Kate Question #10

 

Dear Joshua,

You say that ultimately all fear is a fear of death, and of course I have that (probably), but when I think about it, I believe that I'm more fearful of pain than death (which is why I'm grateful that "suicide" is an option we can consider occasionally). I'm more fearful of being homeless or broke or in physical pain or emotional pain (and that it be ongoing). And while I can see death from a higher perspective (thanks to your teachings), I have trouble seeing pain from a higher perspective (other than the lessons it can bring... and on that subject, I think "really? I could do without that").

Kate


Dear Kate,

Pain is an unpleasant, unwanted feeling but plays an important role in physical reality. Pain is part of the survival instinct. The fear of pain keeps you out of harm's way. You take less risk of injury and it is the rational fear of physical pain that keeps you physically safe. You play it safer when walking on the edge of a cliff or out in the wild and this is due to a rational fear of physical pain.

However, you also fear emotional pain and this fear is what we call irrational. You play it safe with your emotions so you avoid experiences that might further your growth and expansion. You avoid situations that could challenge your persona. You limit yourself and this is done due to the irrational fear of emotional pain.

When you understand that emotional pain is simply a mechanism of your inner guidance system, you can learn to view any condition from a perspective that reduces the pain. The pain arrises because you are looking at the situation and judging it as wrong or bad. Instead, if you decided to find a perspective where you could judge the condition as good and right, you would significantly ease your pain.

Emotional pain can only come as a result of your stubborn insistence that something is wrong. It is not wrong in reality, it's just that you've decided to view it as wrong. From the higher perspective, it is always, always right. It's just that you cannot see the rightness of it from your limited perspective. If you had faith that it was somehow right, that it wassomehow for your benefit, then the pain would ease. If you could get good and switching your perspective from one that causes emotional pain to one that creates inner peace, you would never again fear emotional pain because it would no longer exist in your reality.

If you could become a master of perspective and be able to turn your cheek to see a more beneficial view of the situation, you would radically alter your experience of physical reality. You would no longer fear certain situations. You would no longer hold yourself back from anything you wanted. It is only this fear of emotional pain that holds you apart from much of what you desire. By framing the event in a way that feels better, you ease your resistance and you become an allower of all that you want to flow to you.

It's that simple, but it's not quite that easy.

Joshua

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