Wendy Question #11

 

Dear Joshua,

Sometimes ~ a lot of times ~ I wake up in the morning with a sense of dread ~ an intense feeling of loneliness and sadness. I thought when we sleep all gets reset. Am I immediately thinking these thoughts as soon as I wake up? Why am I thinking these thoughts??? What can I do to eliminate these thoughts? I meditate and they are still there.

I go to bed and intend to wake up refreshed and ready to go ~ but I don't. It's a tough way to start the day. Any insights you have will be appreciated.

With Love and Gratitude
~ Wendy


Dear Wendy,

You wake up with a sense of dread. What is dread? It's fear. Is the fear rational, meaning that your life is in danger? No. Therefore, it's simply irrational fear. All irrational fear is false, and you can prove to yourself that the fear is not real. Fear is a bad feeling. Fear keeps you from feeling good. Since you are now understanding that feeling good is the most beneficial thing you can do, it is important to deal with fear as it arises. Do not let the opportunity to release your fear go unchecked. Make it a priority to deal with irrational fear.

How do you deal with irrational fear? You analyze it. Why are you feeling this dread? What is causing this anxiety? Is it real? Are people out to get you? Do you live in a dangerous place? Is some disaster going to strike? If the answer is no, then prove it. Take a look at your surroundings. Is it safe? Of course it is. How do you know it's safe? You were safe yesterday and the day before and every other day you woke up with the feeling of dread. Nothing bad has happened and nothing bad can happen. You are safe. There is nothing wrong going on.

Tell yourself that you are safe. Remind yourself that nothing wrong can happen to you. If anything pops up unexpectedly, you will look at it from a perspective that serves you. If you think something has gone wrong, you will learn to look at it from a better perspective. No bad can happen to you. You are safe.

In the past you may have encountered a feeling of dread (or any other negative feeling) and did not understand what the feeling was linked to. You did not know that a dreadful feeling is an indication that you are focused on something in your life that is not in alignment with what you want. You are looking at something from a limited perspective. Until you learn to look at everything from a higher perspective, you will continue to experience negative emotion. We want you to stop and deal with the negative emotion before continuing on. You are allowing the negative emotion to persist. Let's explain this in another way.

There are really just two emotions; love and fear. Fear is a mechanism of physical reality instilled by the survival instinct. Rational fear keeps your body and your life safe. It keeps you in this physical reality. It's a very good thing. When you encounter something dangerous, like the edge of a cliff, you feel fear and you take action to relieve yourself of the fear. You move away from the edge, you hold onto someone else, you hold onto a rope, you focus on each step, or any number of precautions. You don't just allow yourself to get frozen in fear. However, when the fear is irrational, you often do not take action to relieve the fear. You allow it to linger.

When you allow the fear to linger, it will stay around until you do something differently. It usually goes away when you sleep and generally you wake up without the fear. However, the fear must be dealt with because it is alerting you to the fact that you are focused on something in a way that limits you. Unless you learn to see the subject from a higher perspective (see the good), you will keep experiencing the negative emotion and it must grow larger. Pretty soon the fear becomes more intense. If you keep ignoring it and keep looking at the subject of your fear in a negative way, the fear grows stronger. It persists into the next day. It returns the moment you wake. It's trying to get your attention, but you are continuing to resist it.

Now that it's got your attention, you must figure out why you feel this way. What specifically is it about the feeling of dread. What are you so afraid of? What's the worse thing that could happen?

Let us know what you come up with.
Joshua

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