After my retreat with Tom Campbell this past January I wrote that I was inspired to write a book and this is the beginning of that book. The working title, In Fear We Trust, came to me because even though we like to deny it our fears are what we put our trust in. When we discuss fears we like to pretend we are discussing phobias and that most of us don’t believe we have major phobias and therefore we don’t believe we have fears. However, as we are a part of this time and place I am going to suggest that we all have fears and these fears rule our lives. Follow me in this. If we didn’t have fears our Soul or Individuated Consciousness would never know to Evolve or Grow Up. Our Core fears like abandonment, unworthiness, unlovableness, failure, loss and the unknown push us to Evolve.

Let’s start with a definition of ‘fear’. Our dictionaries define ‘fear’ something like: “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.” This is accurate – however it doesn’t explain that our fears are what we chose to work through in this life to assist us in growing. It doesn’t explain that our core fears are governing how we live our life. We think we are a victim to circumstances beyond our control when in fact our ‘victimhood’ is merely those deeper fears such as abandonment/BEing alone, unworthiness, unlovableness, failure, loss – including everything mixed up around ‘death’, and the unknown. These fears, these deeper fears, create disharmony within us – pushing us and our emotions to our limits, seemingly – in such a way that we try to distract ourselves to make our lives bearable and maybe to make it seem like we even have everything within our control.

Our emotions are just our mind/ego’s way of distracting us from our deeper core fears that our unconscious believes are too painful. Our ego uses distractions so that we don’t get too caught up in our emotional state that we become overwhelmed by our fears. We have learned that when our emotions are too powerful we shut down through distracting ourselves from our fears, by using … addiction. We use different addictions to cope: alcohol, sugar, drugs, sex, binge watching TV or Netflix, and other socially acceptable or unacceptable activities.

What’s more disturbing is that it is through our fears that we “feel” and trust more than the Truth: the Truth that we are Infinite Beings with unfathomable abilities and consciousness.

Our fears are what we trust because we don’t feel worthy, lovable, successful, Infinite or ‘Tapped into the Higher Consciousness of Source’. Instead we allow our fears to guide us, our Ego to determine how to live our life. Our Ego needs to feel in control; however, our fears make our Ego feel out of control; so our Ego pretends that it is in control and that it has no fears. However, these fears have been with us all of our lives and even distracting behavior created from these fears and they are solidly in place by the time we hit the age of 7.

In its own way our ego believes it is helping us with our overwhelming fears through emotions that trigger reactions to distract us from the pain our fears create.

Our emotions distract us from the core fear we are working towards – or perhaps the core fear we SHOULD be working towards – facing. We literally don’t see or feel our fears because we have created years of mechanisms of coping with our fears, mechanisms designed to distract ourselves from feeling the power of these debilitating fears … or the powerlessness we feel when a core fear is triggered.

Our ego makes us believe that we are in control of our lives and that we are making the best choices for living our lives. However instead of being in control and making the best choices our ego also makes us powerless to face our fears because the ego has distracted us to the point where our deepest fears are hidden beneath our behaviors and it is these behaviors that distract us from actually feeling our fears.

For example: having a core fear around abandonment or Being alone will trigger an emotion that has been packaged in a box called “abandonment” – but it shows up as depression, sadness or anger and then as soon as we feel the powerlessness of Being Abandoned we distract ourselves through the emotions of depression, sadness or anger – and because abandonment – or the emotions we distract the feelings of abandonment with – feels so uncomfortable we will find an addiction that will hold the uncomfortable emotions (anger, sadness or depression) that are actually a distraction and we distract ourselves with yet another distraction like reading, eating comfort foods, or even exercise that shift the discomfort which has been an even further distraction from the ‘real’ fear of abandonment. See how that works? A pattern has been created to not only distract us but to completely confuse us on what is really happening and to draw us further away from the ‘core fear’ that we chose at a spiritual level to work through so that we could grow. Growing up becomes much more convoluted with all the ways in which we have chosen to distract ourselves.

What a confusing mess we create! It’s no wonder we feel we don’t have fears – because they are so hidden by first emotions and then behaviors.

Phew – do you understand how incredible we really are? Our ego has discovered ways to push our “growth”, our Spiritual Enlightenment, away by focusing on something else so that we won’t feel the impact of our core fears because our ego believes they are too powerful and we couldn’t possibly work through and make the choices that would empower and enlighten us by facing our core fears. In its own way our ego believes it is helping us with our overwhelming fears through emotions that trigger reactions to distract us from the pain our fears create.

It’s confusing just to try and explain the kind of protection mechanism of the ego – yet the ego doesn’t really protect us at our core – and knowing this is important because overcoming the false protection is the reason we are here – we are here to Evolve and Grow Up. To do that we must become aware of the fears that govern our lives. We must not only recognize the fears but to recognize the addictions we use as distractions – and then to recognize the emotions that try to hide the core fear and then, if all this isn’t enough, we need to recognize the behaviors we use as distractions to keep from feeling uncomfortable. What a confusing mess we create! It’s no wonder we feel we don’t have fears – because they are so hidden by first emotions and then behaviors.

The key to our growing up is:

To BE conscious of the choices we are making and to refrain from making unconscious reactions to our feeling uncomfortable.

To BEcome conscious of all choices we make – instead of living on automatic default.

To BE aware of our emotions and the attempts we make to distract ourselves.

And to Remember that we are Perfect Right NOW! We don’t need to change – but rather just become Conscious of what we are doing right now.

This isn’t easy work. However it can be an opportunity to expand our consciousness and connect into the Infinite Love, Acceptance and Joy that is within us at all times. It allows us the opportunity to face the fears we chose in order to Grow Up and uncover the Truth and Inner Being that is really who we are! Join me on this incredible journey Home. Instead of In Fear We Trust – Let’s change it to In Love We Trust!