A Counseling Blog: Helping You Help Yourself 

July 31, 2009, 1:47pm

Transformation: What You Choose to Believe In Action

I watched a show on TV last night about people with supposed "super human" abilities. It had a segment about a person called the ice man, Wim Hof. He has developed the ability to change his bodies response to extremely cold temperatures, withstanding the type of cold that would normally kill or seriously injure the rest of us.

The body is wired to believe that it must protect itself from extremely cold temperatures, that they are a threat to the body. "A normal response might include intense pain, cardiovascular stress and mounting hysteria". In the TV show, as ice was poured around Wim, it was said that his heart rate should have instantly jumped up as the body sought to protect itself.

Yet Wim is not only capable of controlling his heart rate to the point where the heart monitors could not detect ANY change in his heart rate as he first sat in a bathtub with ice up to his chin, as if nothing was happening to him, his core temperature barely changed the whole time. He does what doctors consider to be impossible to do.  

What I found particularly fascinating is that he was able to change his body's automatic response system to severe cold. This automatic response system to keeping the body safe from potential danger is very similar to if not the same as the fight or flight response that keeps us safe from potential physical danger. 

Wim's ability is indicative of just how much power we have available in our minds to control and overcome fear (apprehension about a possible or probable situation or event). The more we believe in our fears and focus on them, reinforcing the subconscious notion that we are somehow unsafe,  the more that fear can overcome us.  Yet we can change our automatic emotional reactions by simply choosing to do so and then practicing the new behavior slowly over time to recondition and rewire the brain.

This fight or flight  response is intended to keep our bodies safe. Yet our minds have over time mistakenly interpreted emotional situations to be threatening to the body. The wires have been crossed and this new unnecessary  programming is being reinforced by societies acceptance of it. 

The fight or flight response does NOT have to be part of your daily experience. It is far easier to overcome than what Wim is doing. It does however take increased self awareness. It takes being willing to work on yourself and letting go of the belief that feeling hurt is outside your control.

Just like Wim chooses not to feel hurt by the cold, you can choose not to be hurt emotionally. He regulates his core temperature, you can regulate the meaning that you give to what you hear and see. He uses the power of his mind to focus on being safe; you can use the power of your mind to focus on being safe emotionally.

The world is our oyster! (Now who the heck thought that one up!!)

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July 30, 2009, 12:55pm

Determination: A Puzzle to Be Solved With Trial and Error

I am so thrilled that I was finally able to find a way to stop the automatic spammers from submitting comments. I had tried so many different things, including just deleting them as they came in, but it got to the point where I was getting 30-50 a day. Far too many to have to delete manually.

So I went on the internet again to try to find yet another simple solution. Since I do all my own work on this website, I only have so much knowledge. But even with all the information available on the internet, I could only find complicated solutions. But in my research, I did find out that the main purpose of spamming is to get additional exposure for websites so that they appear to be more important and rank higher in search engines by appearing so many times in so many places (read ...as spam on other peoples blogs and such).

Some of the solutions involved adding programming to a website that would recognize the http:// that precedes each website address. A programmer I am not! I use FrontPage, which has most of the coding built-in. To be able to catch the string of characters and make my site delete spammers comments but not real peoples comments is beyond me and not important enough to spend weeks learning!

So instead I took these new pieces of information and went back to the basics of how the comment submissions are handled. I knew how that process happened fairly well, but nothing came immediately to mind. So I started to just explore all the different options that the comment form had built into it.

Lo and behold I saw a possibility that could work! If I only allowed characters and digits to be submitted in the comment form, then the spam submissions would get an error message and would be thwarted! Of course if somebody does want to mention a website for a reason relevant to the discussion, I can manually add that for them.

Since I "stumbled" onto this very basic solution, voila, no spam! So I can now allow readers to submit comments directly to the blog. The reason why I write about this is because I could have given up anywhere along the way. I spent hours researching and looking up how to stop spam on quite a few different occasions and reached many dead ends or solutions that just didn't feel right.

In this process I gathered up little bits and pieces of information that eventually led me not only to find my own solution, but a far simpler one than everyone else was talking about. I didn't do it all it one in one day. It took a few weeks of trying different things, varying my approach, thinking of the problem from different angles before a solution was found. When I got frustrated I would stop, not because I was giving up, but because I knew I need to give my mind a break and a rest and give it time to contemplate the information it had gathered.

A typical life experience. There are no problems, there are only solutions waiting to be found!

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July 27, 2009, 11:32 am

Explanation: Change = Awareness - Old Beliefs + New Choices

What do I talk about when I don't think I have anything to talk about for my blog? Let's see where my mind will take me! My personal theme for the blog is to always provide useful information that people can apply to themselves to help them grow, much like in my Ezines. 

I remember the earlier stages of my own personal growth where I would read or hear something new, but did not know how to apply what I was reading or hearing to my own personal experience. I would eagerly take in new information, but other than getting a new idea in my head, I rarely experienced a significant shift in my daily life. I felt like there was a big chasm between the knowledge and how to actually make it a part of me.

There is a vast amount of information out there that we can readily take in. There are so many ways in which similar points are expressed that there really is something for everyone. That is the great part. But unless you can apply it to your day to day experiences, just how useful is that information to you? You are not a library; you are a human being who has free will and the ability to make different choices. It is those different choices that will make a difference for you.

The main purpose in what I do is to teach you how to stop experiencing angst (a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity), to shortcut the growth process so that you do not have to reinvent the wheel. After you get to a certain point in your growth, you start to rely more on yourself and your innate wisdom to continue to change, but we all need help when we start our personal journeys.

The reason why we need this help initially is because our minds are so cluttered with beliefs that hurt us more than they help us. Yet the nature of these beliefs is such that we are largely unaware of their influence on us. To the average person reading this, I even wonder what this actually means to them?

From the people that I have helped, the most consistent results come from being willing to let go of old beliefs and replacing them with different ones. That is it in a nutshell. That is all that you have to do change your beliefs, which means that you eventually change the meaning of many thoughts and ideas that you previously took for granted.

Knowing how your current beliefs influence your thoughts, feelings, behaviors and choices is pretty much the definition of self awareness. The journey of increasing self awareness is never judgmental. It is only the process of observing yourself. Through that clear observation you see what it is that you want to change.

Just knowing what you want to change is not enough. Once you CLEARLY see what you want to change you can develop strategies to change it. What do I mean by clearly? I mean that you look for and find the belief underneath what it is that you want to change. Why do you have that belief to begin with, where did it come from, what fear am I not aware of that is fueling that belief? 

When you make the shift from a belief being subconscious to it being in your awareness, then you are seeing it clearly. Yet the nature of being unaware is tricky. If you are not aware of something, how the heck do you even know that you need to change something, never mind know how to change it, or what you want to change it to? Can you see how easy it is to get stuck? That is why the world has counselors! :)

Some clues that you can look for to help you see where you are lacking awareness are: are you blaming somebody or something else for your experience? Are you unhappy, frustrated, feeling a lack of contentment? Then there is something going on in your subconscious mind that needs to be brought into your awareness and changed.

When you take action and make that change within yourself is when you will actually be able to create different results. Without the component of action, change is not possible. All the wishing in the world, all the best intentions, all the prayer in the world will not make a difference if YOU do not make that choice to choose a different thought, belief, or behavior. 

Your experience in and of the world really is in your own hands. If you get even the smallest little taste of this kind of growth it becomes like a drug. You will get hooked and you just will not be able to get enough. Join me on this path ... it is an incredible journey!

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July 23, 2009, 3:16 pm

Self Examination: I Can Learn From My Own Behaviors

I had an interesting incident happen yesterday that had a great lesson. Details are not necessary other than a basic description. It is a incident that occurred when another driver made a decision that affected me that I did not agree with. In fact, my mind argued, I know the rules of the road inside and out and what they did endangered me and would be ticketed if observed by a cop.

I had my righteous argument. I was angry and frustrated at their action. I really wanted an opportunity to pass them and stop in front of them to confront them. Of course that was an unreasonable reaction and would have perpetuated exactly that attitude which I was so affronted by. Interesting automatic reaction.

Lo and behold this vehicle pulls off into a gas station. How many time have I been told NEVER take the risk of confronting somebody as they may have a gun. Gun be damned, I pulled in behind them. I was tired of being afraid. Besides, didn't I know how to handle this, being armed with so much "knowledge"?

Off I stomped to politely ask the driver why he did what he did. Again the details are unimportant. He told me why he chose his behavior, based on what he had perceived as me doing wrong, justifying his choice, and I told what he had done wrong in choosing his behavior, based on what I perceived him as doing wrong.

No nasty words were exchanged, just a lot of frustration on both parts and nothing was resolved. I walked away more frustrated and angry than before because he wouldn't agree with me! Many deep breaths and much thinking later, I took apart the situation going backwards in the events as they unfolded.

I obviously had been in fight or flight (FOF). Increased heart rate, tunnel vision ... tunnel understanding! I needed to keep working backwards. What had I assumed that had caused me to apply the meaning that I had been somehow attacked or affronted? How did that assumption cause me to not feel safe and go into FOF?

This was a tough one. I had to think for a while and look at many different angles before my mind would allow me to see the truth of what happened. It wanted so desperately to be right(eous). 

¹right - adj. - acting or judging in accordance with truth or fact

¹righteous - adj. - arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality

This is what I concluded. In the beginning, while in the car, I had had multiple choices. Sometimes circumstances are entirely out of our control, but how we deal with events will always show us where we are subconsciously letting ourselves be out of control. 

However, I knew that from the beginning I could have made a different choice that would have avoided this situation. I had chosen not to. In fact, if I am completely honest with myself, I know that my initial inaction pushed the buttons of the other driver, putting into action the sequence of events that I reacted to.

Once I was in the situation, I chose to give meaning to what the driver decided to do. The meaning I gave:  "He should have chosen to take a different action, one of the ones that I would have chosen. He was wrong to take any other action". Hmmmm.

I then chose to take his actions personally. I chose to get angry because he made a choice different than one that I would have made in his shoes.  It does not matter that this was mostly happening in my subconscious mind. I have the ability to look at my subconscious reaction, make them conscious, and choose different actions in the future. 

In mulling over what the other driver told me he did and his justifications for doing so, I knew that I had to shift my perception of the situation if I was to come to peace with it. I understood enough to know that he had a set of beliefs, right or wrong, that he fully believed in. His belief system was based on a form of fear and limited belief.  

The actual details are unimportant, I cannot emphasize that enough. 

It is enough to know that he made his choice on his current belief system. I cannot change another person. Yet that was in essence what I was trying to do by choosing to stop to talk to him. You cannot get a resolution when you are in fight or flight or by trying to change somebody's belief. But this was not about him. This was about me and my choices.

In those moments I absconded my self responsibility and subconsciously chose to think that what I was feeling was somebody else's fault. That another persons actions caused me to feel anger. That is nonsense.

¹non·sense - noun - (1): language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense (2): an instance of absurd action

My own belief system caused me to feel anger. Had I had this understanding when the situation happened, I just would have observed his behavior, knowing that man is acting out of a fear based belief and it has nothing to do with me. In reality I was never in danger.

Yet there is still that nagging question of how did I feel unsafe? That took me even more reflection because my mind did not want to fully let go just yet. All minds want to appear to be strong and powerful. To tell the truth about what is happening is considered to be a weakness in most people's minds. Yet the opposite is true. By being able to face the truth within myself, it actually gives me the strength of will to make lasting changes. It really is fascinating.

So how I felt unsafe was a result of a creation in my own mind. It got all worked up over the "fact" that somebody "could have" gotten hurt. This man had taken a potentially dangerous action against me it argued. My mind created this whole reaction because it wanted to be in control and could not be.

By working through this incident the way I have, I reach yet another level of understanding and compassion. The most interesting thing that I have observed about my life is that when I create shifts in my own belief system and take responsibility for how I feel, events like this happen to me less and less. 

I have felt for a long time that life is like a series of tests. When you can finally figure out what is really happening and remove your judgment, you pass these tests and you stop getting them. This is of course the process of bringing your subconscious or unconscious responses into your consciousness so that you choose your responses and do not react out of judgment and fear.

PS. It was still unsafe driving that I  reported to the police with a license plate number. I cannot control another persons behaviors, but there are more effective choices that I can make than to go into emotional reaction. 

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July 20, 2009, 11:56 am

Partner Relation: Do You Really Understand Them?

Whenever 2 people first meet, spend time together, and form a relationship, everything about this person is just so new! Our curiosity is at its peak, wanting to know everything we can about this person who is so different from us, so intriguing in their thoughts, feelings, and actions. We eat it up, we soak it up, we revel in this newness.

Until we start to think about what it all means...to us.

Over time, the only thing that really changes is how we perceive our partner. They are who they are, who they were when we first met them, but then we start to judge what we see. Somebody can only be different than us for only so long before we start to apply our meanings of how things should be and how they should be.

I would never do that if I were them, we think to ourselves as we start to compare how this other person is acting to choices that we think we would make if we were in their shoes. But the act of comparison is not enough. Our minds start to label it as bad or good and as right or wrong. 

Over time we become so sure we are right about how we are experiencing our partners that we make no bones about letting them know just how we feel. It can be with the choice of words, with intonations, with facial and body gestures, and with our choices.

We, in essence, tell them that we have judged them found them guilty, and  found them to be lacking. That there is something wrong with them because they are not more like us. We start to get annoyed, irritated and angry. Our partners feel judged and become defensive.

Conversely, we judge them and find them guilty of being better then us to find ourselves lacking. That there is something wrong with us because we are not more like them. We feel like we are being judged by our partners and become defensive.

You both have been doing this to the other. This type of judging and finding fault and the act of comparing escalates, forming the basis for attacks. This is never one sided. Sometimes one half will be more vocal and the other half more withdrawn. It doesn't matter because the attack and blame thoughts are the same, whether they are outwardly spoken or held in secret.

The way each individual sees it is that it is typically the other persons fault. In reality the external issue, or the problem with the other person, is irrelevant. It is a cover for your own judgments which you feel you are justified in having. What happens when each person feels that they are under attack, their behavior changes. People get defensive, angry, and attack back. Back and forth until there is little to no understanding left of each other.

The meaning that you have given your partner's words and actions is based on the assumption that your partner should be more like you think he or she should be. Can your mind admit that even a little of this may have happened in your relationship? Or is your mind is so sure that you are right that  you have lost the will to do anything about it. What are you choosing?

If something is not done to break this cycle, then the relationship will reach a point of crisis, where it becomes increasingly more difficult to salvage your relationship. Yet so many people wait until they are in crisis before they reach out for help. It is far easier to make changes when you are not in crisis.

The irony is that when you learn to stop judging your partner, they change on their own. When you stop judging you also stop attacking. When you stop attacking a safe environment is created for your relationship to grow and thrive in a healthy way. A new healthy cycle is created.

You have free will to make different choices in how you see your partner and to change the meaning you give to their words, thoughts, and actions. If you don't use it, you will not be free.

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Hi Vivian. When I read what you write about sharing, it makes me think of my own experiences. As a toddler I always wanted to share everything I had, toys included! Of course, over time I learned that that was not a trait that was encouraged. As I took on the limiting beliefs around me, sharing became giving in order to get something in return. It has taken many years of personal growth to return back to the feeling of sharing from the fullness of myself without any fears or from wanting anything in return. Sharing of ourselves, of our true nature is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world. It is the state of being who you naturally are without judgment or fear.

July 16, 2009, 1:56 pm

Quotation: There is Much to Learn From Others

I thought I would share with you some of my all time favorite quotes.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Wayne Dyer

You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think. A Course In Miracles

To observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. Jiddu Krishnamurti

Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. Eckhart Tolle

Awake. Be the witness of your thoughts. You are what observes, not what you observe. Buddha

A flash of enlightenment offers a preview of coming attractions, but when it fades, you will see more clearly what separates you from that state -- your compulsive habits, outmoded beliefs, false associations, and other mental structures. Just when our lives are starting to get better, we may feel like things are getting worse - because for the first time we see clearly what needs to be done. Dan Millman

If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought. Peace Pilgrim

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself. Wayne Dyer

Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them. You will want to change them when you realize that each thought creates according to its own nature. Remember that the law works at all times and that you are always demonstrating according to the kind of thoughts you habitually entertain. Therefore, start now to think only those thoughts that will bring you health and happiness. Paramahansa Yogananda

A person does not have to be behind bars to be a prisoner. People can be prisoners of their own concepts and ideas. They can be slaves to their own selves. Maharaji

Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. What you see reflects your thinking. And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see. A Course In Miracles

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. Mother Teresa

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease. Eckhart Tolle

Love is misunderstood to be an emotion; actually, it is a state of awareness, a way of being in the world, a way of seeing oneself and others. David R. Hawkins

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. A Course In Miracles

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July 14, 2009, 2:55 pm

Modification: Oops, I Made a Mistake!

Well, this is certainly a learning curve. In my attempts to find ways to handle the automatic spammers, I have managed to delete the first comment I received as well as my response to it! 

This is a long shot request given how new this blog is, but does anyone, original poster included, possibly have a copy of the comment and response about ethical dilemmas? If so, please be so kind as to send it to me and if not, that's life!

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July 13, 2009, 2:05 pm

Just a quick entry. I saw this last night when I was wandering around on my favorite astrology site: http://www.cainer.com/ and thought it was great:

"Cheer up, it may never happen! Unless of course, it has just happened In which case, cheer up anyway because now that it has happened, it probably won't happen again. Unless of course, it is just about to happen. In which case, perhaps you should carry on being fretful in case this helps to stop it from happening. But if it hasn't happened by now, it probably isn't going to happen. Don't try to tiptoe through the quagmire of anxiety. It will only suck you in no matter how carefully you tread. Walk away from it."

Great advice for all of us when we feel anxiety or are under stress.

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July 11, 2009, 10:35 am

Neutralization: A How to on Stress (Fight or Flight) Deconstruction

What I have been noticing is that when I "put in my order" for how  want to feel in the morning, that I have to keep reminding myself about it throughout the day. Yes, I want to be happy today, is the first thing I usually think. Easy enough, right? Well yes, until life gets in the way!

I start thinking about what is on my  to do list and get caught up in trying to organize my day, starting with the morning. If there is anything challenging or that I don't know the answers for, my mind instantly wants to start to "be concerned" (my new words for worrying!) about how to handle those situations. Well, guess what...I forget to be happy as my mind hijacks my attention.

So, I remind myself to just feel the happiness. It can become like a tug of war, where my mind want its autonomy and wants all the attention about what IT thinks should be the highest thing on the agenda and it wants it NOW. It is as if it is presiding over a meeting where nobody else is allowed to speak. I don't think so! I keep throwing "I want to be happy" back at it over and over!

This process is actually very funny. I do have a situation this morning where I have made a mistake that I need to correct. I can feel the stress in my body, my muscles tightening up, my breathing becoming shallow. All my mind wants to do is to fret over it. Well let's see if we can throw that old dog a bone to chew on and shake to death all it wants, because I want to be happy.

So, step one, identify the fear, which is: because I made the mistake it will affect two other people's decisions adversely. The fear my mind is running with is that I will be rejected for my mistake. Yet if I think it through logically, all the possible outcomes are still there and it does not make sense that my mind is telling me that only the worst ones will happen. 

That is nonsense. If I allow my mind to continue on that track, it would immobilize me or if I allowed it to continue to evolve, I would make some poor choices in my communication with these two people. So I think about the possible ways that  can deal with this situation and can think of a few different things that I can say or do to work with my error and turn it into something positive.

Part of the challenge is that I need to wait. I cannot just jump into forcing a solution when it is not the time for it. Yet I can't sense or know when the right time to take action is when my mind and body are tense, or are getting ready to take action...out of a reactive state. Not okay.

So now I focus on deep, slow breathing. It helps to stop the automatic mindless thinking (fretting) when I do this. I focus on the happiness that I want to feel as an additional distraction for the mind, helping my body relax bit by bit. It helps to slowly allow my mind to put things into perspective. This definitely is helping.

Seeing the humor and innocence helps tremendously as well. So does picturing my own mind as an actual dog shaking whatever it has in its mouth and refuses to let go of! I also imagine the tenseness as excitement. Excitement about having a new puzzle to solve, for a solution to be found; being grateful even for having another opportunity to learn and grow from.

It all seems to be working pretty well. I add to my "order" to have peace of mind. That really helps me to relax. Having a good, healthy breakfast also contributes to feeling better. My next step will be to work on my challenge and take whatever little action I can right now, then I will go do something physical (cleaning this morning!) to work off the stress hormones that will take a little time to resolve themselves. Well done!

How's your morning?

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July 9, 2009, 1:37 pm

Creation: Contentment, Curiosity, and Creativity

What I have been recently observing about myself is that when you do the work to release various forms of fear and judgment that you are left with a big, blank canvas to work with. Until you reach that point it is easy to underestimate how much of your being that fear consumes. And consume is the right word because it literally eats you up from the inside out.

When you remove something from within you, you need to replace it with something else. This is one of the basic premises of creating what you want in your life. In my journey I keep aiming for more peace of mind, a deeper sense of contentment, and more understanding. Yet even this is not enough.

Every morning when I wake up, I put in my "order" for the day. I want high energy levels and  I want to get my work done efficiently (a must have for the self employed!). I also want to enjoy the breaks that I have in between. There must be a balance of pleasure with the commitments and responsibility. Yet the sense of responsibility is always there in the back of my mind. I think I need to change my order!

I want to feel happy even more than I do. I want to be conscious of my happiness. Being so introspective I tend to be more conscious of what I want to change, always striving to become a better person. I forget that just being happy also makes me a better person.

That contentment that  I mentioned....what good is it if I forget to feel it?! Honestly, it is so easy to get caught up in all the details of our lives that we forget to embody these positive qualities that are accessible within us! So, more focus on remembering. Remembering to feel light hearted again.

I went exploring the other day with a friend. Something I haven't done in many years if not decades, just wandering around for sake of wandering around with no other goals (except to get some exercise). Taking a kayak and exploring the shoreline, occasionally wading and looking for treasures. It was delightful. The mind stayed present and open.

There is such value in remembering the qualities within us from our childhoods ... the good parts of course! Open curiosity, no predetermined meanings, creativity at its peak and no judgment on the thoughts that flow out of your mind when in that open space. 

I want more of where that came from! I think my new goal will be to incorporate that part of me into the "serious" side of things, of my responsibilities, of my "to do" list, of the details of my daily existence. Sure there are hurdles and challenges, at some points many of them, but to put more than the absolutely necessary focus (to find solutions and resolutions) on them no longer makes any sense to me. 

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July 6, 2009, 3:57 pm

Clarification: The Many Different Faces of Fear

I hope that everyone had a great independence day and enjoyed their weekend. In terms of personal growth, make it your goal to become emotionally independent, where you are full of love, spirit, creativity, and spontaneity instead of fear, doubt, and worry.

After my last post, it occurred to me that there are people out there who do not fully understand the different forms that fear comes in. So I thought I would clarify and show how it can appear in your life. As you read this, you will understand more of why it is so important to raise your self awareness so that you can work through some of your fears yourself.

There are the obvious forms that fear comes in, such as: phobia, dread, anxiety, panic, angst, insecurity, stress, depression, etc. Then of course there is fear of change, confinement, constancy, death, pain, illness, loneliness, not having a (good) source of income, etc. 

Then there is anger, annoyance, bitterness, hatred, resentment, prejudice, judgment, being "right" (as opposed to conviction of beliefs...a topic for a future posting!), any belief that causes you to feel a negative emotion towards another person is fear based. Underneath any of those labels is a fear of getting hurt, being misunderstood, having been wronged, or of somebody being that much  different than you (our partners being no exception...).

People can also have fears of beneficial aspects of life:  love, commitment, self actualization, public speaking, the future, success, etc. Fear can also be subtler and come in the form of doubt, needing to be liked or admired, in how you look, what other people think of you, needing to please another (at home, work, socially, etc.), getting older, irritability, etc. 

Even the most "successful" and "powerful" people experience fears. How we define our value is a prime breeding ground for fear. If you define your value externally and feel your value lies in being a good partner, parent, in your accomplishments, physical abilities, your looks, etc., what happens when your circumstances change and you no longer have those qualities with which to judge your value? How many of you have experienced fear or doubt about your value?

How about speaking the truth about how you feel in all situations? This includes your relationships, with family, at work, with friends, in social environments, etc. Do you have a fear of conflict? How do you handle an aggressive personality? Are you what you would call a peacemaker for others? What subtle or not so subtle fear is underneath that? 

I can imagine the thoughts and comments already...but being a peacemaker is a "good" thing. Well, not the way most people do it and usually for the wrong reasons if done out of any form of fear. How self aware are you and how honest are you with yourself about this?

There is a simple test to tell if what you are feeling is a result of some form of fear, obvious or subtle. Is what you are thinking or feeling making you feel good or does it make you feel bad? If it is the latter, then you have some form of fear at the root of what you are thinking and feeling.

Keep exploring and looking to identify what that fear might be. It is only then that you will have the power to make a different choice. Notice what you do when you are not feeling good. How do you compensate for it? How do you tend to "deal with" what you feel? Do you numb out, overeat, over stimulate yourself, block out, over analyze, zone out, go into avoidance, etc?

As you make these observations about yourself do you use those observations to then beat yourself up? That is even more fear. We fear  that we are not good enough in some way and then feel the need to punish ourselves, creating that cycle of guilt, punishment, and sacrifice. 

This prevalence of the different forms of fear is why it is almost an obsession of mine to help other ferret out the different forms and bring a sense of peace into peoples lives. It is, without a doubt, a passion of mine!

I am finding that blogging is such an interesting process so far...I never know where my thoughts will lead me! 

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July 3, 2009, 11:38 am

Observation: The Impact of Fear in Our Lives

At different points in my life I have turned to different authors and other sources of information to help guide my personal and spiritual growth. Recently it has been A Course in Miracles. I try to make it a habit to always have a focus on which part of myself that I want to work on, habits that I would like to change within myself, patterns of thinking that I want to shift, automatic subconscious responses that I would like to make conscious and remove.

My most recent focus has been the presence of fear in my life. I can see how fear can be a subconscious component of many experiences. Living in the various forms that fear comes in is exhausting and for some people debilitating. When a person's fight or flight (FOF) response is regularly triggered, as it is for many people these days, the hormones that are released have a cumulative effect that wear a person down with time.

I realized that I needed to become more proactive about identifying and removing fears within myself. Good luck with that was my first response! Have you ever tried to talk yourself out of being afraid while you are afraid and in FOF? It is a limited approach that does not address why fear and its corresponding emotional reactions keep popping up to begin with.

So I set out to observe and study myself to see when, where, how, and why fear kept appearing. This process has taken months and it is only recently that I developed more insights into fears and ways in which to actually stop their multifaceted, frequent, and seemingly generous appearances! The different faces that fear takes form in is mind boggling. No wonder it took so long!

What I saw is that every time I experienced a form of fear, it was because I had interpreted an event as being potentially threatening and felt unsafe, usually triggering defensiveness and frequently the FOF response. The response is easy to notice when your heart rate jumps up but is there more than you would ever imagine! 

Identifying when your muscles tense up and when you are breathing shallowly is more of a delayed awareness. You usually notice you have been tense when you finally remember to take a deep breath and feel your muscles relax and your breathing slow down as you take those deeper breaths.

With this new awareness, I was able to look for some other choices that I could make because I was more familiar with what fear felt like and looked like for me. Now it was time to take different action. The first thing I tried was to simply to point out to myself....oh look, I am feeling unsafe here. Just to try to stuff that little thought into the myopic space that fear creates took a lot of effort. Were you aware that even the littlest bit of fear and FOF creates tunnel vision, tunnel hearing, tunnel understanding ... ?!

The next step was to tell myself in the moment that I felt unsafe that I was making an assumption. That was not too bad, but then getting myself to try to identify it felt like I was swimming through molasses! I could actually feel a physiological or mental pressure that I had to push through to actually observe and understand myself. It felt like my brain was pulled so tightly that it created a physical barrier to my efforts. That is how strong the mind is when it is convinced that it is right about what we are experiencing....when we are in fear consciously or subconsciously. 

Eventually I was able to occasionally get through this resistance and identify the meaning that I was creating to confirm and provide evidence to validate my fear. What I saw was that when I was in emotional reaction (which is a form of FOF), it was all I could do to maintain these little pieces of consciousness. 

Sometimes I could remember to look for a different definition right in that moment, telling myself and understanding that my original meaning was inaccurate. But sometimes I couldn't and the fear and emotional reaction would remain or even grow larger, threatening to sweep me away with a tsunami of emotion. I had to look for more tools to try to use. I found them.

One of the effective tools that I now use regularly to dismantle my FOF response is to ask the person I am reacting to a question. Just about any question will do, as long as it is along the lines of "what did you mean by that" or "did you mean (insert assumption here)". The very first time I tried this, I could barely mouth the words to form ANY question, never mind a specific one! LOL! Another effective alternative was just to speak up and reveal that I was feeling unsafe in that moment. That gave me time to safely process on my own.

These new steps have been life altering for me, when I was finally able to take control and make different choices while in FOF, retraining and reconditioning my own mind to feel safe where it had never felt safe before. In a few short months after the initial ground laying work, I have been able to significantly decrease the amount of fear that I experience. Of course there are still deeper triggers, but having them far and few in between is acceptable and more in line with what the FOF response was intended to be in us.

At this point, I may feel a ripple go through my body where it would previously want to go into FOF. Now I can almost instantly catch where I am creating meaning/making assumptions about what something means. Okay, okay, most of the time anyway! In all of this work I need to acknowledge and extend thanks to my husband, who becomes the unknowing guinea pig in most of my experimentation.

I am sharing my process with you so that you can understand what you go through better and hopefully shortcut the process of your own growth. Why should you have to reinvent the wheel! Use this information to help yourself diminish your fears, change your FOF response and find more peace of mind.

Perfect love casts out fear,

If fear exists,

Then there is not perfect love.

But:

Only perfect love exists.

If there is fear,

It produces a state that does not exist.

A Course in Miracles

Brilliantly said!

Ewa

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July 1, 2009, 10:38 am

Creation: A New Approach to Helping Others

Hello and a warm welcome to my official blog!  For now, please feel free to add your comments about the website and to the thoughts and concepts being presented. My goal is to provide more useful information and to share the insights that I have with you. 

Being new to this medium, I am not quite sure how this will evolve or how often I will write just yet. Be sure to check back periodically. Let me know if an RSS feed to alert you of any changes is something that you think would be useful. As I move into this new venture I also appreciate any suggestions to make this a better experience for you. 

I am looking forward to sharing more of my thoughts with everyone!

Ewa

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