Wisdom Day 7
Read about the 100 days of Wisdom™ Project by Tonya Marie
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“There is appropriate fear and silly fear. Appropriate fear is being scared of a guy in a dark alley with a gun, or afraid of falling off a skyscraper, or being afraid of a young child hurting him/herself with a knife. But, most of the time, it’s just silly fear. You know what I’m talking about. The silly fear that no one will ever love you, or that if you follow your dreams you’ll fail or die or worse, or the silly fear that you’ll disappoint your parents by following your heart. By silly fear, I really just mean bullshit. LOL. There’s no other way to put it, really.”
Mastin Kipp, The Daily Love, Here’s Why Fear Can Actually Be Your Friend
Greetings!
I just love the “keep it real” style of Mastin Kipp. He delivers that unvarnished “straight no chaser truth”. It’s not for everybody, I suppose, but it should be! Because sometimes you just have to “call a thing a thing,” as Iyanla Vanzant says on Iyanla: Fix My Life! (Oprah Winfrey Network).
Sometimes it’s time to drop the pretense, the posturing, and the search for the politically correct sound bite or the socially acceptable sentiment and tell the truth. And the truth about fear is this:
1). all fear is a valuable messenger.
2). all fear isn’t created equal.
Fear is a valuable messenger and catalyst not only for personal and spiritual change but true transformation! The trick is to separate the fake from the real fear, to identify and be willing to receive the messages fear has come to give you and then to move through fear toward the lesson (and blessing) and not to get stuck in it or paralyzed by it.
But all this learning and moving through fear seems easier said than done sometimes, admittedly. And just what does moving through it mean anyway?
Here’s my take. To move through fear is a process of acknowledging the fearful thought or reaction, trusting your ability to handle the situation or experience and the other person’s reaction to it, believing that the Creator’s intention is to use all things to heal and not harm you, and … here’s the essential step … to let go of the outcome. Yep, just let go.
Let go of the result, the destination and your preconceived ideas of how it should be, when it should happen or if it should (or shouldn’t) happen at all!
But it’s important to remember that all fear isn’t created equally. Some is appropriate – to acknowledge when something or someone truly has the present intention and ability to hurt or harm you physically, emotionally or spiritually. That type of fear can propel you to act in beneficial ways.
The rest is, well, bullshit. Fake fear drains your energy, wastes your resources, creates a false perception of limitations and lack, and has the power – if you let it – to keep you stuck and propel you to act (or fail to act) in non beneficial ways. It’s that simple, really.
In fact in my own life, I am absolutely certain that when fear arises it is either my greatest motivator or my greatest excuse. There is no in between where fear is concerned.
Recognize when fear arises and take a moment to stop, breathe and get clear about the message fear is sending you. Stillness and curiosity about the feeling helps to identify what’s really going on inside of you. Do you have legitimate concerns? Is your fear of real and present danger? Is the feeling about you or is it someone else’s drama? Is there really something you can do about it or is it completely out of your control?
Fear is meant to capture your attention. It reminds you to lean into the lesson and to move through the fear until you reach the other side of it. Your “friend” Fear might be a constant companion on your journey – the one who never stops talking but whom you love just the same — but all will be well as long as you remember to separate the fake “friend” from the real.
Be Well,
Tonya Marie
[Spend 10 life affirming minutes reading Mastin Kipp’s post at TheDailyLove.com Here’s Why Fear Can Actually Be Your Friend]
Wisdom in the Whisper™ and WisdomintheWhisper.com by Tonya Marie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.wisdominthewhisper.com.
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