Lately, I've been reading social media comments about fear, fear and more fear. It had me wondering, did all those "understanding and releasing fears" lessons, from many spiritual teachers over the years, go in one ear and out the other?
Most of it seems to be a fear of change, or what they feel will be bad change, because the unknown can be scary. However, since the only thing constant is change, it would be more beneficial to keep on top of anything new, or different, from how things were, instead of letting one's concerns become overwhelming. This is the "understanding" which helps to "release" fear. In order to do that, we have to move beyond what's holding us back - what we're fearing - and not accentuating it by placating other's fears or being used by those who choose to manipulate people into fearing for their personal gain.
To begin with, before negating other's opinions, hear them out and discuss everything - rationally. Our emotional programming could be rejecting new or different information, because it doesn't "feel" right. But, that's okay, we don't want to be gullible. However, we have to be careful about being duped by that lack of awareness that can cause our gullibility. That's why it's important to seek outside of that by having intellectual discussions with others. It helps us have a "check and balance" towards our decision making.
What's not okay is seeing facts add up and still refuting it. That's when we should stop and have a serious talk with ourself, so to speak, to find out why. Weigh everything, we don't have to follow anyone's ideas, but make sure it common sense and not fear that's guiding us. A good clue would be when our fear leads to hate and anger. Yes, fear is a natural protection within the "animal" kingdoms, but not when it's irrational fear.
We can help to move beyond that by, genuinely, expressing our concerns. It may assist us to get the validation we need that things will be fine or, at least, acceptable and, hopefully, put our fears to rest. For instance, if it doesn't work out, can we change back? New information may be brought to the table for further discussion. Will it cause chaos? What can we do to compromise? Of course, in the past, we've learned that promises have been broken for numerous reasons. People have lied who we thought we could trust. It teaches us to be resilient. It can, hopefully, teach us to avoid fear-mongering.
Lastly, when I worked for Disney, we, constantly, heard: change is good. It was a phrase that caused many of us to groan: not again! My biggest fear was stress, due to the mistakes that I felt I would make while learning any new technology or protocol. It taught me that, sometimes, things don't always go our way but, just as Nemo's dad, Marlin, discovered, by facing our challenges and working together, we helped release our fear of change.
