Shift Out of Fear - Design A New Life

Excerpt from Opening A Window To The Soul: A Guide to Living Beyond the Human Drama, a compilation of Spirit guided responses to commonly asked questions. To be able to choose your emotions, to override your ingrained, self-protective impulses using your conscious mind, loving heart and free will, is one of the greatest challenges here on Earth. What is stronger, love or fear? It is more an issue of which vibration is stronger in your being. Fear may feel more intense, and it may be easier to fall into fear than to feel love, but that is only because your experiences have trained you to pay more attention to fear than to love. To focus on fear is a human way of being because people learn best through pain. For survival, you need to remember what has been dangerous in the past, emotionally as well as physically. So, you pay attention to situations that trigger your fears more than to things that bring enjoyment and pleasure. But, your sensitivity to fear and pain is only helpful when it warns you of real danger, not when it shows up as anger, worry, criticism, impatience or withdrawal. You are, at any given moment, influenced by a blend of frequencies transmitted through your being. New vibrations are mixed with frequencies already relayed within the system, setting off reactions like a ball in a pinball machine. The essence of an old trauma bouncing back and forth through your being reactivates and amplifies the old wounds and reactions until the volume of pain drowns out the broadcast of loving experiences in present time. With awareness, you can learn to turn down your emotional memory that shouts, “old pain,” and instead crank up the message of the heart to the conscious mind, “receiving love now.” If you are struggling between love and fear, ask yourself, “What’s really happening in present time? Which message do I listen to?” Whatever you feed, love or fear, will grow. Does our thinking affect our emotions, or do our emotions influence our thoughts? The mind and emotions are integrally blended. When you think it, you feel it. If you feel something, you will believe it to be true. Thought is the energy that wires and designs a person’s experience. Emotion is the way our perceptions and beliefs are reinforced. Two people can experience the same thing, like being in a minor car crash, and have very unique emotional responses. One feels totally victimized and angry, based on an assumption formed in their past (lots of sibling conflicts) that the driver of the other car did something to them. Though momentarily shaken, the other person feels conce for the other driver, used to thinking of others (caring for an ailing parent when growing up). Their individual ingrained thought patterns cause them to have very different feelings in a single event. And, because of these different feelings, they will each have a different belief about what has just happened. The mind is powerful. Viewing a situation through the filter of a previous painful experience can trick you into the false belief of danger now. Your thoughts send a warning message of “Danger!” with the intensity of a fire alarm through out your whole being. The resounding feeling of “fear!” can be stronger than the awareness of the conscious mind that, in fact, you are safe this time. Your heart feels emotional distress. Your body responds with the release of adrenaline and an impulse to run. Like a freight train accelerating down a hill, the momentum of your emotional response reinforces a belief that you are not safe. “Am I running because I am scared? Or am I scared because I am running?” Are you saying that I have control over how I am feeling? Part of your soul experience in a physical body is learning how to affect changes. The combination of your analytical conscious mind and your inspirational super-conscious mind brings about ideas for improving your Earth experience. You do have the ability to evaluate and transform how you feel and respond in any situation. You are a creative being. How do I change what I think and feel? At any given point, you are operating with a blending of subconscious, conscious and super-conscious brain functioning as well as with aspects of the emotions, ego, and physical body. Awareness of what you are receiving, interpreting, and responding to gives you control over how you perceive and respond. For example, when in a state of confusion and emotional pain, you try to understand what is happening using your rational conscious mind, but nothing makes sense. Your present situation doesn’t explain why you feel so intensely, so perhaps your system is responding to an old trauma. “Is this triggering something from the past?” You can delve into the truth hidden away in the subconscious by asking, “What am I really afraid of? Where does that come from?” Look beyond yourself in the moment to access the soul truth of the matter. Perhaps you are dealing with someone whose disturbing behavior has nothing to do with you – to see the challenge they are facing helps you have compassion and not take in their emotions. Perhaps you can tap into the story of a past life to understand that your instincts and emotions are reacting to a perception of danger rather than a real problem – getting clues as to the source of trauma allows the fear to dissipate. Perhaps you can receive an insight about how to see it all differently. Ask your higher self, “What am I supposed to be learning here?” To reveal the subconscious (what was) as compared to the conscious (what is), and then turn to the super-conscious (what could be), is to become open to inspiration and creativity. Change is born from the ability to wonder – a unique human quality. To shift the old patterns, you need to see the possibility of a new way beyond your present circumstance, beyond the limitations of your human frame of reference, and for that you need imagination. I’ve tried positive affirmations, but they don’t always work. How can I pretend everything is okay when it’s not? Positive affirmations are effective to override the noise in your head. But without addressing underlying issues, simply imposing your will on your feelings, you are missing important steps and slipping into denial. You can’t convince yourself of something that you don’t really believe while everything in your being resonates with the opposite message. With the Power of Pretend, the first step is awareness, the second is imagination, and the third is revised action. You use the conscious mind (observation and attention to truth) in partnership with the super-conscious mind (imagining how it could be different), to avoid dwelling in the subconscious mind (the same old feelings and reinforcement of the pattern). With a new idea to put into practice, the Power of Pretend calls you to act and feel “as if,” while you move forward with thoughts and actions that are in alignment with that new idea. As you also make practical, tangible changes, you rewire the feelings and beliefs that you hold in your being. As those underlying thoughts and emotions are transformed, you are no longer “pretending” because things have really become different. As a demonstration, let’s suppose that you desire a new job to give you more work satisfaction and a better source of income. The first step is to really look at why you are in the less than desirable situation you are currently in, to evaluate your beliefs about self-worth and deserving, as well as to understand if there are unresolved issues in how you relate to others. If you are honest with yourself, you will be less inclined to recreate the same problems. The second step is to imagine what a new and better job would look like for you. Not with specific details, but by focusing on the qualities that a different situation would bring. Imagine a work situation where you are getting to do what you are really good at, with people appreciating your contributions. Imagine showing up and feeling glad to be there, being welcomed by people who are also happy with their work. Imagine receiving a paycheck that is the physical demonstration of your worth and feeling valued. Pretend that this is what you are about to step into, with confidence that such a position exists. As you hold these focused intentions and assume the feelings of having such a job, make the new connections, put out your revised resume, and do what needs to be done to let the world know you are ready to step into your new job. You have the power to design a new life for yourself. Forget limiting yourself. Forget being reasonable. Forget being realistic. It is time to use your imagination and pretend that you get to have a better life now, because you do.