The Ultimate Truth 4 - Living Fearlessly

Last time, I was talking about something I call the welcome breath. I've added a few more tips for using this technique in the comments on the previous post. You can find them here.

If you try the technique and would like to discuss it or give me feedback, do leave a comment. But if you've tried it and find that it doesn't work for you, then don't panic. There are lots of other ways of dealing with emotions - I mentioned a few of them last time. The only trouble is that some of them don't actually release the emotion, they just put a sticking plaster on it. It seems to me that the NLP anchoring technique falls into this category, for instance. Creative activity, which I also mentioned last time, is probably half and half. It's partly displacement activity, to take your mind off whatever you're feeling, but it's also possible that in your creative work you will be actually working through - and so releasing - the emotions.

EFT, emotional freedom technique, is the same as the welcome breath in that it seems to actually release the emotions. Nick Roach's technique for dissolving emotions (as described in the earlier post 'How To Deal With Difficult Emotions') also falls into this category. Indeed, it seems to me that the welcome breath is a variation on Nick's technique. Instead of simply observing the emotions, as Nick suggests, the welcome breath involves actively welcoming the emotions. The best thing to use is whatever works for you...

Quite aside from the sheer relief of getting rid of the things, there's another good reason why releasing these unhelpful emotions is so important. As I described in an earlier post, 'A Sun-Filled Room', our suppressed emotions block our connection to the sense of joy, of 'all-rightness', which is naturally ours. They block the connection to our true self. So releasing them is a vital part of spiritual development. This is true on a personal level but also on a global scale. If the transformation in consciousness which is needed for humanity's survival is to take place, then we as a race have to shed the great weight of hurt and grievance which makes our world such a painful, chaotic place. Only then can we stop hating and killing each other and join together to find a way to sort out our mutual problems. So when you work on releasing your suppressed emotions, you are not only helping yourself, you are helping us all. You are helping to shift a small part of the massive great hulking chip on humanity's shoulder.

Which really ought to be enough of an ultimate truth for one series of posts, don't you think? Except that this wasn't the ultimate truth I had in mind when I started this series. There's another one coming up in a minute, and this one is all about the full implications of total acceptance.

(That's the thing about ultimate truths: they're a bit like buses. You wait ages and then two come along at once...)

So just let's remind ourselves for a moment what we've been talking about in this series of posts. In part one, we discussed how practicing full acceptance means that sometimes you have to accept that you don't accept. This means being OK with all the 'negative' emotions which go along with that. In parts two and three, we went on to discuss how this acceptance can be achieved - and how full acceptance can actually help to release these emotions, freeing us from them forever.

But the point is that just being willing to accept these emotions is a big deal in itself. Think about what it means. If you can really be OK with the various negative emotions - the whole range of 'awful' emotions you can feel - you've done something very important. You've broken free to a place where there's no longer any need for fear. This is because, when you come right down to it, it isn't the 'awful' things in life of which we're afraid. It's the way they make us feel.

Just think about it. Think of any one thing of which you're afraid and ask yourself if it's really the thing itself which causes you fear or the way that thing makes you feel.

Let's do a few examples. Say you're afraid that your partner will leave you. Is it really their absence you fear or the way that absence may make you feel: the loneliness, the sense of loss, the hurt, the anger, the righteous indignation? The departure itself may have practical ramifications: you will have to make adjustments to your life. But once again, is it really those adjustments you fear or the way you may feel about having to make them? Think about losing your job or your home. The arguments are the same.

The ultimate fear, perhaps, is fear of death. But once again, isn't it really the feelings around it we fear: the having to say goodbye, the pain, the uncertainty? As for non-existence, is even that really an object of fear - or is it only the way we may feel about non-existence?

(I've a hunch we might be talking about this in the comments...)

So if all we really fear are our feelings but we've reached a stage where we're OK with having those feelings, what place is there left in our life for fear? What is there left of which to be afraid?

It seems to me that we have then reached a state of total freedom.

We should not underestimate the enormity of what this means. According to Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God, whatever action we take, our motivation comes from only one of two places: from love or from fear. If fear is overcome, then what remains?

In a post a few months ago, I quoted a Native American prayer about living fearlessly: "Oh Humankind," went the heartfelt cry, "we must stop fearing life, fearing each other... Life is wondrous, awesome and holy, a burning glory... Love is life believing in itself."

Could it be that there is a way to break free to this wonderful dream, this fearless life, this absolute freedom?

And could total acceptance be the key?

For if we've come to a place where we understand that all our fears are ultimately groundless, that it's OK to feel those 'horrible' feelings after all - and that if we do, it actually helps to get rid of them - then the hold which fear has upon us is overcome.

Then we are free to live the life we want to live - and to build the world of our dreams.

(I'm going away for a few days. As ever, any comments you make will be welcome! I shall respond when I return...)

 

These may also be of interest:

Mantinoquat's Prayer

A Sun-Filled Room

How Does it Feel to Win a Million?

Comments

[AngelBaby]

Simon,
I miss you already! I love this post. You're site is so inspiring.

I have something for you at my site.

Love and Blessings,
AngelBaby

[Liara Covert]

Simon, your reflections are engaging. Its meaningful to evolve to discern the difference between what can be described and what can only truly be fully felt or experienced. Its easy enough to state only certain ways of existing are possible. What life teaches you may defy words or familiar methods self-expression. We learn all the time, if we're ready and willing.

[Sue Ann Edwards]

"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

"Out of plight the night that covers me,
Black as pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods that may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menance of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am captain of my Soul."

Maybe if he had realized that it was his 'soul' that was his awareness, his consciousness, that empowered him to write with such fervor, he would have *known* he was eternal and Love, Unconditional, and he would not have suffered the "horrors of the shade"?

[Grace]

Irrational fears are sooooo, well

irrational :)

The fear of flying is mine! lol

[Simon]

Hi Angelbaby – Guess what? I didn’t go away after all. Our trip got canceled because my wife injured her back in the shower, so we’ve had a great opportunity to practice acceptance ourselves. It’s funny how life keeps throwing up such opportunities, isn’t it? But I’m really pleased that you liked this post.

[Simon]

Hi Liara – Hmm. I think you’re telling me I didn’t quite get my ideas across this time. My wife agrees: “It’s not very clear, is it?” Serves me right for trying to cram two ultimate truths into a single post, I suppose. I still think it *is* possible to put this stuff into words, though whether it will bear any relation to people’s current experience of the world – and therefore actually mean a great deal - is another matter.

I believe that one of the functions of art is to say the unsayable, so perhaps that’s why that Native American writer, Manitonquat, expressed himself in a poem – and perhaps I should try putting this in a book instead of a blog post. The thing is, though, a large part of what I’m trying to do is to provide a practical road map for people to make changes. Poetry can inspire – but it doesn’t get you there.

[Simon]

Sue Ann – Speaking of poetry, thanks for sharing this! ‘Invictus’ got me wondering whether its author really had a rough time in life or was just a bit of a drama queen. I looked up his bio to find that he had a foot amputated in his twenties and his daughter died at the age of six, so I’m willing to accept it’s the former. Which challenges this post of mine quite nicely. It’s all very well for me to talk about us overcoming fear, but how does that square up against amputations and infant mortality? The real world appears to be very different from Manitonquat’s ideal.

The writer of ‘Invictus’ had great resilience, but he clearly saw himself as a lone soul in a daunting world. This is the consciousness in which most of us remain. What it takes to overcome it is not just courage (which this guy had) but also the understanding that the world we see around us is a reflection of what is inside of us, that if we can peer fearlessly into the shade and experience what is really there, we can start to create a world in which those ‘horrors’ no longer have the power to bind us.

But as you say, Sue Ann, he didn’t realize his true nature – no more than I do most of the time (except when I’m writing this blog!)

It’s a strange thing, but when I start writing about this ‘ultimate truth’ of mine, I have a vision in my head but then I seem to run out of words. Perhaps Liara was right about it being unsayable. Perhaps I should try putting it down in a flow chart instead. It would go something like this:

1) The world is full of horrors of which we are scared.
(followed by)
2) The world is full of horrors which scare us no longer.
(leading to)
3) The world is no longer full of so many horrors.

How do you get from 1 to 2? Acceptance.
How do you get from 2 to 3? The law of attraction.
But acceptance has to come first.

[Simon]

Hi Grace – A lot of the time, this blog is very much ‘do as I say, not as I do’. I have as many fears as anyone else. But what I’m trying to say, I suppose, is that *all* our fears are irrational. All we have to do to understand that is to allow ourselves to fully experience them. What was it the lady said? Feel the fear and do it anyway. Then what is there left of which to be afraid?

Thanks for your comments!

[Wolfbernz]

Hi Simon,
I really like your post.
I have found in my life that once I let go and let life flow through me without fighting my own destiny I am at peace within.
Sometimes it is difficult to let go but when we do, we finally can see what is in-store for our lives and move forward in a positive fashion.

All the best

[Harmony]

Hey Simon,

Interesting how we are forever teaching ourselves the truths and then living them as though we were establishing the truth as a fact in our experience.

I am of course referring to your post about acceptance, and then your having to accept the cancellation of your trip.

Thanks for living your truth and holding some space for the rest of us. :-)

Fear was a constant companion of mine for many years. It was hidden, as I appeared confident, but we were consumate buddies. I fed him a regular diet of compulsive thinking, and he offered me a prison where I could feel safe from harm. NOT

Your post reminds me that if I am okay, good to go, easy does it, and hang loose with the circumstances, good or bad in appearance, I can experience what I have always longed for; freedom.

Fear of Death - what death?
Harmony

[mergingpoint]

Unless there is fear, chances of experiencing the freedom of fearlessness becomes reduntant. Its like having the experience of both good and the bad. Then, going beyond makes sense and its very difficult to express it through the senses.
You need to just experience and probably express as indicators.

[Simon]

Hi Wolfbernz – Thanks for your comment. It’s great to hear from you – and great that you have experienced this. It is indeed wonderful when we can just accept and ‘go with the flow’. But like you say, it can be difficult to let go. It’s like we’re in a river and our instinct is to seize at the reeds on the bank to save ourselves. What we lose sight of is that the river is our life.

[Simon]

Hi Harmony – I know that you are new to the world of blogging, so special greetings! You also clearly know how great it can feel to be ‘in the flow’ - and I hope you may tell us on your blog about how you came to see less of that unwelcome companion of yours...

As you say, the cancellation of our trip has been a useful lesson in acceptance. It’s a lesson I still need to keep on learning unfortunately. At least now I understand that even when I don’t accept, I still have the opportunity to accept my non-acceptance. And when I fail to accept even that, at least I’m noticing what I’m doing. I’m aware that I have a choice.

[Simon]

Merging point – Thanks for your comment too! It’s an interesting point you make: that we have to know fear in order to experience the freedom of fearlessness. It reminds me of what Eckahrt Tolle was saying in his webcast this week: that pain is an excellent gateway to awakening. In fact, I think I may write about what Eckhart said in my next post...

[Harmony]

Simon,

I appreciate your warm welcome.
And a small note on seeing less of fear - you said it well, even noticing that you feel fear, even if you don't know how to shake it, is the beginning of freedom!

[Simon]

I agree, Harmony. You have to be able to see what's happening before you can change it.

[Donna DeVane]

Wonderful article. I am inspired by your wonderful way of expressing yourself. Thank you.

Hugs,
Donna

[Simon]

Many thanks for your comment, Donna, and thanks for dropping by. I hope you'll call again!