“It’s not true that fear is.” This is a saying that I invented over 10 years ago to remind myself that I fabricate my fear. Fear ultimately is an apparition, something groundless, something that does not exist beyond what my mind creates.
Fear seems to be all around us. Just look at what we are currently dealing with as a society:
- A pandemic that has devastated families and economies
- Political divisions that pit friends, family, and citizens against each other
- Natural disasters from probable climate change
- Inflation at 40-year highs
- Growing, seemingly intractable homelessness
- Sky-high health care and insurance costs
- War in Ukraine
And naming these societal problems doesn’t even touch the personal crises that evoke fear—troubles in relationships, death of loved ones, money issues, health problems, work problems, unemployment, and so on. It seems there is a lot that can generate fear.
Also, fear is a feeling. As a therapist and a life coach, I don’t deny this. I encourage people to be in touch with their feelings, including fear, if it helps them move through their feelings and toward the changes they want for themselves and their lives.
So how is it useful to say, “It’s not true that fear is?”
Fear is not something that stands independently. It does not exist outside of a context. Fear is produced. Our minds produce it, based on our perceptions. Our perceptions of all the outer circumstances I mentioned above can produce fear. Without those perceptions, fear is not.
And there is something underneath fear, when we release fear or clear it away. Most commonly when fear is released we experience calmness, relief, openness, happiness, even joy.
But I believe there is something fundamental underneath fear. I call this fundamental thing “is-ness.” It is a sense of being without anything attached. If we are perceptive, it is the sense or feeling that sits initially with us when fear is released. It is what really is, not fear. It is a sense of being with life just as it is. Sometimes I experience it as a vibrancy of being alive or a tingle up and down my backbone. And from it arise all the positive feelings I have mentioned—calmness, relief, joy, and more.
So how can we release fear and live in a state of positive feelings? There are several ways that I use with my clients. One is the process many of you have learned of writing down our negative self-talk and verifying it as true, false, or don’t know. In this process, we release false thoughts—our fears. When this happens, we get to see things as they really are, without the lies about ourselves, others, or life. With this can come calmness, relief, openness, and joy—or simply that sense of “is-ness” of being with life just as it is.
This is Glenn Stevenson, with Self Sense Counseling and Coaching. As you move through life, I wish for you the knowledge and the experience that “fear is not.” May you live without fear, more in “is-ness,” calmness, openness, and joy.