Week Eighty-Seven: Moving Beyond Fear

In these times of uncertainty, it’s all too easy to become caught up in the numerous media reports of the next predicted disaster or danger. We are being pummeled, in a very real sense, by imagined scenarios of catastrophes that don’t actually happen. The more the media has intensified its speculations about what may or may not occur, the more upset people become. As I’ve listened to the fears of people I’ve run into along the way, and worked with my own responses, I’ve taken a couple of steps to minimize the degree to which I resonate with the collective fear that builds during these times.

The first thing I have done is to limit the amount of news I take in each day. While not actually on a “news fast”, as recommended by Andrew Weil, the holistic doctor, I have given myself time off from keeping on top of what’s happening with the news. I’ll listen a bit each day to National Public Radio, but I find that’s about it for me at this point. Then, if I begin to be concerned about reports of potential attacks or other kinds of disasters, I make a deliberate choice to resonate with thoughts and images of things that are inspiring in my life and in the world. To do this, I remind myself of things that are going right in my world, or I take a few minutes to read something inspiring, or I listen to music that soothes me and reminds me of the potential for beauty and creativity inherent in human beings.

As I thought about writing this experiment, I recalled something I’ve mentioned here before, which was the idea Gandhi expressed: Be that which you seek to find in your world. If you want to resonate with something other than fear, notice what happens if you pay attention to the present moment and whatever is going well in this moment, right here, right now. By shifting your attention away from a feared future, and by focusing on whatever feels okay in the present moment – or whatever inspires you, your frequency shifts. Rather than resonating with escalating fear, you now resonate with a more comfortable state of body-mind being.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to practice shifting from fear to inspiration, or from fear to what’s going right in your life, each time you become aware of getting caught up in media reports about predictions of what might happen next. As you work with the experiment, notice what shifts in your body as you move from fearful thoughts to those that are more comforting or inspiring. Also notice what changes in the tone and quality of your thoughts and emotions emerge as you do this. There may be times it feels impossible to shift from fear. When you bump up against one of these moments, ask yourself if there’s something in your immediate environment that soothes you when you look at it. Then, take a moment – even if it’s a small moment – to rest your awareness on that thing and notice what happens.

I know I’ve written before in these experiments about the fields of information we all share at levels outside our conscious awareness. With this idea in mind, we might do a collective experiment, as well as our individual work. If all of us allowed ourselves to move away from fear and into whatever comfort we can discover in the present moment, our collective fear might also lessen. It’s worth a try, so I invite you to participate in your own way by choosing to shift to something inspiring or comforting when you come up against the fear that pervades so many people’s lives these days.

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