Practical solutions for people + planet
How do you deal with fear?
When I recently asked an acquaintance who's a CPA how he's preparing for a recession, he replied, "Chickens, guns and ammo." I laughed. But he was serious.
I understand the chickens, but guns and ammo? That brought home to me what a fear-saturated culture we've become.
To be sure, there's plenty of cause for fear, but I think most of the crises we're facing are interconnected and therefore affect us all sooner or later. What scared me most was the CPA's "I'm defending what's mine" approach.
Then I remembered a bumpersticker a friend gave me years ago: "Encourage your hopes, not your fears." It seems a little corny, but it's what I'm trying to do.
What are your fears for the future and how are you dealing with them?
I understand the chickens, but guns and ammo? That brought home to me what a fear-saturated culture we've become.
To be sure, there's plenty of cause for fear, but I think most of the crises we're facing are interconnected and therefore affect us all sooner or later. What scared me most was the CPA's "I'm defending what's mine" approach.
Then I remembered a bumpersticker a friend gave me years ago: "Encourage your hopes, not your fears." It seems a little corny, but it's what I'm trying to do.
What are your fears for the future and how are you dealing with them?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gingeroo on -
My favorite acronym about FEAR: False Evidence About Reality.
My only way of conquering fear, recognizing that it doesn't exist in the present. You're only afraid of what has happened to you in the past, or what could potentially happen in the future.
So prepare for the worst, but don't be scared :)
I'm making plans for goats and chickens, a garden big enough to feed me all summer and enough to can some veggies for next winter. I got a sewing machine for my birthday, a pedal bike, a motorcycle and bee keeping equipment too. These are my reasonable preparations for the looming "doomsday".
I find that if I get lost in fears of the future, I forget to take time to enjoy today. So I encourage your hopes Kim! And mine too.
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Permalink Reply by Afriendof B on -
A very wise person once said the following and it has been bouncing around in my head as being related to this issue.
"You may not be what you think you are. Bu, what you think, you are." - Brian Tracy
Our expectations become manifest in our reality. If we dwell on fear, we live in fear. If we expect global destruction we act in ways that make it happen. If we change what we think about all the time we change what we do, and that can change the world.
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Permalink Reply by Len Williams on -
When I look around at all the people coming aware in the simpler terms like noticing they can feel people looking at them. Then realizing that some people are more of a head turner than others and why? We are moving toward unity and these small awarenesses are opening many already to telepathy and sending and receiving energy. I am not some promoter of a book or something but just noticing my own awareness open and the obvious signs of the same. Sort of like everybody having the same car after you get one.
Can we create our world? Can we not?
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Permalink Reply by Dan O on -
Action is the key. Get the garden in. Do your work. Write things on spec. Have a tag sale. Killing your television also not a bad idea. Government and insurance companies make their living on your fear - deny them sustenance.
Count your blessings. I got an email from my friend in the Congo. He said there are hunger riots, prices have tripled, the civil war rages on and he's really worried about the future. I sent him cash by Western Union, as much as I could afford.
These are real problems. Even those of us who are broke in America have a standard of living a Pharoah would envy. In the absence of real problems, we invent them for ourselves, or allow others to invent them for us.
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Permalink Reply by Chris at HumankindMedia on -
Kim - Thanks for this discussion. My personal thoughts about fear are that it's just a series of thoughts and opinions in the mind; and that depending upon your your circumstances and your awareness, those thoughts can be motivating and inspire you to action, or can be debilitating and spiral you into despair and inaction.
I love the discussion going on here. This topic is close to my heart. Last year as a response to what I felt was a fearful and sometimes conflict-laden social narrative in the media I started HumanKind Media. I hope over time, as we humans are coming together in communities such as Bioneers, WiserEarth and the thousands of other networks and communities for change around the globe, that we will create more media filled with the other stories--about our possibilities and our heroes and organizations who have taken on the big problems and are showing us how--as a counter to the current narrative of fear and separation.
Here is our invitation at HumanKind Media. I hope you'll all consider lobbying where you can for a different media diet for a healthier world.
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Permalink Reply by Leilakin on
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I remember someone saying to me that fear is false evidence appearing real. This is an empowering statement. As if, fear is belief in something false, and all I have to do is stop believing in it and it disappears.
But what if what I fear is real? Like the state of our environment... the state of our bodies... The state of our souls?
I seek for empowering ways to overcome these fears, yet I still fear that our water, soil, and air will be so polluted that we will perish from toxicity.
I fear that this is already happening and we are in denial.
I fear that nothing or not enough is being done.
I fear that life on Planet Earth is in peril.
I fear that there is not enough consciousness on Earth to save us from this catastrophe.
To deal with these fears I pray. I pray that all of us wake up and start living more conscious lives. I pray that we will find within us the strength, courage, and ability to change the harmful patterns we've engaged in as human beings on this planet. I pray that we will embrace the Earth as our gentle mother and home. I pray that we respect one another and ourselves enough to be healthy in our actions and thoughts.
I don't know who I pray to. I pray to you. I pray to me. I pray to chance. I pray to design. I pray to God and Goddess and Gods and everyone and everything. I pray to our higher selves. I pray to the collective unconscious.. (ironic wording given I pray for consciousness).
I pray to the connecting force that links us all together.
I have hope.
I visualize each of us changing our lives so that we are in harmony with ourselves, with each other, and with the planet.
I hold a vision of a healthy and peaceful Earth in which human beings thrive and co-exist in harmony.
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Permalink Reply by Beth on -
Amen! Thank you for all these (and the others') comments. I have hope too. I hold the vision with you.
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Permalink Reply by Len Williams on
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In terms of depression which holds fear in place the picture I get is of factors forming a self reinforcing ring. I say facts are just facts but factors we hang our existence on. What does that mean? Well imagine a ring around your head thru which you can remember the great truths. I don't know what yours are but mine are all is one, divine truth, and divine love. Somehow this is so much more effective than the 7-9 members of a depression scenario. As Suzuki said in Zen mind beginners mind. Enlightenment is easy, it happens all the time. The problem is maintaining purity when we are habituated to just having thoughts.
In the words of one of the apostles "Whatever is True, what ever is Lovely and All is One, think on these things.
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Permalink Reply by Chuck Moreland on -
In attempting to live a simpler life, free of material things that take away my freedom to move about the world, I am also attempting to clear my mind of needless thoughts that slow the process of enlightenment and distort my view of what is true. Concerning fear, I have developed a simple phrase that helps me deal with it in simple terms. The phrase is as follows, "You don't have to be fearless, you just have to fear less!" Hope it helps. Thanks to everyone for their contributions. I am new to this sight but am excited about the possibilites.
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Permalink Reply by Bruce Thauburn on -
Kim
There is a moment when there is no "I".
In that moment there is no fear.
We can find it, if we look.
Then, perhaps, each of us can imagine a way for us , in that moment, at that place, to see what will be virtuous and do that.
Fear comes with a mind that contrives loss in the future.
Then that mind can remember to practice the moment.
Awaken, Imagine, Manifest works for me.
bruce
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Permalink Reply by Vladimir on -
I do not know anyone around me who is living in fear. Nobody I know has a gun -only as a museum piece. Reality is vibratory, frequency. Fear is a low vibration and what you focus on, you begin to attract and create. If you fear, you attract what you fear. No there is no cause for fear, if you live at a higher frequency which is giving. There is no future as time itself is an illusion. It is time that is collapsing and the only way to live is in the present moment.
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