Dear Joshua,

Regarding shifting your perspective when fear hurts. In the physical, ignoring a fear based emotion is quite challenging. What methods can we use to shift our focus when fear is physically painful and “real” in our daily lives? The event of a job loss or failure to pay your rent, may not be important from a non-physical perspective, however, they are paramount when these type of events seem to be just on the horizon.

To simply shift your perspective and think happy thoughts is not so easy when you are already in a difficult situation. Fear can be all-consuming and physically painful. When you wake up in terror/fear, what practical methods can we use that will shift our perspective and provide some relief or ease as we move through a challenging situation.

Chelsea

Dear Chelsea,

Fear is designed to feel bad. It’s like physical pain in that regard. When you feel physical pain, such as your hand on a hot stove, you react by changing the conditions and removing your hand. This is good in the case of rational fear. A rational fear is the presence of some threat to your survival or physical body. However, the vast majority of your fears are irrational; meaning the subject of your fear (a break-up or a job loss) cannot do you physical harm. If you can look at the fear rationally, you will find the higher perspective and this will bring relief.

The fact is that you have not been actively processing your limiting beliefs. You are not using what you know about physical reality to find the higher perspective. You are not even using your past experiences to provide you with all the evidence you need to prove the fear is irrational and the limiting belief is false. If you encounter a break-up with a mate, that is a good thing. When you face a job loss, that is a good thing. Everything that comes to you in this reality is for you. It’s simply that you are allowing the event to cause you to linger in a negative emotional state of being and this attracts more fear in the form of urges to control the conditions.

Imagine that you live in a supportive universe based in love and well being. Imagine that you are a love-based being that is fully aligned with the system of the universe. Imagine that you are on a journey of self-discovery and expansion. Imagine that you create your own reality. Imagine that all experiences are expansive and beneficial and that you have the ability to expand in joy. This is the basis of this system of physical reality. Now then, if this is true, why would you feel negative emotion in the first place? Because that emotion is your guidance system.

When you feel good, you are seeing reality in a way that perfectly aligns with how your inner self sees it. Everything is good and this is what you believe in the moment. You feel good. You receive inspiration to move you forward to becoming the more expansive and authentic version of you. You are perceiving reality as it truly is; good and right and perfect as it is.

When you feel negative emotion, you are looking at your reality from a limited perspective. You are using your imagination to picture the worst possible outcome. The conditions trigger a limiting belief and your inner self sends you a message in the form of negative emotion. You are not seeing the true reality, you are perceiving an illusion. You do not have all the information and so you fill in the gaps with images that are frightening. This is not the most effective way to approach life.

If you were to worry about being fired from your job, you would feel negative emotion and sink into a lower emotional state of being. In that state, you would receive urges to change the conditions. You do not like the feeling of worry. It doesn’t feel good. It feels like your hand is on the stove. And so urges come to change the conditions. You might work late. You might quit your job. You might send out your resume. You might talk to your supervisor. All of these actions taken in fear to change the conditions are ineffective and could lead you to what you do not want. That’s because you can never change the outside conditions in order to feel what you do not feel now. You want the feeling of job security to solve the problem of your negative imagination. You feel insecure at work and you want that feeling to go away. It cannot be helped by changing outside conditions. That’s an inside job.

All of your negative emotions and fear are the result of unprocessed limiting beliefs. We certainly do not ask you to ignore your emotions and replace them with happy thoughts. We ask you to understand that the negative emotion is simply a message from within alerting you to the presence of a limiting belief. If you process that limiting belief by doing the work to prove to yourself it is false, you reduce the intensity of that belief. Next time it’s triggered, the fear will be less intense. You will linger in negative emotion for less time. The urges to change the conditions will be less severe. You will return to a positive emotional state sooner. If you see the cause of your negative emotion from a higher perspective, you will expand and thus perceive it differently and this will bring in the feeling of relief (alignment).

There is another way to approach life that is far more effective. It is the approach of acceptance. Accept yourself as you are, accept the people in your life as they are, and accept the conditions as perfect and good. Understand that nothing wrong is happening; you simply don’t have enough information. It may seem wrong from a limited perspective and this perspective has triggered a limiting belief. Find the belief and prove it is false. Find evidence that proves it’s false. All limiting beliefs are false. From the higher perspective you will see that the belief is untrue. If you were to lose your job, it would be for your benefit. It would lead to something better. In alignment, you will receive the inspiration to move you forward and the action taken on inspiration is always beneficial.

In fear, you receive urges to change the conditions. When you act on an urge, it will take you away from your true path of positive expansion. It is all simply based in your desire to avoid negative emotion and control the conditions. This is not an effective way to navigate your reality. The most effective approach is to maintain your alignment and process your limiting beliefs internally. This is how you intended to operate in physical reality.

From the higher perspective you will see that everything did work out. Remember your first break-up. At the time, you felt negative emotion because you thought something wrong was happening. From your current perspective (after time has past and you have expanded as a result of that and other relationships), you can see that the break-up was necessary and was actually a good thing. If you could have found that perspective back then, you would have spent less time in negative emotion and you would have found your alignment sooner. That would have been a more effective way to handle the situation. This can be done now. Whenever you feel as if something wrong is happening, you must feel the negative emotion, identify the limiting belief, prove the belief is false and return to alignment. That is the new approach to life and it is far more effective.

With our love,
We are Joshua