As I often do, I was in the process of reading some good-news posts and emails and ran across one that had information in it I want to share with you.  Over the years, I have noticed that my relationship with fear has been a source of moments of deep anxiety, discomfort and distress.  As I have learned to have a different relationship with fear, my quality of life has improved and I spend much less time dancing with anxiety.

One of the things that gives fear such a central place in many of our lives is that we tend to believe what our fears tell us. We listen to these fears, which then generate more fearful thoughts and, eventually, we move into ever-mounting overwhelm. Within the midst of this, we forget that it's our own thoughts and images creating the very fears we fear!

In this link is a post that describes stopping ourselves from following thoughts about fear, reactions about fear, stories about fear, and the benefits of catching ourselves and coming back to a more neutral stance.  I’m posting it here because there is a need for most of us to transform our relationship with fear.  Finding reminders of how to do this is a powerful resource in a journey that, for me, is all about settling into a capacity to observe experience from a more neutral and compassionate point of view.  Here’s the link to click. 

Many years ago, I had an experience in which I heard the words, “Everything will be all right.”  As simple and obvious as these words may seem, they had never been an automatic part of my life.  The people around me as I grew up tended to be anxious themselves and there wasn’t a lot of the kind of reassurance that a young child needs as she or he gets to know the big world that awaits.  For me, these words, “Everything will be all right,” became a constant mantra that I carried with me, available for those moments when fear began to tickle the edges of my awareness. At those moments, I still do my best to stop myself from following, or expanding on, the fearful narrative that moves through my mind and, instead, tell myself that everything will be okay, that in this present moment, I’m fine.  Many times, it has been these words that have drawn me back from the edge of the cliff of anxiety and helped me to settle back into the present moment with greater equanimity.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to visit the link posted above and also to find your own “mantra”, your own reassuring statement, that helps you step back from fearful thoughts that emerge in your awareness.  Remember, as always, to also back off from any judgments you may have about your relationship with fear.  Fear is a familiar companion for everyone and this experiment offers an additional opportunity to explore your particular relationship with fear and insert a response that can help to stop the anxiety spiral that fear can cause.

Also, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion.  You can use these experiments to explore and enhance your ongoing state of being and the quality of your internal and external experiences.  And, without question, this is a life-long, process for most of us, where we engage countless opportunities to enhance our quality of life, and reinforce the realization that we are responsible for how we move through experiences.  As I’ve said so many times, while we can’t control what life brings our way, we can at least play a role in how we meet these experiences.