S1 EP35 – What Fear is Telling You

Transcript
Hi everyone. This is Dr. Margaret Paul with the inner bonding podcast. And today I want to talk about what fear is telling you. There is a very important feeling. It can have a lot of information for us, or it can lead us down a very negative spiral that actually feeds upon itself. So, so today I want to talk about the two different kinds of fear and what each kind is it’s telling you.

So if you’re constantly to different places, one is from our inner knowing about current situation. We’re, we’re reacting to a real and present danger. That’s a very important fear to pay attention to. And the other kind of fear comes from our ego wound itself, making up the future and scaring us about the bad things that can happen that are not actually happening in the moment.

So, first I want to talk about fear of real and present danger. And then I’m going to talk about the fear that we create from our wound itself. So do you know important for you to tune into, do you know how your body alerts you to the fear of real and present danger? So some of the things that you might want to pay attention to some of the way the body alerts is, are that you may suddenly feel a sense of dread that feels very different than the anxiety kind of fear that the wound itself creates.

It’s a sense of inner knowing. It’s an intuitive feeling that you need to take some action on your behalf or on behalf of someone else now, or you might hear your higher guidance informing you to take an action. Now, like I did, when I was driving home from the airport one, even which I must’ve told you about, but, but I was, I was coming home from doing a workshop and I was coming home from the airport and I wasn’t going fast, but I heard a loud voice say slow down.

Now, fortunately, I listened, sounded like somebody was in the backseat of my car, but I did slow down and seconds later, a drunk driver careened across the freeway. And I probably would have, I mean, he was really going fast. I probably would have died if I hadn’t have slowed down. And he ended up going in front of me instead of into me. So it’s really important to develop that relationship with your higher guidance, which I talk about a lot and be open to it all day long that that guidance is what keeps us safe and we’re open to it and we’re, we’re listening.

And I’m just so thankful that I listened that evening. Now you might, well, you know, the, the there’s an fight or flight reaction when there’s a sudden danger, you know, like if you’re being physically attacked in the moment, your body will go into an automatic fight or flight. And that’s very, very important. That’s a life-saving measure. Our bodies are designed to respond with the fight or flight or freeze mechanism to real and present danger.

So in, in the phase of real and present danger, the adrenaline flows and the blood drains out of our organs and brain and into our limbs to enable us for fight or flight or, or if we have to freeze, which is a form of dissociation. If that’s our only option. Now, the problem with freeze is that all the adrenaline gets stuck. And that’s what happens actually with the kind of fear that we create with our wound itself. It gets stuck. But when, when we’re, when, when there’s an actual attack, something that’s, you know, endangering us and we fight or flee that that reaction is very, very important.

It’s life-saving. And that, that gets w we release that adrenaline. It doesn’t get stuck. We discharge this stress reaction so that when the danger is over, we can shake it off and go back into equilibrium. So this isn’t at all. What happens when our ego wound itself is in charge. There’s a wonderful acronym for fear that many of you have heard for the kind of fear that we create from our wound itself, false evidence appearing real F E a R might want to remember that when you’re feeling the kind of anxiety that comes from your wound itself, predicting the future, much of the fear in our lives is based on false evidence.

And because of this many people spend much of their time in the fight or flight reaction when there’s no real or present danger. And this is because the body responds the same way to imagine danger as it does to real danger. The body thinks that the false evidence coming from our thoughts is real. So the adrenaline flows and the blood drains out of our organs and brains and into our limbs to prepare us for fight or flight, but it just stays there without fighting or fleeing or doing something like an intense physical activity.

We get stuck in the fight or flight or freeze response. Now this constant state of fear can lead to various addictions, because then you want to know mouth to fear. So you might be using food or alcohol or drugs or nicotine or gambling or sex or porn or TV, shopping approval, attention, work, anger, rage, violence, to sell for others. All of these can be used to try and block the fear that we are actually creating with our own thoughts.

So think about how do you, the fear response in your body? What do you tell yourself? Do you ruminate about the future that rejection or failure or loss of others, or loss of yourself for loss of money? The one itself loves to predict the future, even in the phase of no actual evidence that any of this is happening now, of course, it’s different. If you’re currently being threatened by financial or food insecurity by economic insecurity, due to your job, or by death due to COVID or other factors, this is about real and present danger rather than about something you’re making up.

And of course it is alerting you that, that you have to take some action. We’re abandoning ourselves. We allow ourselves to make up thoughts about the future that scare us. This would be like saying to a child you’re going to end up all alone. No one will ever love you. Everyone’s going to reject you now saying this to a child would be considered child abuse. Yet many people tell these same things to themselves over and over when there’s no objective truth about these statements.

Even people that I’ve worked with my clients were very wealthy and have no reason to fear losing money, ruminate about it and scare themselves. It’s called inner child. Well, I call it inner child abuse, treating our child in a way that, that keeps us in that fight or flight reaction. So I used to have a lot of fear in my body. When I had my children, I would make up terrible things that could happen to them.

And I just felt terrorized. Now, thankfully, none of these terrible things I made up happen, but of course these, these thoughts created a lot of ongoing fear in my body. And a lot of new mothers feel that it’s, it’s hard when you have a baby and you love that child with your whole heart and soul. It’s hard not to be scared, but it certainly doesn’t help anything. And there really is a way out of this, which is practicing the inner bonding process while the inner bonding process for moving beyond fear is simple.

It’s not always easy. It takes a deep commitment and a deep devotion to moving beyond your addictions. Your addictions do numbing out and your addictions to the thoughts that are creating fear and really be devoted to creating peace and joy in your being. So if you’re motivated here’s, you can do when you feel fear coming from your thoughts, rather than from something that’s actually happening externally, take some deep breaths and move your attention toward the place of fear in your body.

Don’t do something to, to try and get rid of it like an addiction. Don’t move away from it, get present with it, and then tune in to what you’re telling yourself. That’s causing the fear or what itself has many beliefs and statements about. What if, you know, just tune in and you’ll hear all, all the, what ifs that the woman itself does. And also projections and predictions about the future. That cause fear believing that if we focus on what we don’t want, we can somehow have control over it, not happening, but as the law of attraction States, the end, which has worked really well for me, the opposite is actually true.

We’re manifestors and our thoughts are a primary way. We manifest along with our actions. When we think about what we don’t want, we have a much better chance of manifesting that. And if we think about what we do want, we have a much better chance of manifesting that. And now once you understand what you’re thinking, that’s causing the fear open to learning, move into your heart, open to learning with your inner or your higher self, your intuitive knowing and ask.

What is the truth about this negative? Thinking about what your ego wounded self is saying. You might not know what the truth is, but neither does your wounded self. Since it can’t predict the future. But remembering that you’re going to have a much easier time manifesting what you want when you’re change. When you change your thinking to what you want, rather than what you don’t want, can help you shift your thoughts. Then notice how you feel.

If you feel less fearful and more peaceful, then you know, you’re in alignment with what can be true for you. Our wound itself hates uncertainty and often would rather predict something that you don’t want to have happen. Then live in the reality of not knowing the outcome of things. And this is important for you to take in what I just said, because we hate in certainty.

We’d rather predict something we don’t want than just be present for the uncertainty of life. Very often in my sessions with clients, a person will want to try something new, but is stuck in not taking the loving action. They’re procrastinating. What are you afraid of? I ask, I don’t know. What will happen is often the answer, since we never know what’s going to happen from one moment to the next not knowing what’s going to happen is not really the problem.

The real problem is that we often project scary thoughts and images. As I’ve said onto the future onto the unknown, we make things up that scare us into doing nothing. Isn’t that strange. You can just as easily make up wonderful thoughts and images. But when instead we make up frightening ones, we allow our wound itself to take over filling the unknown with all the bad things that can happen instead of the great things that can happen. But the wound itself believes it can pre it can protect you from the future from, from future disappointment, by predicting bad things ahead of time.

According to the wound itself, if you don’t take the risk, you’re going to be safe yet. What this actually does is create fear, which is it certainly doesn’t feel safe if you’re stuck wanting to do something but not doing it. It’s likely that you’re allowing your wound itself to populate the unknown with thoughts and images that scare you. For example, let’s say that you always wanted to learn to ride a horse, but you just can’t seem to get yourself to take riding lessons. You might be telling yourself things like, Oh, I’m going to make a fool out of myself.

Oh, I’ll I’ll I’m, I’m just going to fail the instructor, the instructor, and other people. They’re going to end up thinking bad things about me, making fun of me. I’ll find out that I really can’t do it. Then I’m just inadequate. I’m going to get rejected by the people there. I’m going to get hurt. I’m going to really get hurt and I’m going to die. Obviously, as long as you’re projecting these scary thoughts onto the unknown future, you will likely not do what you might really want to do.

Now you could just as easily fill up the future with exciting thoughts, such as this will be really fun and exciting. I love learning, challenging new things. I’m going to get to meet a lot of people and they’re going to be kind and supportive with me. I’m going to feel so great that I finally learned to do this. Even if you do go ahead and take the lessons while holding onto the scary thoughts. It’s likely that you will not have nearly the wonderful experience you could have had.

If you focus on the exciting thoughts, the wound itself is deeply programmed to fill the unknown future with negative, scary thoughts. Do you really want to continue to allow this ignorant programmed part of you to determine what you do? The woman herself has no access to a source of truth, no access to your inner or higher guidance. It can only think what has been to think it’s thoughts are not based on reality because it can’t predict the future.

So it spouts out only what has been taught, basing your choices on these old program. Fear based thoughts are going to keep you fearful and likely stuck. Although some people do believe that it’s motivating and they do take the action, but, but unfortunately, even if they do it, they don’t feel very good about it. Like taking the riding lessons when you’re scared to death, it doesn’t feel very good. Even if you take the action when you’re doing it from fear.

So at any moment, you have the choice to move out of your program, wounded self and interconnection with your guidance and with truth, you have the choice to fill the unknown future with excitement and joy, which person do you think is happier and much fearful in life and, and, and much less fearful in life. The one who allows her when does help to be in charge of the one who is willing to allow their guidance to lead them next time you really want to do something new, but you find yourself stuck not doing it.

Recognize that you’re allowing your ego wounded self to fill your unknown future with all the bad things that can happen. Shift your intention, to loving yourself and consciously feel the future with all the great things that can happen. And then take the loving actions and learn to accept the unknown with excitement rather than with fear after all life would be really boring. If we always knew the future would be like seeing the same movie over and over, there’s no juice to it.

All of us have a, have a wounded part of us that wants to control not getting hurt, but this is actually causing most of our fear. How do you shift out of your wound itself with the lies that scare us and into your spiritually connected, loving adult who has the truth by tuning into your feelings so that, you know, the moment you’re feeling that fear, the wounded fear, as I’ve said, is letting you know that your one itself isn’t charge lying to you.

Once you really get this. Once you understand this, then you need to learn to be a loving, but firm, inner parent, and stop indulging your wound itself. Who’s scaring your inner child. I often tell people to sit on their wound itself, and this comes from an actual event. Here’s the story that led me to tell people to sit on their wound itself. One brought a woman, brought her nine year old son to the great psychologist Erickson.

Her son was completely out of control, stealing, breaking windows in the neighborhood and at school. And generally terrorizing the neighborhood. His mother had tried everything to gain some control over him, punishing him and then lock him in his room. But nothing was working. Erickson told her what to do. She took her son home and sat on him. She could see the TV, but he couldn’t. While she was sitting on him, she kept saying out loud, the doctor told me that I have to sit on you until I can figure out what to do with you.

And I just can’t figure it out. So she sat on him all day. He could get up just to you, go to the bathroom and eat and drink water. The next day she put them on the floor. Now she obviously wasn’t a very heavy woman, so she could sit on him. And she sat on him again, repeating what the doctor had told her to say, which was, she didn’t know what to do. Finally. In the afternoon of the second day, the boy said, well, I know what to do. You do? What said his mother?

Well, I need to get back to the things I still in pay for the windows. I broke and stopped doing things like that. What a great idea said, his mother, the boy did, as he said, he wouldn’t stop terrorizing the neighborhood. Finally, someone bigger than him had set the limits, which is exactly what he needed. This nine-year-old boy actually didn’t feel safe. And he didn’t feel loved as long as there was no one limiting his acting out behavior.

And our inner system is exactly the same or wound itself may seem to be big and out of control, but it’s just really a child or adolescent can needs limits. The only part of us big enough to set this, these limits and sit on our wound itself is our spiritually connected, loving adult. We’re not going to have the strength to set loving limits on ourselves by ourselves. We can do it only in connection with our source of love by ourselves.

We’re operating as one wounded part, trying to control another wounded part by judging them, which never works. So when you judge yourself for acting out or, or procrastinating not doing what you want to do, that’s just one part of you when itself is, is resisting. Another part of your wound itself is judging and it’s a, it’s a very negative circle that will not work with our higher self. We can have the strength and power to sit inner limits and follow through on them.

We’re never going to feel safe and loved until we develop a loving adult capable of setting, compassionate, but firm inner limits for the wounded part of us that creates fear. Once we understand what the false beliefs are, what the lies are that were telling us, as long as we indulge her wound itself in self abandoning, controlling, addictive behavior, we’re going to feel inwardly abandoned and fearful and itself wants to indulge in negative scary thoughts that try and I feel safe yet.

It’s the indulging itself in these negative thoughts that causes so much of our fear. So instead of indulging your wound itself, practice sitting on him with, with appropriate limits saying, no step back, back off, you know, nothing you are coming from ignorance. The challenge here is, and having the loving adult in charge rather than the wound itself, this will occur through practicing, staying connected with your spiritual guidance throughout the day.

The more you practice, the six steps of inner bonding, which develops your loving adult, the more power the adult has to limit the thoughts and actions of the wound itself, who is, as I said, just a child, trying to have control over, feeling safe. Imagine how safe you would feel if you had a powerful, spiritually connected, loving adult self, making the decisions regarding your highest good, rather than your immature wound itself, scaring you. One of the things that I found because I’ve been practicing in our body for many years now, is that the more I learned to connect with my higher guidance and, and show up as a loving adult and set limits on my wound itself, explore the false beliefs which I did at the beginning of my inner bonding process.

And after a while I knew what they were and I just set really firm limits. I, the minute I felt anything other than peace inside and fullness, I just looked in and saw what I was telling myself, placed a limit on it and went to my guidance for the higher truth. And after a while, a couple of things happened. First of all, I retrained my brain to be a loving adult and to go there much more automatically. Secondly, because I wasn’t listening to my wound itself anymore. That part of me just seemed to, I don’t know, kind of curl up in my heart and, and let go.

And that’s amazing when that happens. It’s amazing when the wound itself says, okay, I give up, you’re doing a better job of keeping us safe than I am, and you’re not listening to me anyway. So I’m just going to back off. It’s an amazing experience when that finally happened. So I really encourage you to practice inner bonding, and you’re going to find yourself feeling so much more peace and so much less of the fear, not the fear of real and present danger with the fear that comes from the fear, false beliefs of your wound itself, the lies of your wound itself.

Now, I really encourage those of you who want to learn inner bonding to take my love yourself course. The live version starts on January 13th with my participation in the forum and coaching calls. You can take the, the, the, the course without me, the version without me, anytime you want. But if you want to do it with me, it starts January 13th. You know, again, I encourage you to go to the inner bonding site, take advantage of everything we offer.

That’s free, including our free course, and many other ways we have of supporting you and look into joining inner bonding village. It’s a wonderful, caring, compassionate, and support community. So with the holidays upon us, not a lot of joy for a lot of people, I want to encourage you to take very loving care of yourself, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. During these holidays, I send you a loving, loving blessings for your health and your safety and your wellbeing.