I’ve blogged once a week for approximately five years. That’s . . . a lot of blogposts. I realize some of you have been reading “Another World is Probable” from the beginning, but quite a few of you haven’t. There are some gems in my archives that I want to highlight and even if you’ve read it before, I figure we can all use a reminder every now and again. I know I could. So, here in its entirety is a post from April 2010:
I used to believe I had to “conquer” my fears. I used to be of the mindset I had to squash doubt flat, or wrestle with my other issues until I won. That I had to assert my will and come out the victor. I realized a while ago that’s not the case at all.
In January I wrote a journal entry I’ve been meaning to share but haven’t yet:
Jan. 27, 2010
I realized tonight this fear is not mine, it doesn’t belong to me. I’ve been trying to take ownership of it. To claim it. To bust through it. To work around it. But it’s like a blind man getting caught tangled in a cloak. I’ve been trying to chew holes in it and rip it apart, but ultimately can’t get rid of it until I just take it off, recognizing it doesn’t belong to me. Because it doesn’t. There’s no use in trying to work with or tame fear – it can’t be tamed. Only released. It was never mine to begin with. It always belonged to God so I give it back to its rightful owner, where God can transmute it into love. That was never my responsibility. My only job was to let it go, to surrender.
I don’t know why this picture makes me think “transcendence” but it does.
While that particular journal entry was about fear I think it can apply to anything and everything. I don’t ever really “work through” my issues so much as release them. Some people would say to me, “Yes, but Rebekah, the only way to get rid of a fear like public speaking is to just go out and do it. Take a class and practice.” I would say let’s take a look at what’s really going on. What happens when we practice something like public speaking? We decide it’s not as scary as we thought. Because we’re doing what scares us, we realize it’s not so bad. We release the fear in our mind. So again, the point of power, the point of change, is in the mind, not the action.
Whenever I talk about surrender and release someone invariably says to me, “Yes but you still have to do stuff. You can’t just sit around.” Sometimes I think we confuse surrender and avoidance. Avoidance is fear-based. When I avoid something it’s because I’m afraid, I don’t want to do it, whatever. If I were to say, “I surrender my fear of public speaking,” and then refuse to speak in public whenever I’m given the opportunity, that’s not really surrendering the fear, is it? That’s avoidance.
Surrender means to release, to let go, to no longer fight. When I surrender fear and doubt I release them to love. I give them to infinite love. I no longer wrestle with them using my ego, or the willful part of me. The part of me that thinks I handle everything by myself, the part of me that thinks I am separate from everyone and everything else. Essentially the part of me that disconnects from all-pervasive love.
When I surrender, when I release, when I let go, I transcend all those issues. I transcend my little “I” and my little “I” issues and instead remember all is love. Instead I remember I am love incarnate.
I dream of a world where instead of “working” on our issues we just let them go. A world where we remember we are divine, magnificent beings, and our true nature is love. A world where we see ourselves for who we really are – embodiments of love. A world where we transcend all that is unlike love and live in a place of peace and harmony.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
It’s funny how often the same issues crop up. Except not really because as I’ve written about before, they continue to crop up until we’ve mastered them. I’m mastering how to let something in and then let it go!
Ever since I wrote that post last week about realizing my higher power loves me unconditionally and nothing in my life is a punishment, I’ve been sick. (I’m completely unsurprised because when I have a big breakthrough on the mental plane it carries over to the physical plane.) What happens to me when I’m sick is the trifecta of ego-centered feelings kick in: fear, doubt and worry. There’s something about being sick that brings out my irrational side. What I tried to do is say to myself, “It’s ok Rebekah, you’re sick, you’re irrational, you know this isn’t the truth, you’ll feel better in the morning.” Except that didn’t help. In the moment I still felt what I was feeling.
Since logic didn’t work, then I tried to fight fear, doubt and worry. I tried saying affirmations, doing EFT, talking to people. That didn’t really work other because like those whac-a-moles, fear, doubt and worry just kept cropping up! Every time I tried to subjugate fear, doubt and worry, they just came up somewhere else. Like when I was washing dishes.
So logic wasn’t helpful. EFT and affirmations didn’t work. Time to use my tried and true method of pretending! Pretending fear, doubt and worry didn’t exist. Pretending everything was ok. Pretending this was all a byproduct of illness.
Except that didn’t work either.
Pretending (also called avoidance) only allows fear, doubt and worry to fester. You don’t treat an infection by pretending you don’t have it. You have to expose it! So of course, pretending and avoiding I felt something other than what I did only created more strife within me. I think about an article I wrote a million years ago as a journalism student. I interviewed a bunch of women on life after rape and one of them spoke specifically about avoidance. She said you can keep shoving those feelings down like stuffing books in a backpack, but eventually one day the backpack is going to get too heavy and it’s going to break. Yeah.
So what do you do with those feelings? You invite them in for tea and crumpets. More than a month ago I wrote about my pinched nerve and sitting with that physical pain. Because sometimes all you can do is let the pain pass. I realize the same is true with fear, doubt and worry. Instead of resisting either actively or by pretending I don’t feel them, I’m letting them in. “Come in! Come in! Have some tea!” because only then can I release them. How can you release a bird if it’s not in your possession first? You can’t. I can’t let go of fear, doubt and worry until I let them in. And when I let them in I can release them and transcend them and turn them over with love.
I dream of a world where we all understand our feelings cannot harm us. A world where we let in all the things we feel so we can let them go. A world where we remain unattached to all feelings and instead let ourselves be. A world where we turn over control and instead experience each moment fully. A world where we let everything in to then let it go.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I used to believe I had to “conquer” my fears. I used to be of the mindset I had to squash doubt flat, or wrestle with my other issues until I won. That I had to assert my will and come out the victor. I realized a while ago that’s not the case at all.
In January I wrote a journal entry I’ve been meaning to share but haven’t yet:
Jan. 27, 2010
I realized tonight this fear is not mine, it doesn’t belong to me. I’ve been trying to take ownership of it. To claim it. To bust through it. To work around it. But it’s like a blind man getting caught tangled in a cloak. I’ve been trying to chew holes in it and rip it apart, but ultimately can’t get rid of it until I just take it off, recognizing it doesn’t belong to me. Because it doesn’t. There’s no use in trying to work with or tame fear – it can’t be tamed. Only released. It was never mine to begin with. It always belonged to God so I give it back to its rightful owner, where God can transmute it into love. That was never my responsibility. My only job was to let it go, to surrender.
While that particular journal entry was about fear I think it can apply to anything and everything. I don’t ever really “work through” my issues so much as release them. Some people would say to me, “Yes, but Rebekah, the only way to get rid of a fear like public speaking is to just go out and do it. Take a class and practice.” I would say let’s take a look at what’s really going on. What happens when we practice something like public speaking? We decide it’s not as scary as we thought. Because we’re doing what scares us, we realize it’s not so bad. We release the fear in our mind. So again, the point of power, the point of change, is in the mind, not the action.
Whenever I talk about surrender and release someone invariably says to me, “Yes but you still have to do stuff. You can’t just sit around.” Sometimes I think we confuse surrender and avoidance. Avoidance is fear-based. When I avoid something it’s because I’m afraid, I don’t want to do it, whatever. If I were to say, “I surrender my fear of public speaking,” and then refuse to speak in public whenever I’m given the opportunity, that’s not really surrendering the fear, is it? That’s avoidance.
Surrender means to release, to let go, to no longer fight. When I surrender fear and doubt I release them to love. I give them to infinite love. I no longer wrestle with them using my ego, or the willful part of me. The part of me that thinks I handle everything by myself, the part of me that thinks I am separate from everyone and everything else. Essentially the part of me that disconnects from all-pervasive love.
When I surrender, when I release, when I let go, I transcend all those issues. I transcend my little “I” and my little “I” issues and instead remember all is love. Instead I remember I am love incarnate.
I dream of a world where instead of “working” on our issues we just let them go. A world where we remember we are divine, magnificent beings and our true nature is love. A world where we see ourselves for who we really are – embodiments of love. A world where we transcend all that is unlike love and live in a place of peace and harmony.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.