A Swift Kick - Part 2

Ah yes, fear.

The greatest block to everything in the universe. It acts like a thick cloud of darkness that stimulates all kinds of strange and horrible images of all the worse that could happen.

You could trip. You could fall. You could get hurt. You could die. You could lose everything... People could laugh... Aren't those the sort of thoughts that prance around in your mind when you start to feel the fear of the unknown? Isn't that the sort of thing you worry about when you're afraid? You say to yourself, "what if I fail? What if I miss something and it all goes horribly wrong? What if I can't do it? Why do I even bother? This is stupid, I always get my hopes up...". And that's how we defeat ourselves.

We fail because we feel the fear and convince ourselves that all we can experience is failure... or petty success that feels just like failure.

Of course, there is an answer to the question of fear. To overcome fear, or at least move forward in spite of fear, focus on its opposite. It is a movement towards courage. That is the first step. To "feel the fear and do it anyway" as Susan Jeffers encourages. To find our power and move forward. In other words, to give yourself a swift kick in the rear and get going. That's usually something that happens only when people reach the breaking point, where they think, "I can't go on like this... I've had enough!" and they move into what Tony Robbins called "massive action" and total life transformation.

And that's how it starts. First, we feel tremendous pain that pushes us to the edge. Then we find courage. Eventually, we move deeper and deeper into greater courage through many stages of acceptance of personal responsibility for everything in your life and releasing of attachment to specific outcomes until finally we arrive at total fearlessness.

Yes. Total Fearlessness. Where everything could happen as before, or 100 times worse, and you feel no fear at all. You are just a watcher, although perhaps slightly curious...

Fearlessness is very near the opposite end of fear on the emotional spectrum. Yet it's still not quite it's opposite. Fearlessness is an absence of fear, it isn't really anything itself. It's more like a vacuum which needs to be filled with something, otherwise it will revert back to its opposite - just like the relationship with the yin and the yang.

So, what is the opposite of fear?

"The opposite of fear... is love," as Steven Pressfield writes in Gates of Fire.

The opposite of fear is love.

Take a deep breath and think about that for a minute.

...


What does that mean?

The opposite of fear is love.

It means that instead of thinking about all the bad things that you fear about making the changes that you desire, focus on all the good that you love that will come out of that change. The more you think about what you love, the more your mind will get into the habit of thinking about what you love. And thinking about what you love will fill you with the energy and joy to make it happen. And that's how you get over fear and actually accomplish something.

Focus on what you love. It will envelop your mind, and soon, your entire reality.

JOYGASM!

Haha!

Go for it. Be fearless.
Life is your garden, cultivate all that you love.

CHB

Copyright © Charles Begin