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Audio read by the author, Lawrence Doochin.

Watch the video version here.

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."
                                                                        -- Aristotle

It seems fairly obvious, but in order to move to a new story and not live in fear, we have to want to release our conditioning and the old story. Unfortunately, there is resistance to this because our conditioning is what we are accustomed to even though it has been detrimental. At some level, we feel that our beliefs keep us safe, especially if they were something that truly did keep us safe in childhood.

Most of us have the same virus, and I am not referring to the coronavirus. It's like a computer virus that runs underneath the surface, one that we don't know is there but that greatly affects the operation of us. Like a computer virus, it is in control and it shapes who we are and what we do.

It is a message of self-judgment. The message can be “I am not worthy” or “I am not lovable.” Or it might be “I have sinned and I should be punished.” It can take many forms.


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Need for Control

Those who exhibit the strongest egos and the greatest need for control, and those who cast themselves as victims, are the ones who believe in these messages the strongest, but they operate in vastly different ways.

Those with strong egos make sure that they have control in terms of power and money. Those who take the victim tact try and elicit pity, which is a different type of control, in an unsuccessful attempt to bolster their negative internal messaging.

Some people do both. But we all have this virus to some extent, and to get what we want, most of us have acted both from a strong ego and as a victim at different times. Some are aware of these patterns and working on them, while others have buried any recognition of them.

Because it’s natural to resist pain of any kind, many people stay in what the psychological community calls the “pain body” and this is closely intertwined with our fear. We create all kinds of defenses. Dysfunctional patterns arise as justifications or excuses to avoid facing and healing the pain and looking within. But we can begin the process of releasing our conditioning by watching our reactions as we go through life.

Judgment and Projection

Judgment and projection are two primary defense mechanisms. Carl Jung explained, “Projection is one of the commonest psychic phenomena. Everything that is unconscious in ourselves we discover in our neighbor and we treat him accordingly.”

He also said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” The Universe brings us those people who will act as mirrors for us.

We judge others because they have attributes we do not like in ourselves, or we judge what we see in others and we wish we had in ourselves. Judgment is a projection of self-judgment or it comes from fear. These are basically the same thing because if we are in self-judgment, we are in fear.

I could never figure out why I judged others so severely, and this bothered me a great deal, but one day I finally understood that this was my own self-judgment being projected out. Collectively, we see projection to a very heightened degree in the blame that is rampant in our society.

Projection often involves anger, and when anger is present, it’s almost always coming from fear. This rarely leads to a good outcome. Buddha said, “In a controversy, the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.”

Anger is a pointer, and if we want to grow and get out of fear, we need to be willing to see where anger is pointing us. Sometimes we are angry at another person, group, or authority who isn’t acting in our best interest or the best interest of the world.

Our anger will point us to what is out of balance but also to how we can come from compassion. But as described above, usually our anger is a projection of our beliefs, especially self-judgment, which makes it look like the issue is something eternal to us.

Inner Belief System

Anger points us to an inner belief system we are bumping up against and we don’t want to look at. For instance, we may get angry and defensive if someone accuses us of something, but this happens because we partially believe it’s true at some level and we judge ourselves for it, regardless of whether it’s true or not. If we don’t believe it’s true, we just let it go and there is no anger present.

With projection there are often other accompanying negative emotions such as resentment, bitterness, condemnation, or self-pity. If we simply recognize that someone is selfish, this isn’t projection. If we get angry about it or want to harshly condemn them, then we are trying to project self-judgment over the belief we are also selfish. We may or may not be selfish, but we believe we are.

Projection involves our shadow parts, which we fear to face. Anytime we suppress a part of ourselves, we are creating a perceived schism within ourselves and we have lost our power.

When Jesus told us, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” he was not saying we would be judged by God. He was saying that we are judging ourselves.

Changing The Dynamic

How can we change this dynamic? We pull back our blame, judgments, and individual projections and heal ourselves. Again, our relationships, especially our close ones, serve as a mirror to practice this. We often project images of our parents on to our partners in an attempt to heal what we were not given.

The next time we are angry and want to blame someone, can we take a deep breath and not act or speak from this space? We can ask someone to take responsibility for their actions without blaming them. Anger, projection, blame, and fear are four legs of the same stool.

How do we want to interact with the other person? Where is this anger inside of us coming from, and do we realize the other person is just giving us a gift to help us see this? What beliefs do we hold that are making us have this reaction, and what experiences did we have that these beliefs are tied to?

It’s not what the other person says or does, it is our reaction to what they say or do that leads us to a greater understanding of what we need to bring into the light.

It was again Jung, ever the fountain of wisdom on the nature of psychology and conditioning, who said, “There is no birth of consciousness without pain.” Instead of resisting the pain, can we embrace it as a necessary part of our growth?

Starting from the time we enter the world, pain is part of the human experience, and a lot of mental and emotional growth comes from surrender and acceptance of things we cannot change, along with the realization that we have immense fortitude. We are much stronger than we think we are.

Henry Ford said, “One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his greatest surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.” This includes facing our perceived inner demons.

I have never liked being in healing periods that involved grief, depression, or anger, but I have always been grateful for the false that was released in me, the joy on the other side, and subsequently the power that I came to know within me.

My sexual abuse by my mother created a lot of fear within me, along with shame, guilt, and highly distorted beliefs around love. Well into my adulthood, I had a lot of anger when there were situations I couldn’t control, which was literally my 12-year-old self acting out, as I didn’t feel in control at the time of the abuse.

I still feel uncomfortable at not having control over an outcome, and sometimes that becomes severe if I feel that someone I love could be in danger by taking some action. Others may not have been overtly abused as I was, but many felt judged and unloved in childhood, and this will manifest in ways such as an inability to be open and vulnerable in relationships and being highly self-judgmental.

When we are in our pain body and with fear in general, most of us try to stuff it or medicate it, sometimes several ways at once — drugs and alcohol, food, porn or affairs, accumulation of wealth, status, and power, excessive technology or social media, or having to be in control. Name anything and there is likely someone using it in a not-so-good way to medicate their fear. I found that I was stuffing my fear around the coronavirus with food and eating when I wasn’t even hungry.

The strategy of stuffing or medicating our fear doesn’t work. It may seem like it works temporarily, but the fear is still there and then builds even more because it’s trying to get our attention.

Fooling Ourselves

We are very good at fooling ourselves about what we are facing and what we need to address. As Rudyard Kipling clearly stated, “Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”

Staying in dysfunction will manifest in every area of our life and do more than rob us of joy and the ability to have authentic relationships. For instance, it has been shown that unresolved and repressed emotions can lead to physical illness, such as repressed anger manifesting in depression or cancer.

We are really limiting who we can be when we operate from a false self. Rumi said, “Do not sell yourself at a ridiculous price, you who are so valuable in God’s eyes.”

The Universe teaches and we learn through contrast. By seeing who we are not — that we are not the roles we play, that we are not this angry, anxious, or depressed person, but only temporarily experiencing these states — we see who we are. By seeing what we do not want and who we do not want to be, we see what we do want and who we do want to be.

The times when I’m not in fear greatly contrast with the times when I am in fear and strongly point out to me how bad fear feels. I will do anything not to be there. This is the power of contrast, which can be a great impetus for change. Many do not experience this contrast around fear as strongly, as they stay in a constant level of underlying fear and they never know the freedom and feeling of not being in fear.

Many choose to continue on the path of “what we don’t want and who we are not” behaviors. The Universe will continually try to help us by giving hints if we are not moving in the proper direction, and it will increase the intensity of these reminders if we are not paying attention.

We are not being punished. Our higher selves in conjunction with the Universe have chosen healing and remembrance, and we are just being given opportunities to fulfill this.

As we examine our conditioning and work to release it, it is important we ignore society or family conditioning, which is often clothed in “a man should not cry” or “a woman should not get angry.”

This is taking our power back. But we have to be careful with anger as it can be destructive. It’s not okay to direct it at anyone just because we feel it, nor should someone abuse it in the workplace because they have the power to do so. Jesus showed us with the fig tree what happens when anger is unrestricted — he killed it.

When we have trauma that we aren’t dealing with, we are always working strategies and defenses to control situations and relationships. This prevents us from having fully authentic and open relationships, as this requires vulnerability and no game-playing.

We fear being vulnerable, but it is one of the most powerful things we can do for our fear, as long as the vulnerability doesn’t come from victimhood. Vulnerability and openness in our personal and workplace relationships doesn’t mean being weak. We can be vulnerable and firm and strong at the same time.

Earlier, we briefly mentioned acting like a victim. When we are healing ourselves or even healing an organization or community that has gone through traumatic times, it’s important we acknowledge the trauma we experienced, but not act as a victim.

Victimization arises from fear and can show itself in many ways, such as always seeing the negative, wanting attention through pity, or righteous indignation at being falsely judged or misrepresented. It’s important for us to recognize that acting like a victim gives our power away.

It is our choice whether we take offense at someone judging us, whether there is any truth in what they are saying or not. Also, we may think they are judging us when that isn’t the case. Our minds can really deceive us, especially when we have hardened belief systems.

I saw myself as a victim intermittently for many years, and I blamed others, often my wife who was an angel to stay with me. I also blamed situations, the Universe, God — whatever fit the bill at that time to be the perfect recipient of my anger.

One thing I had to keep reminding myself of was that I could look at my reactions and know that this was about me, not about something external to me. I asked what the belief was that was behind my reactions, because awareness of the belief is the first step in releasing it.

Self-Pity Is Our Worst Enemy

We can temporarily be in self-pity but we don’t want to stay there as it is really a defense against dealing with an experience or examining a false belief and moving past it. Helen Keller, who could have easily fallen into self-pity, said, “Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.”

Society and business feed the victim mentality and thus the fear mentality. Look at the marketing messages for the legal industry, especially the injury attorneys. They all boil down to, “You have been victimized and you should be compensated.” We are encouraging something which goes completely against who we want to be individually and as a society.

When we reflect on the above statement on self-pity by Helen Keller, who was dealing with significant handicaps, it will hopefully put us in a space of gratitude for all of the blessings in our life. The greatest thing we can do to take us out of our self-pity and victim mentality is to be grateful and to do something for others, especially something that no one else knows about.

When we do something for others, we are also doing it for ourselves as this takes us outside of ourselves and outside of a “poor me” mentality, placing us in a unity perspective. We are also outside of a fear mentality. From this space, healing and growth can occur much more rapidly.

Our growth in self-awareness and removing ourselves from a fear mentality will create ripples that extend far beyond what we recognize. Each of us can have that big an impact, because when we do our individual parts, it feeds into the collective and change happens.

We have to stop blaming each other out of our fears and come together to solve our problems instead of everyone acting out of self-interest or righteous indignation.

MAIN TAKEAWAY

We become self-aware by witnessing our reactions and tracing them back to the beliefs that have created this reaction. As we do this, we release our conditioning and fear, and we become a powerful carrier of change for the world.

QUESTION

What is one main belief you recognize that is causing you to be in fear? Is this an outer belief that has an underlying one attached to it? How would you like to change this, and how can you accomplish this?

Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Publisher : One-Hearted Publishing.

Article Source:

A Book on Fear

A Book On Fear: Feeling Safe In A Challenging World
by Lawrence Doochin

A Book On Fear: Feeling Safe In A Challenging World by Lawrence DoochinEven if everyone around us is in fear, this doesn't have to be our personal experience. We are meant to live in joy, not in fear. By taking us on a treetop journey through quantum physics, psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and more, A Book On Fear gives us tools and awareness to see where our fear comes from. When we see how our belief systems were created, how they limit us, and what we have become attached to that creates fear, we will come to know ourselves at a deeper level. Then we can make different choices to transform our fears. The end of each chapter includes a suggested simple exercise that can be done quickly but that will shift the reader into an immediate higher state of awareness about that chapter’s topic.

For more info and/or to order this book, click here.

More books by this Author.

About the Author

Lawrence DoochinLawrence Doochin is an author, entrepreneur, and devoted husband and father. A survivor of harrowing childhood sexual abuse, he traveled a long journey of emotional and spiritual healing and developed an in-depth understanding of how our beliefs create our reality. In the business world, he has worked for, or been associated with, enterprises from small startups to multinational corporations. He is the cofounder of HUSO sound therapy, which delivers powerful healing benefits to individual and professionals worldwide. In everything Lawrence does, he strives to serve a higher good.

His new book is A Book on Fear: Feeling Safe in a Challenging World. Learn more at LawrenceDoochin.com.