this today. I don’t feel like going up those hills, or walking so fast, or expending the effort. It seems daunting, and I am tempted to stop.
But once on the treadmill, it’s easier to keep going. As they say in physics, “a body in motion tends to stay in motion.” So I try to make it easy to begin. I start with a slow speed and lower hills, and gradually build up. I make it as unintimidating as possible.
Something happens for me at about that 13 minute mark. I hit my stride. It feels easier, more comfortable, and more enjoyable. I am warm, strong, and capable! I’m ready to challenge myself. My attitude and my body shift from resistance to embracing the experience.
So it is with our goals and aspirations. The most important step is to begin. It doesn’t matter whether you begin perfectly or not; what matters is that you start getting the energy in motion. Nothing will change if you do not take a step in the direction you long for.
You do not need to worry about how it will turn out. Do not compare yourself with who is already at the finish line. Start where you are, and get the ball rolling. Just begin.
If you want to meditate more, set out a cushion or sit down on that chair and give it a try for a minute. If you want to run a marathon, put on some running shoes and run a block. If you want to learn to play the piano, see if you can plunk out Mary Had a Little Lamb. Get started, wherever you are.
Rather than trying to swallow the whole enchilada right off the bat with unrealistic expectations, choose microactions. These are teeny, tiny little steps that are so doable, you can’t be intimidated.
Recently, I was helping a friend with cleaning out her house. She had a room packed to the gills with boxes of stuff to sort through and start giving away. Looking at the whole thing was overwhelming. In fact, she really wanted to avoid the whole thing.
But I knew the best way to tackle it was with a microaction. I told her we should just start, and maybe we only get to one box today, or half a box – that’s OK. It’s one less box you have to deal with. So we began.
I picked a box, and chose three things from it to show her. Keep, give away, or throw away? When she got through them, I went for another handful of items. I tried to focus on the smallest amount possible, so it was easy for her. I made it doable. Before we knew it, we had cleared out three boxes, and I was hauling a bunch of bags off to the Goodwill to give away.
So what are your goals? What do you long to change in your life? Brainstorm some microactions you can take to set the wheels in motion, and just begin. Make it doable. Let go of your expectations and start easy. Once you hit your stride, the energy will flow, and the universe will flood you with support to keep it going.
by Connie Habash | Jan 28, 2014 | Action, Appreciation, Choices, Empowerment, Possibilities, Potential, Right Action, Small
I’m tired of everyone telling me to think bigger. “You need to play on a bigger field! You’re capable of so much more!” Does that message ever exasperate you?
It sets us up for feeling we’re not enough as we are. And that whatever we do, it doesn’t measure up, or isn’t significant enough. We’ll never feel at peace within, because we’re always comparing ourselves to what we think we should be and do – bigger, better, and more of.
Sure, we can all offer more to the world. I want to do that. But I don’t want to set myself up for an ego-trip of imagining myself to be a Nelson Mandela. And that, if I don’t think that big, I’m just not living up to my potential.
Let’s stop for a moment. Can the world use some more Gandhis and Mother Teresas? Sure. Can we all be that? No. In fact, if the world were full of them, who would follow whom? Who would serve whom?
Not to mention that it’s just plain intimidating to think about doing something on that kind of scale. I don’t even think I’d want to.
But that isn’t how they started. They may not have had a big vision. They started with one, small action.
I want you to think small for a moment. Doable. One good thing that you KNOW you can do. Can you pick up that trash on the sidewalk? Can you call up a friend who is lonely? Can you volunteer at a soup kitchen this Saturday? Or give the extra lemons from your tree to a neighbor?
Planetary – and personal – change comes from a lot of small actions, not big huge ones. Many small steps made by many people. It’s billions of molecules of water together that make a big wave. A bird makes a nest from a lot of small twigs. Don’t tell the bird that one little twig won’t make a difference!
So think small. Today. And then do it again tomorrow. Everyday, can you do a little something to transform yourself, make someone’s day, or make the planet a better place? I KNOW you can.
Then, share it here on my page. It’s not bragging, it’s motivating. Your small thing may just inspire someone else to do the same!
by Connie Habash | May 3, 2013 | Action, anger, Authenticity, Choices, Empowerment, Energy, Fear, Judgment, Right Action
It’s quite common in spiritual circles to put down anger. Anger is bad, they say. Or anger is unenlightened. We must transcend our anger. We must think loving, good thoughts, and put all that anger out of our mind.
Hogwash.
Saying that anger is bad, whether it’s tacitly implied or directly stated, is just another way that we beat ourselves up and deny our truth and empowerment. It’s an easy way to judge and criticize ourselves or others for anything less than perfect behavior.
Anger is just as human as any other emotion. If we deny any of our human emotions, we become sanitized, without life, without authenticity. And we feel we don’t have a voice, can’t speak out when something happens that disturbs us. [For more about this, read my article “Authentic and Heartfelt NO!”]
There is a difference, however, between healthy and unhealthy anger. There is good reason why many spiritual traditions have attempted to banish it, because unhealthy anger expressed outward can be violent and hurtful, and repressed inward can result in resentment, disempowerment, and illness.
A healthy approach to anger is to understand it as an energy, like electricity. It is neither good nor bad, but it has an important function: to get us to pay attention and to take action. It lets us know something isn’t OK with us. It tells us when a boundary needs to be set – “no, I will not tolerate that!” It is often a cover for a deeper emotion, usually fear. Anger tries to keep us safe by holding up a caution sign. It also gives us the energy to be able to take appropriate action.
Anger can be positive when understood for the warning signal that it is and utilized to prevent harm to ourselves or another. It is a powerful energy that, when used with mindfulness by expressing our feelings or taking care of ourselves, can create a greater sense of safety, authenticity, and security in our relationships and lives.
As evolving human beings, we can learn to listen to the messages in our emotions – including anger – and consciously respond to them, rather than react. Then, anger can become healing and transformative, rather than an unwanted, “negative” emotion.
For more on healthy expression of anger and its spiritual implications, listen to my radio show “Spiritual Anger!”
by Connie Habash | Apr 7, 2013 | Action, Choices, Courage, Empowerment, Fear, Illusion, Right Action, Tolerance, Transformation, Trust
facing down fear
Everyone deals with difficulties in life. Sooner or later, something scares us. It may be the aging process, a snake, the fear of rejection, or a dwindling bank account.
Gone are the days when we have to worry about lions chasing us (unless, of course, you live in Kenya). Fear has become more subtle. In the words of Kristin Neff, PhD, author of Self-Compassion, now our fears arise not just from dark alleys or sounds that go bump in the night, but from “threats to our self-concept” – the idea of who we think we are. Yet, they end up causing similar levels of stress in the body as that lion chasing us. The fear that runs us, day in and day out, is the fear that we’re unlovable, of being bad, wrong, or a failure.
React or Respond
When we are faced with fear, we have two possible choices: react or respond. When we react, we allow fear to run us, to control our emotions, our actions, our words. But when we respond, we transform a moment of fear into a moment of empowerment.
What is a fear reaction? When we are exposed to a traumatic situation, there are three reactions that occur: fight, flight, and freeze (see Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine). The kind of fear I’m referring to, however, isn’t life or death situations, although learning how to respond rather than react in those is very helpful. In our day-to-day lives, it is the little fears – the perceived threats to our self-concept – that disempower us and cause us to react.
It is in these little fears that we have the opportunity to change our lives. And we see three similar reactions to those little fears: fight, flight, and freeze.
Fight
When we fight the fear, we attack as if it were a danger to us. This makes sense if it’s a lion after us, but most of the time our fears are subtle. We fear ridicule, failure, rejection, and when it’s that kind of fear, we often react by attacking ourselves. And if we’re not attacking ourselves, we’re attacking our partners, friends, or a stranger for things that often are imaginary affronts. In either case, we only defeat ourselves.
Flight
When we flee a fear, we do everything we can to run away and avoid it. This leaves us powerless in the face of anything that frightens us. It also can severely limit our freedom, for when we define our life by what we must avoid, it cuts off our choices.
I once knew an actor who had a reasonably successful career but had to turn down many of the best roles that came his way because he was afraid to fly to other locations. This fear not only limited his leisure time but his opportunities and prosperity.
Freeze
When we freeze in the face of a fear, we become immobilized, feeling like we can’t take any action one way or the other. We may not even realize we’re afraid, but we become indecisive, unable to discern which way to go or what to do. We can lose relationships by our uncertainty about commitment or promotions by clinging to what is familiar and being unwilling to make any move.
The other path – respond
Fear reactions may be all too familiar to us, but how do we respond instead of react? This is actually two questions in one. First, we wonder how to gain the capacity to respond, how to develop those inner muscles to overcome the reaction. The question also begs what way do we respond, for there are choices of response, too.
We actually don’t have to worry about gaining the capacity to respond. We all have the capacity to respond, to overcome fear or any other negative reaction. It is part of the inner equipment we come with as human beings.
The problem is that we rarely use it. Sometimes we use that capacity so little we don’t even think we have it, or have no idea how to use if it we did. But it’s there.
Some discover it in a crisis situation, where we spontaneously jump into action and help someone pinned under a car or caught in a house on fire. Occasionally, mothers discover it during child birth, and still others become aware of this innate ability to override a fear reaction when we know it is important not to show it to our children lest they become scared. We become brave for their benefit.
Lifting the heavy weights
Like any other capacity, learning to respond rather than react requires practice to develop it. It’s like a muscle – we have biceps, but do we really use them? How strong are they? If you aren’t lifting some sort of weight, whether at the gym or carrying logs to the wood pile, they won’t get very strong.
So in order to become good at responding to fear rather than reacting, we must be willing to lift the heavy weights: to face our fears, investigate them, and find alternatives to reacting. Life gives us plenty of opportunities to practice.
Responsibility
Responding to fear rather than reacting means we have a choice about the way we behave. When we react, we are unconscious, like a knee-jerk reaction. We may feel we are conscious about it because we can actually observe ourselves in the process of it. We watch as we become speechless in front of a group. We are fully present to the fact that we have just consumed an entire box of cookies, because we can’t stand feeling alone. But these are unconscious reactions nevertheless.
Responding means we choose an action that is more helpful to ourselves and the situation, regardless of how uncomfortable it is. We take responsibility for our life and the situation, and therefore we affect how it affects us. Responsibility means the ability to respond.
Three choices
What paths are there to take when we want to develop our responsibility in the face of fear, our ability to respond? There are three main responses (and possibly more) to fear that can truly transform your experience of the fearful situation: tolerance, courage, and fearlessness.
Tolerance
Tolerance is the ability to withstand something. We learn to accept what is when we are tolerant. Tolerance is a word used regarding cross-cultural relationships – to become fair towards and accepting of cultures and customs that are different than our own. It is also used to describe a person’s physical capacity to endure a substance such as alcohol or pain killers. A person with high tolerance can drink a lot of booze before showing signs of intoxication.
But tolerance also is defined as “the capacity to endure pain or hardship.” Rather than react, we can learn to endure what is. My eight year old daughter is learning this concept the hard way right now – with a flu bug and pink eye, she’s pretty uncomfortable and unhappy about it. But as we mature, we learn to accept that sometimes we get sick, it will pass, and we can tolerate it.
It’s the same with fears. They arise, they feel scary, but most of the time we can be with that fear and know it will pass. We can learn to tolerate the situation rather than run from it, and each time it gets a little better. This is one aspect of a traditional therapy for phobias, known as systematic desensitization. The patient is exposed to the fear-inducing situation a little bit at a time, and they slowly become desensitized – more tolerant – towards the phobia, until it no longer runs their life (or at least no longer severely limits them).
Courage
The second response to engage when faced with fear is courage. Courage is distinctively different from fearlessness. It is the act of being afraid and going ahead with the right action anyway.
We become courageous when we walk through the park instead of buying more stuff to feel better; when we take a deep breath instead of screaming at our child or partner; when we raise our hand and speak up at a meeting even though we are terrified of being judged; when we sit still in meditation even though something screams for us to fidget just once more. We do the right thing even though it’s uncomfortable or downright frightening.
As Lao Tzu, author of the ancient text, The Tao Te Ching, said, “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” One of the most powerful ways to build courage is to love, whether or not someone loves you. To love in the face of rejection or not getting what you want. To love when you don’t feel like it, or even when you think someone doesn’t deserve it. That includes loving yourself. When we love without limitations or conditions, we recognize that there isn’t anything anyone can say or do that will hurt our sense of self. Love is its own reward, and love overcomes fear.
Fearlessness
Which leads me to the third response you can choose in the face of fear – fearlessness. To be truly free of fear is to be full of love. Obviously, this is not a beginner’s practice, and it’s not for the faint-hearted. In fact, this isn’t something you can make happen, but something that results from many years of spiritual practice – of lifting the heavy weights.
The greatest spiritual adepts, such as Jesus or Mahatma Gandhi, were masters of this kind of love, and it gave them the greatest inner strength there is. They could face down the most threatening, frightening, and painful of situations and meet them with grace and power.
We become without fear when we completely trust in something greater. In yoga philosophy, this practice is called Ishvara Pranidhana – surrender to the Divine. This is a powerful practice. It is letting go of our attempts to control what we fear and the acknowledgement that something beyond us, the Source of the cosmos and all life, is much better at running the show.
Overcoming Avidya
More importantly than that, we become fearless when we overcome Avidya – ignorance of our True Nature. When we realize that our true Self (not our limited self of the body, mind, or personality) is Divine and eternal, that has no beginning nor end, and is unchanging, not subject to conditions or experiences, then what is there to fear?
This is not something we can simply intellectually grasp, for if we could, most of us would be there. This is something that, in order to truly become fearless, we must become. This is enlightenment.
The next time you are faced with a fear, which path will you take? Will you notice your reaction? Will you consider how you could respond? Let yourself become more tolerant of the discomfort, while developing the courage to take right action even while feeling the fear. Practice connecting in your heart to the source of love and feel love and compassion for yourself and the other. As you walk down this path, you will someday know that your true Self cannot be touched by anything that you fear.
Copyright © 2013 by Rev. Connie L. Habash
by Connie Habash | Mar 16, 2013 | Action, Birth, Manifestation, Movement, Play, Rebirth, Spring, Transformation, Uncategorized
As winter comes to an end, I find that I’m a bit antsy. I’ve been sitting with what is all winter, and now the time to sit has come to an end. Spring calls us to come out of our wintering nests and get on the move!
If you’ve been working with the winter energies of listening to the stillness, seeking your inner wisdom, and letting things gestate, then reflect on what you’ve discovered from that process. Notice what is taking shape, uncovered beneath the melting snows of inner reflection. Are some ideas knocking at your door, longing for you to get them started? Is a project that you shelved over the holidays now ready to be completed? Are friends beckoning you to come out of your rabbit hole again and play?
Spring is all about birth, allowing the new and fresh to become manifest. Feel your body. Listen to its impulses. How does it want to move? Where does it want to go? Follow your body’s lead, for its wisdom will take you in the directions of growth and transformation right now, in alignment with the energies of spring. Led your body and your Divine Self spring forth!
What have you got to lose?
The definition of fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” I find this definition very helpful because it distinguishes actual threat (which would be true danger of harm) from the belief that something could be dangerous. Anxiety is essentially a repetitive state of fear, a state of awareness focused on what could be fearful. We perpetuate the belief that something could be dangerous, and that arouses a state of anxiety.
In this current crisis of George Floyd’s wrongful death and the re-igniting of the Black Lives Matter movement, we’re seeing the polarity of 
My family and I were determined to get outdoors to enjoy the lovely weather the last few days, and headed to Huddart Park for a hike on Sunday. We adore this nearby natural gem, filled with redwoods, bay laurels, and tan oaks, and a beautiful (and quite full after the rains!) creek running through it.
February – a month that, stereotypically, we turn towards greeting cards with red and pink hearts, roses, chocolates, and are inundated with commercials about diamond jewelry. Valentine’s Day is around the corner, and whether it’s something you relish or are repulsed by, it’s here in our western culture.
I like to walk on the treadmill at the gym, since I don’t have a nice hilly area right out the door to walk. When I say “like”, however, that may not be the most accurate description.
I’m tired of everyone telling me to think bigger. “You need to play on a bigger field! You’re capable of so much more!” Does that message ever exasperate you?
It’s quite common in spiritual circles to put down anger. Anger is bad, they say. Or anger is unenlightened. We must transcend our anger. We must think loving, good thoughts, and put all that anger out of our mind.
As winter comes to an end, I find that I’m a bit antsy. I’ve been sitting with what is all winter, and now the time to sit has come to an end. Spring calls us to come out of our wintering nests and get on the move!
