I am amazed at all the ways we learn to block out something that’s ever present – Fear.

We fight with it, suppress it, deny it, sugar coat it – anything to chase it away.

It seems we rarely, if ever, cooperate with it.

Sometimes an enemy becomes a friend when cooperation becomes an option.

How do we cooperate with fear? We give it what all of us want – recognition.

Recognizing that you feel afraid is one of the best ways to give acknowledgement to that which you’ve been hiding from.

Fear’s power is anticipation. Its muscle comes from what’s yet to come. That’s the mental part of fear. You can’t cooperate with fear in your mind, because it multiplies into a thousand thoughts. The place to cooperate with fear is in your body where there is only one feeling to cooperate with.

Cooperating with fear means to feel it.

The temptation when we feel fear is to talk about it. That’s an attempt to make it go away. The minute we get tired of talking, it attacks us with full force.

Fear like any other feeling wants to be felt. It’s not going to go away until it gets its way. It’s darn persistent.

Rather than arm wrestle with it and lose again, cooperate with this sensation by feeling it fully. That means to notice what goes on in your body when you are feeling afraid. Keep your attention on the feeling and not the story that’s producing it.

Cooperating with fear is like giving it warm milk at bedtime. When we put our attention on the feeling of fear, it begins to metabolize itself and drift off to sleep.

If you would like to tuck in fear for the evening, allow yourself to feel it in your body.

The way to keep fear permanently in place is to keep doing all the things you’ve been doing. The remedy for giving it a rest is to cooperate with it.

Fear will always be with us. Sometimes it serves us and sometimes it gets in the way. If fear is getting in your way too often, keeping you from doing what you want to do, it’s time to fully experience the feeling in your body.

Ask yourself this: Why do people abuse things like drugs, alcohol, food, and other people? Answer: To make the fear go away.

It really doesn’t go away, only you do. In case you haven’t noticed, your attempt at numbing yourself isn’t working because your fear never rests. That’s because you run from it rather than feel it.

Undigested fear will poison you and take its toll. It’s time for a new approach.

When you feel fearful, let yourself fully explore the feeling in your body – not you head. Keep your attention on the feeling. The temptation is to stop feeling and start talking. Resist that temptation and stay with the feeling.

We’ve been asked over the years to face our fears. That’s only a partial solution. Feeling them fully makes them less of a bully.

All the best,

John

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