So what do I mean about being fearless? Well, I don’t suggest that you go out and find things that scare you witless and learn how not to be afraid of them. That’d be a fairly pointless way of adding to what you already have. Don’t get me wrong, I quite admire anyone who can go up in a plane and jump out of it with a parachute on their back, but our ultimate purpose is to remove what we already have, not give ourselves more stuff to resolve.
You’re likely to have accrued quite a collection of emotions by the time you read this. Even if you’re a teenager, most of your life issues have already occurred – and they repeat over and over until you work out the lesson! – even if you don’t recognise them as such. If nothing else, I soon discovered that most of the issues that personally affected me began when I was in primary school. And most of the beliefs that I have now as an adult were already inbuilt by parental suggestions and school experience. Then, as I aged, the same situations repeated, albeit dressed in different costumes.
A common example of this is the experience of being bullied. You may suffer bullying as a child and wonder why it happens to you. You develop a mindset of lower self-worth and the experience of bullying seems to follow you wherever you go. You could move schools and still feel the sting of it. Until that is, you find the means to overcome the mindset. Whether that is by sticking up for yourself or (more satisfyingly) not being afraid of the words as they are spoken. Fear perpetuates negative situations to give you the push to overcome them.
Granted, it’s easy and natural to get caught up in the situation itself, but I would suggest that if you can take a step back, you will see that whenever you have stopped being afraid of something, the negative situations that accompanied the fears suddenly stop as well. Go figure! For this reason alone, I found that the more I overcame my fears, the more peaceful (and calm) my life became.
So, fearlessness is being free from the mindset of fear – well that makes sense. But more to the point, fearlessness is not responding to words and deeds that externally try to provoke a reaction within you. This could be because they never have, or if you have had the strength to overcome them.
I like to think of fear (and all the other emotions) as energy bubbles wrapped up in our personality. Think of it like plastic bubble wrap. Some of us walk around with layers of it, literally caught up in a mindset of fear and anger and guilt and all those other nasties. Others of us have managed to stay naturally stronger (through limited negative experience in their lives or a natural ability to shield themselves from it) OR they have learnt how to pop the bubbles so that the emotions don’t affect them like they once did.
For all of us though, the ideal is to have no negative emotion whatsoever. You laugh. That seems impossible right? Not really. Think of when you were a kid – before you started school and things got complicated. Think of the times when you could sit for hours playing with a single toy. We could do so because our minds were free of emotion, and peace was the most prevalent experience to be had. That experience CAN BE HAD AGAIN. By removing fear and negative emotion, we allow for more space in our minds. In creating space, our minds expand. It’s like taking a heavy burden from our shoulders. But the relief we feel continues on – it isn’t temporary. That peace in our minds continues and grows the more we let go of our emotional baggage. Ultimately when nothing else is left – well that’s enlightenment. But you don’t have to go that far – you just need to start letting go of the small things. That will naturally lead you to the bigger things. The greater the amount of bigger things you remove, the lighter you will feel, and the happier your lives become.
How to release? Well there’s loads of different methods. Three of them (so far) are mentioned in this blog. Try Self Enquiry. And if that seems too complicated, then go for Emotional Freedom Technique (and similarly YouTapping). Feel free to comment below…
