After experiencing a profound shift in an exercise from a "Living from Your Soul" retreat, Jim shared what happened and then exclaimed, "Thank God for fear!" Why would anyone say this? No one likes to feel fear or be afraid. It is because he deeply realized how he could use his inner fears to take him into a greater love and truth that would otherwise not have been possible. Rather than repeating the same old battle with his fear of not being enough, fear of failing and fear of making a mistake, he experienced something more authentic and real: "a beauty and peace beyond all understanding". It "broke through his past conditioning" and acted as a catalyst for needed changes in his life.

You may have heard "love is the opposite of fear" however, in this case, fear is being used as a pathway to your true self. Therefore, the intent is not to get rid of fear through it's opposite or by using any other strategy. Nor is the intent to battle, judge, suppress or try running from fear. Fear met without defenses can open us to new dimensions of Soul. Fear provides the springboard to discover, through direct experience, the vastness of who you are.

To soulfully meet fear is now essential. Fear disconnects you from the more subtle and rich nature of everything and reduces the world to a collection of things and objects, including people. It is a form of desecration that ultimately wants to destroy. Fear is rapidly becoming more pervasive. Seismic changes are occurring in today's world involving forces that exist on such a massive scale that it is easy to feel helpless and powerless to deal with them. Ongoing exposure results in a chronic state of anxiety and fear that affects you without your awareness. You may become addicted to one thing or another, feel more separated, anxious and distrustful and anger may surface unexpectedly.  A slow process of numbing, contraction and shutting down of emotional depth can occur in which you don't feel a connection to anything meaningful. Flatness, despair and loss of knowing yourself can result along with the creation of a false, protected self to cover your essence and aliveness. You feel more alone, less engaged and more cut off from your inner life. Your body becomes armored. It is the subtle influence of fear that over time creates contraction and the lack of true connection. Instead your life is lived superficially. You no longer experience your true nature.This is why transforming fear is one of the most important spiritual capacities of our time and where a great break through can occur.

Typically, fear is reacted to in two ways. The first is keeping it at bay through distraction like shopping. The second is by controlling the environment, people and situations. Examples are using additional security measures [right to carry concealed weapons, gated communities, fences, burglar alarms], hiring more police, having elaborate tests and procedures if we are ill, over using medication, withdrawing, consuming alcohol and buying more to make ourselves more comfortable. This is based on the simplistic notion that if the causes of fear can be found and eliminated then there would be no more fear. The great irony of control is that the more control you exert, the more fear arises which creates a greater need for control. It is like a Chinese finger pull. When you pull harder to get your fingers out, the pressure increases and you become more fastened to the contraption, in this case, fear. There is no escape. There is always something to fear. A deeper answer awaits and is made possible when you realize fear is for shattering the false sense of self, including false securities, and piercing your well constructed layers toreveal your core.

Reflect upon the last time you were afraid or focus on a current fear.  Noticehow feartends to separate you from the center of your being. This is a key understanding that will be used as a spring board for experiencing your true nature in ways that otherwise might not be discovered. The tendency is to lose your center because fear is fragmenting. It creates doubt, confusion, hesitancy, isolation and loss of confidence. Instead of the wholeness of being, you are split and pulled apart. A sense of relatedness to yourself and what is around you is lost. While you are busy with strategies to avoid feeling fear or eliminating it, fear is undermining connection. When you medicate, make it a problem from childhood, use strategies such as thinking positively, solicit advise or say it is a result of not being close enough to God, the essence of connection and who you truly are is ignored. These tactics are directed towards buttressing an ego identity. Yet you can only have fear if all you have is an ego. Fear is a portal leading to a deeper and more conscious experience of Soul to balance out any and all fears. Fear can only be met with the totality of your being and it is fear's purpose to restore you to this fullness. When stressed, the tendency is to "think" the way through a situation. The Soul or essence of who you are is excluded.

The fear of death is the mother of all fears. Death represents the fear of not knowing yourself as you know yourself. Yet you have never really known yourself beyond a limited set of self-images, which have a history and continuity based upon repeated thoughts and behavioral patterns. Fear is fierce grace requiring a relinquishment of control or surrender at the worst moment. Overwhelmed with not knowing what to do, a river of fear takes you down the rapids and eventually delivers you to the ocean of your being. When you let go of fighting fear and are open to bringing a greater love to bear, the mystery of love and who you are unfolds in greater and greater depth.Fear leads you to dimensions and capacities of love that you never knew where there. It is not that "love is the opposite of fear" as a way of getting rid of fear but to know beyond a doubt that you are not alone. This is experiencing your Soul. How does this happen? Let go!

Letting go is made easier when you recognize and honor that there are always two great natural forces at work: the force of construction and the force of deconstruction. Both open a pathway for evolution of consciousness as a bud is shed so the flower can open. Wisdom is knowing the difference between will and love. One resists, the other transforms. How you respond to these two forces quite literally makes all the difference in the world.

Exercise:What most essentially needs addressing when there is fear is realizing the care that binds has been lost. Love has no place in the situation.Fear separates.Most fundamentally, fear keeps Soul apart from your consciousness.Therefore, fear is defined as being disconnected from the eternal. The fact that so many are "seeking spirit" as something outside of themselves is an indication of fear taking over to the extent that the person has lost his natural state or orientation. Fear and anxietyresult when we take ourselves to be separate. The truth of your being is that you are mysteriously part of everything. You are within all that is. Ordinary and familiar states of consciousness are the domain of ego consciousness, which by definition is a "self" separate from the outside and others. It is as if anxiety breaks through the limited thinking and exacerbates the immediate need to remember your true nature.

Therefore, when you feel fear, recognize this as the ego using fear to maintain and perpetuate itself as the center of your consciousness. Shift your focus to Soul consciousness. Align with your Soul by feeling into what your Soul is doing while the ego is being fearful. What do you experience when you remember the light within? Fear is not so much a result of what you see but how you see it. When you see it from your heart or Soul, what happens? Fear reminds you to return to living from your Soul and make that an ordinary part of everyday life.