how to deal with fear | Cherie Roe Dirksen

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” ~Jim Morrison

Fear controls most of us. The sh*t thing is, our controllers want to perpetuate fear in any way possible — it makes sense to those seeking power.

‘Fight or flight’ fear is useful as it can save our life but that insidious, worrisome fear can cripple our inherent right to joy.

Every time you give in to negativity and feed fear, the monster becomes more fearsome and more powerful. However, when we pop the bubble of the bogeyman under the bed and realize we created it — well, it becomes quite ridiculous, doesn’t it?

If we all make a concerted effort to rise to the challenge of facing our fears, we — as Mr Morrison so eloquently pointed out — will set ourselves free.

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Love is Stronger than Fear

Let me share these 3 tips on how I manage my fears:

Don’t Buy Into Fear. Think of all the things you’ve feared in the past — did any come true? If yes, did you survive it? I take it you did if you are reading this. The frequency of fear draws that which you worry about to you. Have you ever been with someone who is not afraid of dogs but you are? When a dog comes running at you both — it goes for you, my sweaty-palmed friend, not your companion. Animals, as you probably know, can sense fear — so can the Universe and the Universe is impartial. It acquiesces to what it thinks you desire via your vibrational output. Your emotions are pointing towards fear? Expect life to become frightening then. The only thing you should fear is fear itself.
Tune Into Love. When you are in fear, inject some love into your aura by thinking of someone/something that brings you joy — it could be your loved ones, a furry child, the thought of something humorous or a really great memory. Have a cache of these to draw from — this is how you get to expand on the feeling of love in the face of fear. Show fear that you are made of love and love is all there really is. Read related article: How to Use Your Heart Wisdom
You are Powerful. You are in control if you choose to be. If you want to be self-empowered then the first things you need are awareness and the ability to take responsibility for your actions. These two fundamental principles are gateways for you to step into your power. You can alchemize any situation — I actually want to get that tattooed to my forehead because I still tend to forget sometimes. Read related article: 3 Ways to Alchemize Chaos

“To alchemize a situation is to step inside it and transmute it from the inside out. Get into what is bugging you (through meditation or quiet visualization) and start working your magic — find that gem of understanding/learning that the situation has to offer and morph it (through picturing what you want to see in your mind’s eye) into what you do want to see manifest in your life.” (excerpt from article, 3 Ways to Alchemize Chaos)

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Cherie Roe Dirksen is a self-empowerment author/columnist, multi-media artist and musician from South Africa.

To date, she has published 3 self-help and motivational books and brings out weekly inspirational blogs at her site www.cherieroedirksen.com. Get stuck into finding your passion, purpose and joy by downloading some of those books gratis when you click HERE.

Her ambition is to help you to connect with your innate gift of creativity and living the life you came here to experience by taking responsibility for your thoughts, actions and becoming the co-creator of your reality. You can follow Cherie on Facebook (The Art of Empowerment — for article updates). She also has an official art Facebook page (Cherie Roe Dirksen – for new art updates) and her band’s Facebook page is Templeton Universe.

This article (3 Ways to Say Goodbye to Fear) is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author Cherie Roe Dirksen and ConsciousLifeNews.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this Copyright/Creative Commons statement.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Creeping in Through the Cracks

Fear is a mighty strong emotion. It could be said to be the driving force behind our collective impotence.

Why does it have so much force in our lives?

It get’s flung at us constantly via the media — TV, movies, adverts, the general public, etc.

And when we’re not ‘out in the world’ overhearing all the crime statistics and getting fed bad news from people on the street, we rush home to fall into the escapism of our daily Facebook feed because there’s nothing there to be fearful of, right?

Wrong! We get a slipstream of everything that’s messed up in the world (barring, of course, those sweet little kitty meme’s and quirky quote feeds — although even those are starting to take their toll on social media addicts).

One has even come to fear the next ‘Be Like Bob’ post or cradle in terror at the thought of another cat in a pot photo. All jokes aside…

Getting Down and Dirty

We need to take responsibility for what we give our attention to and for how we allow, yes allow, the media to manipulate our emotions and pervade the airwaves with such repugnant negativity.

We are the ones giving credence to and creating our own fears — we can literally asphyxiate ourselves with things to fret or find fear about.

Every time you give into fear you feed negativity and give it more power. Fear is a choice, like it or not.

Related article: How To Deal With Your Fear of the Unknown

The Different Types of Fear

There are, of course, many different types of fear but they are all grounded in the act of giving your power away.

When we come up against fear, we are presented with a chance to be aware, brave and face up to it. Get to the nitty-gritty and uncover the truth about why we are so afraid or uncomfortable (i.e. the fear of heights/snakes/natural disasters/terrorism/clowns/Uncle Sam/Aunt Betty/’fill in the blank’).

When we mine ourselves for the ‘why’s’ and ‘what-have-you’s’ of our own fears, we can face them and move through them.

If there is nothing we can do but send our love, compassion, empathy or prayers to a fearful situation, then do that! Stop giving rise to a tidal wave of negative emotions.

Either do something about your fear (fight or flight), make an effort to get to the bottom of why you feel a certain way (be it through meditation, inner-examination, therapy, etc) or stop thinking about it — turn your thoughts around!

What you think about you bring about — your attention, good or bad — always feeds the probability giving it more gusto. So stop gusting away at those fearful ruminations!

Incapacitating Fear

In order to work fear back into the light, we need to find its polar opposite — LOVE. When you inject love into fear it evaporates — it has no stronghold in the presence of love.

But how does one start projecting love when ones knees are knocking?

Well, let’s address what is called heart-centered living — I’m sure you’ve all probably heard that word by now. People are throwing it about a lot these days (including me — guilty as charged!). As airy-fairy and lace-clad as heart-centered living may seem — there is a nugget of gold in the finding!

Related article: How to Use Your Heart Wisdom

Quickening the Heart

When you work through your heart, based primarily upon how you are feeling about something (as opposed to working through your mind and how you think about something), you are guided by a more truthful resonance of picking up subtle nuances from your surroundings rather than being directed by what reason dictates.

So even though we are in need of our minds and pensiveness, we have been dominated by left-brain thinking for centuries. A shift is occurring, not to totally disregard our thoughts but to channel through the heart and then process through the mind. In other words, not just to go straight to the head and bypass our hearts or how we are feeling intuitively.

Rationality can be useful but it has, in some cases, left our instinctive abilities to wither in its stoic presence. Sometimes our ‘logic’ has actually hindered our bliss. This could be because ‘society dictates otherwise’ or ‘the norm is to be…’ — well, be careful of whose ‘norm’ you are conceding to.

It’s that age old conflict between science and spirituality (left-brain versus right-brain) — the solution to which is using both in balance.

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.” — Dorothy Thompson

3 Key factors to transmute fear are remembering to:

1. Spend Your Emotions Wisely

Don’t buy into fear. Think of all the things you have feared in the past — did any of those worries come true? If yes, did you survive it? I take it you did if you are reading this. The energy or vibration of fear draws that which you worry about into your life. Have you ever been with someone who is not afraid of dogs but you are. When a dog comes running at you both, it goes for you, my sweaty-palmed friend, not your companion! Why? Animals, as you probably know, can sense fear — so can the universe and the universe is impartial. It acquiesces to what it thinks you desire via your frequency output. If your emotions are dialed into fear, expect life to become frightening. The only thing you should fear is fear itself (thanks, President Roosevelt!).

2. Know That Love Conquers All

Get used to being tuned into your feelings and steering them to safer shores. When you are in fear, inject some love into your aura by thinking of someone you love, your favorite pet, the infectious chuckle of your child or grandchild or a blissful memory. Change your vibration! This is how you get to expand on the feeling of love in the face of fear. Show fear that you have too much love in your heart. Fear is a mental construct in the absence of love. Trust your instincts and obey your heart. Send love and compassion to all those who suffer or who are in situations you fear to be in. Even send love to the perpetrators of heinous crimes. Why? Because you won’t solve hate by chucking more venom at a situation. When you can send love to the victims and perpetrators alike, you are diffusing the energy and making a space for healing and learning to occur. The perpetrators of violent crimes will not ‘get better’ with negativity, hateful thoughts or jail sentences (that is not to say that they shouldn’t have to ‘pay’ for their crimes — we all have to face the music for our actions) but, in sending love and compassion, there may be a glimmer of hope that they will have a true awakening to spirit and show remorse or have a change of heart.

3. Take Control

Short, sweet and to the point. If you want to be self-empowered then the first things you need are awareness and the ability to take responsibility for your actions. These two fundamental principles are gateways for you to realize your inherent potential. You are a co-creator, take responsibility for that and take control from this point onwards.

Original article written by Cherie Roe Dirksen for Conscious Life News