It’s interesting how fear can dictate your thoughts and actions throughout the day.  Experience has shown that most fear felt these days is related our financial and health aspects of life.  I personally have a job, and am dependant on it to pay for the mortgage and bills.  I also admit that being single and not raised with sound economic decisions that I’ve extended my purchasing power to the limit.  As such, I periodically have thoughts and fears about not being able to pay for my lifestyle if I were to lose my job.

Thankfully, with my health, I’m in great shape and eat healthy and exercise daily.

The difference between my financial fears and not having any health fears is that my health is a priority in my life right now.  I enjoy eating good foods, alkaline water, lifting weights, getting my heart rate up and so forth.

On the flip side, when I think of financial matters, I get a stressful feeling and naturally move on to something else without facing the thing that is stressing me out.  I think many of us can relate to this.

So in your life what causes you to get stressed out?  Make a quick list.  Don’t worry about doing anything with it.  It can be therapy just to write down what is stressing you out.

Lately, regarding my financial decisions, I feel more in charge.  I’ve been practicing a little secret that most people aren’t aware of.

Here’s the secret.

Whenever you feeling a discomfort or fearful feeling, instead of ignoring it through distractions like TV, Internet, alcohol, or whatever, just let the feeling be there.  I know that sounds weird, but first recognize that you feel worried or anxious and without judging the feeling as bad, just let it be there.  Sit down in a comfortable position and just focus your attention on the feeling that is causing discomfort.  It may be a little scary and uncomfortable to do this, but after a while this feeling will subside and surprisingly won’t return at the same level of intensity.

The same type of feeling may return but it won’t be as paralyzing as the prior time you felt it.  And when it returns just do the same process.  Sit back and focus your attention on the feeling.  What will being to happen is the mind will begin to create solutions so that the feeling and it’s root cause disappear for good.

This worked for me and the feelings generated from thinking about my finances.  And gladly, I can report today that I’m making progress on being more financially free.  I’ve got a budget to follow, and a plan to pay of all expenses.  I feel more in control, and I’m not afraid to buy stuff because I’ve shown to myself that I can afford it, and I’m confident in my abilities to pay off all current debts.

I recommend you give it go.  With any feeling that causes you fear or worry, just sit back and let those feelings be there.  Recognize them, get to know them, let them be your friends, as they will teach you and help you develop in to a new person who is empowered.

To your success!

Recognizing fear is one of the most powerful personal development skills. As mentioned in our post, “What is Fear,” we shared that fear is the negative emotions you feel throughout the day, and that these emotions are based off of your interpretation of the present circumstances.  Recognizing fear then becomes the watching of your emotions during the day.

Recognizing fear isn’t just noticing where you feel the most common fear-based emotions, the ones that cause you to feel threatened and afraid of bodily harm.  The process is much more than that.  Recognizing fear is the acknowledgement of your feelings, especially the ones that don’t feel good, and being able to determine if you are resisting them or not.  Or in other words, subconsciously, trying to bury them so that you don’t feel them.

Let’s talk about watching your emotions and being able to look at the deep feelings that you don’t normally think twice about.  Some examples of recognizing fear will help here.

People can relate to not being able to sit still and quiet for any long periods of time. (Have you ever tried it?) Most of us blame our addiction to technology such as TV, Internet, cell phones, video games, and more.  But did you know that there are deeper reasons why we struggle to sit still? It has to do with recognizing fear.

Sitting still makes us think, and when we think our minds are allowed to hash up concerns and reasons to worry.  No one likes to worry, as the feelings around it are unpleasant.  Essentially, we are afraid to listen to what our mind is saying.  Recognizing fear as the root of this simple example is a major learning step for everyone.  It’s much easier to escape into entertainment than having the courage necessary for recognizing fear.

Another common fear is meeting new people.  Almost everyone is concerned about their image and how they will be perceived by the other person, especially in dating.  Why do you think that is?  One answer comes from our grade school experiences, where we saw people making fun of others.  I’m sure you can remember either being judged or made fun of in some way.  It affects us all.  And many of us were actually the ones doing the judging.

Everyone wants to feel like they belong to the group.  With that comes the fear of not being a part of the group.  Now comes the challenge of recognizing fear in this whole process.

Recognizing fear for self acceptance topics can be quite a major task.  There are almost all emotions involved with it.  Being able to watch and identify the emotions you feel in these situations is another highly valuable skill to attain.  It will allow you to see how you react during the day to your emotions. You will eventually begin laughing at yourself more often as you see how silly you react sometimes to what you are feeling.

The process of recognizing fear now can be defined at the unburying of the emotions your dislike and are afraid to experience and feel during the day.  Being able to feel the uncomfortable emotion instead of burying it will create miracles in your life.

To your success in recognizing fear!

Most people understand fear to be the negative emotions that generate action of some sort within an individual.  Unfortunately, most individuals are only able to recognize the strongest fear-based emotions, and can only relate to those being as fear.

But what if there were another 10 fold worth of fear based emotion levels and thoughts that you haven’t ever considered?  That’s what we want to open for discussion.

The TEN MINUTE CURE for fear.

Much of what we fear is derived from our own interpretation of life events we experience each day.  The core beliefs and interpretations gathered as children are what really drives our experiences and judgments.

For example, in my own life I grew up having to experience moving around a lot and having my parent’s divorce and remarry.  (more than once…)  So as such, I became very fearful of change since it always meant something bad was happening.  By the time I was in 6^th grade, I had attended 8 different grade schools in 4 different states.  Each year I had to make new friends, which became more of a routine to fit in than creating friends to just have fun with.

As I got older, it became more important to fit in and be accepted, instead of just “being” me, and not worrying about what others thought about my clothes, speech, actions, and more.

I lived my life this way until I got to a point where life wasn’t very fulfilling.  It felt like everything was a bore with no enjoyment or hope for development and growth.

I finally started to ask questions about why I wasn’t happy, and what I could do about it.  These questions lead to a revealing journey that continues to this day.

The journey began by learning how to recognize what I was afraid off.  It was something that took help from a life coach, but it was one of the most rewarding experiences.  I was taught to pay attention to my emotions throughout the day, and determine what they were telling me.  This may not make sense, so here’s another example.

If you are hungry, you’re body tells you this through a series of feelings that you know very well.  Your body also tells you if you are afraid or dislike something too.  The challenge is these feeling are very subtle, or you have already programmed your mind to interpret those feelings as something that’s not really the truth.

So the process became an ongoing “watching” of what I feel throughout the day and then without judgment, listening to why I was feeling that way, for both positive and negative feelings.  Positive and negative being defined as whether I feel good or bad.

Soon I started to remember experiences I had in the past and how I had judged them as good or bad, happy or sad, loving or fearful.  And from each of those experiences came feelings that would replicate themselves whenever I would come across new experiences of with unknown outcomes.  Thus for each experience that I couldn’t foresee the outcome, I would experience a fearful feeling.

So back to the question, “What is fear?”  It’s the negative emotion you feel throughout the day.  It’s as plain and simple as that.  The challenge, as we mentioned above, is being able to recognize it and then identify why you feel that way.  From there, you can begin to transform the fear into love (which we will talk about in a future post)

So begin today, but sitting back and just watching what you feel throughout the day.  Nothing more, nothing less, just watch.

To your success!