FEAR – Forget Everything And RUN!
Or –
Lies you’ve been told about FEAR and what YOU can do about it!
You’ve heard the acronym for fear is “False Evidence Appearing Real” and I want to tell you that those individuals making that statement are forgetting a very important reality.
Have you ever seen a child when they’re afraid? Maybe they see someone in a costume and they start crying – I remember how my children, when they were in the Terrific Two’s, hated going to Chuck E. Cheese even though prior to that age they loved the noise, music and characters. Now, they were afraid of the characters, Chuck E. was someone unfamiliar in their everyday world.
There are a number of reasons that psychology gives us for childrens’ fears but no matter how we try to explain it to them they are still afraid, right?
How many of you are afraid of something? It might be a phobia of certain small creatures; like bees, spiders, snakes or other small animals like rats and mice. Maybe you’re afraid of crossing bridges, flying in planes, standing, and looking down from high places, like the edge of a cliff.
Maybe your fear manifests itself as anger or depression when someone does something and you feel pain as in the cases of physical or emotional abuse.
For the business owner, fear might be seen as frustration when they receive a rush shipment of product for a key customer and the order is wrong, or when the assistant doesn’t deliver a message on time, or an employee fails to complete a project on time.
Then there is the parent whose kids are getting out of line and they just want their child to “behave themselves appropriately”. They want the child to get the grades they are capable of, to do the chores when they are asked, to treat others with respect.
Maybe the fear shows up in a relationship where the partner is showing interest in another person and the feeling of fear may surface as jealousy.
That relationship may even end up in divorce. What about the child of the divorced parents who is acting out by being the class bully or failing in school when they had previously been an A/B student?
You may experience fear as anger when you’re driving down the highway and someone cuts you off for no apparent reason-other than the other guy is “a jerk”.
The faces that fear wears are as varied as there are emotions that are “not love”.
So now, if I tell you that your fear is just “false evidence appearing real” how does that make you feel? Doesn’t it feel as if I’ve just told that your feelings are invalid (false) and yet, they’re YOUR feelings!
Try telling someone who’s just been laid off, lost a loved one, been through a divorce, or afraid of spiders or bees, or the child who’s screaming hysterically that it’s “not real”.
The feeling of fear is VERY real.
For a moment, consider this meaning–”Forget Everything And Run”. Isn’t there a strong desire when we’re afraid, to remove ourselves from the situation or to have it removed for us? Don’t we find ourselves wishing that it would all be different and “OK”? If I could just have them back again, if it just had happened “this way”, if they had just done what I asked, if they had just been paying attention. The list goes on and on.
In our depression we want to sleep, to be away from everything and everyone.
In most other forms of fear we might “show them a thing or two” by directly striking back either emotionally, mentally or physically or indirectly by removing ourselves from the situation. This can be seen in divorce, abuse, restraining orders…you get the idea.
All of these situations are VERY REAL to the person experiencing them. They are their feelings. Don’t discount them. Don’t use, or even feel, the phrase “false evidence appearing real” as it doesn’t serve the purpose of removing the fear in the first place. Consider the choice to be present with your feelings as they tell you “where you are” at any moment in time or to “forget everything and run”.
Finally, consider the power of the choice.
When we understand that we live in a universe that is governed by a Law of Attraction, and we are creating our world every moment of every day, then we can choose how we feel about something or someone.
We have the freedom to choose Love or to choose Fear. We choose to be free or to be imprisoned. We choose to experience abundance or lack. We choose to be present, to be our true self, or to escape and hide behind a mask.
So what is you’re choice today? Now? Will today be the day that you choose Freedom?