The True Meaning of Fear

Fear is the most powerful emotion on Earth. Not because it's the highest frequency emotion (it's not), but because it's used to silence, manipulate, constrain, and disempower. And it's been used for so long in this manner that we've become accustomed to it.

It's done subtly, unconsciously. Sure, some people might use it intentionally, inflicting fear in a direct way. But most of the time, it's done in such a subtle way that we don't see it coming.

We are conditioned with it.

Programmed with it.

We adopt it as part of a belief system.

We take it on as OURS without even realizing what's happening.

When I was young and lived at home with my parents, any time I was going to drive somewhere that required me to take the interstate to get there, my dad always asked if there was a different route I could take. When I said no, he would then launch into a list of objections: it's going to be dark soon; driving alone isn't a good idea; did I have enough gas; could I take someone with me; what if I got lost; and so on.

It always ended with him declaring that driving on the interstate wasn't safe.

We did this dance often. It was easy for me to take on his fears as my own ... he was, after all, a parent, someone who was older, wiser; an authority figure. So it makes sense that I would internalize his fear related to highway driving, to be programmed to see it the way he did, to take this as truth and let it inform how I operated in the world.

As I began to accept it, it caused moments of apprehension as I went on my way ... his words echoing in my head as I navigated the dark roads or made a wrong turn; checking and double checking my gas gauge; being hyper-tuned to any weird noises coming from under the hood.

Fear arises when we hold a belief - a definition - that is out of alignment with our true self.

Ultimately, I rejected his view that driving on the interstate wasn't safe. This might have been due, in part, to my rebellious tendencies as a young adult. Or, maybe it was because my nature is such that I am curious and need to try things for myself. Whatever the reason, I was able to separate his fear from my truth. This took some time, some trial and error, possibly aided by my propensity toward stubbornness 😉, to be able to push myself away from his worldview.

But here's the thing about how fear works ... I may have avoided the overt programming (that highway driving wasn't safe), but there were some smaller threads that took root: an uneasiness over my car suddenly breaking down while I was on the road; being uncomfortable when driving in unfamiliar locations; a need to always have enough gas in the tank.

These seeds lodged themselves in my system, meshed with other beliefs I had, and began sprouting. When they surfaced years later, I had to unwind them by looking at all the things they were connected to, including different conditioning I carried.

I don't blame my dad. As a parent myself, I've done the same things to my kids. We do this when we have trauma or conditioning or old programming that hasn't been healed. In fact, if I was a betting gal, I'd wager that my dad's trauma stemmed, at least in part, from a head-on collision our whole family experienced on Christmas Even when I was nine years old. We had just turned onto the interstate when - WAM - out of nowhere we were hit head-on by someone driving down the wrong side of the interstate.

Fast forward seven years later and my dad's unprocessed trauma gets triggered when my sassy self was out and about with her newly obtained driver's permit. He dealt with it by pushing his fear onto me in an effort to prevent me from putting myself in what he perceived to be an unsafe situation. I pushed back against what was in front of me, but the other, more subtle parts slipped by me.

Fear is the energetic result of resistance to our natural self by holding onto a belief that's out of alignment with our true vibration.

We can't change our childhood experiences or any of the various happenings that made us who we are today. But we can choose to look at the programming and conditioning we're carrying, the trauma and belief systems that create a misalignment with our true nature. 

It starts with examining the things that are right in front of us ... how we're afraid to show all of ourselves, or why we're scared to speak up, or how we second-guess ourselves and stay in the background.

The fear is telling us something. Like a flashing red light screaming "Look Here! Look Here!," its presence signals that we're holding a belief that does not align with who we truly are.

The trick, then, is to actually dig in and discover where the misalignment is stored. And then we heal the pieces, one by one.

This, soul sister, is how we free ourselves.

xo, Mitzi