Exploring, Understanding & Releasing Our Fears

Let's look at our fears together. What do they really mean? What can we learn from them? How do they propel us in our soul's journey? How can we tell the difference between real and useful fear and our imagination getting away from us? How do we step forward in wisdom and courage? Let's explore the ways to look at different kinds of fears and see what we find together! This was originally a live talk here on Insight Timer.

Transcript

So today's talk is all about exploring fear.

And not just exploring fear like,

You know,

Let's talk about our fears,

But to actually understand how we can heal from them and what we can learn from them.

And it came from a request within our circle from Heather.

And I actually want to articulate what she asked specifically,

Because that's sort of the flavor of what we're going to talk about.

Alright,

What she asked was,

What supports changing our relationships to fears that no longer serve us,

Particularly within relationships?

How can we work with fears in ways that are healing and reparative?

How can we turn towards the fearful parts of ourselves with compassion instead of believing the narratives that allow fear to guide our lives?

So then I asked in the circle,

What were the big fears that people are experiencing?

And the big ones that came out were fear of rejection,

Fear of failure,

Fear of what others think,

Fear of feeling shame,

Fear of not knowing enough,

Fear of changing jobs when you are the sole breadwinner,

Fear of death,

And fear of illness.

And there's a lot of other fears out there for sure,

But these are the big ones.

And we're going to start there.

So the first thing we want to look at is understanding that fear is a natural part of being human.

Fear is not something that is a maladaptation or something.

It's not something that's incorrect.

There is a natural fear mechanism within us that keeps us safe.

Right?

I mean we use the old standbys,

The fear of not running out in traffic,

Don't touch the hot burner,

Don't,

You know,

These are healthy fears that keep us alive.

These are programs that go into us that we learn,

Aha,

Okay,

Got to keep my wits about me,

Got to make sure this,

Got to make sure that.

These are healthy fears that set up a self-preservation mechanism that keeps us safe.

This is very,

Very healthy.

And many of the fears that are rolling around in our consciousness that drive us crazy and keep us stuck,

There may be an aspect of that primal fear somewhere deep inside of it.

But most of it is created from our imagination.

It's created from movies we've watched.

It's created from the fears of the people around us.

And even if I was to say the fears,

But the stories that we've heard other people say,

And this is really important to discern between an actual healthy human fear that keeps us from taking action like running out in traffic.

That's a healthy fear because it stops us from doing something that's unhealthy.

This is a healthy fear.

If what we're afraid of isn't stopping us from something that's unhealthy,

It isn't an actual fear,

It's a creation of our mind.

And this is really,

Really important because as a society it's almost like we've been trained to expand this disasterization mechanism in our mind,

Right?

I was listening to a podcast with Joe Dispenza a couple weeks ago and he was talking about how this works and he basically said that if you let fear rule you,

Like if you actually believe what has come out of our imagination is true,

Our primal response to that will actually be to assume the worst case scenario.

Because the worst case scenario keeps us safe.

Like what's the worst thing that could happen?

Oh,

Okay,

That.

I'll prepare for that.

And then we use all of our imagination to prepare for this worst case scenario.

And then of course what does the law of attraction say?

Right?

It's almost like no matter what happens it's all we're going to find anyway.

Even if good things happen we're going to see the worst.

Like let's say we're afraid of what others might think,

Right?

If we always assume that everyone's going to think we're a loser the reality is the majority of people may not think you're a loser at all.

But the only thing you'll see are the ones that fit the paradigm you accepted as the worst case scenario.

There is no evidence to support this.

It's all fantasy.

And this is really important and it isn't that there isn't a real fear somewhere floating around in there.

But the question becomes what's the truth?

Right?

What's the evidence to support it?

Because if there is no evidence to support it we have to ask ourselves if it's real or not.

One of David Hawkins' books,

And I can't remember what it was,

There was a time that I actually got to see him in person.

And again I don't remember what book he was speaking about.

But one of the big topics he spoke about was be very careful when what you're going to say is begun with the word if or what if.

Because as soon as you're beginning a phrase with what if you are now not in reality.

And as soon as you're not in reality your imagination can grow infinitely in places that have nothing to do with truth.

Right?

What if someone said to me,

Yeah but what if you were a man?

It's like,

Uh,

Well,

So could I go there?

Could I create a fantasy in my mind where I tried to project who I am onto what it was to be a man?

I guess.

Would I really have any understanding of what it is to be a man?

No.

Is it relevant?

No.

Because I'm a woman.

If I was to go into something like that it's irrelevant.

It's not real.

And yet our minds will spin on this what if question for years or decades and it may stop us from doing anything.

So one of the interesting things he said David Hawkins said,

He said,

You're allowed to ask me a question.

He was opening it up for a Q&A.

He said,

You can ask me a question but you are not allowed to begin with the words what if.

Right?

And this is a very interesting thing to actually only ask the questions that are relevant to your life right now.

Like think of the real fears.

Don't touch a hot element or you'll get burned.

So a fear says I won't touch the hot element.

There's no what if there.

The truth is if you touch that element you're going to get burned.

Don't do it.

That's it.

It's not interesting.

There's no more imagination.

There's no more anything.

Don't touch the element.

It's very,

Very simple.

So he basically said if you ask me a what if question you have to go sit down.

I'm not going to answer it because it's a waste of my time.

He was hilarious.

He was so brutal like in a in the most amazing way to a people pleaser.

Like he literally was like so people will get up and they say okay so I hear what you're saying.

Now what if and he'd say sit down and they go I know I know no he goes ask me a real question about your life right now.

Because the what ifs what they really do is take us away from the real questions that are going on inside of us right now.

It's kind of like you know it's like going to a talk about relationships or something and people are talking about this or this or this or this.

And the person says well how does this apply to same sex couples?

And the teacher says are you in a same sex relationship?

Well no.

I'm just.

What's your real question?

Right?

What's the real question that your soul is asking?

Why are we distracting ourselves with questions that have nothing to do with us because it's not our reality.

It's an important question.

There was a time when I used to study the Bible and I was really interested in going back to the original Greek.

Not that I read Greek.

But I had a book called a Concordent Bible and it actually went back to the original languages and helped us understand what might have gotten lost in the translation from the original text to the current day English translation in my world.

And one of the most interesting things was that the word in English that we use for devil or Satan or whatever that word is that you use.

There actually is no word for that in the original Greek.

The actual it was a phrase and what it was the phrase was that which lurks in the shadows.

And there were many different phrases like that and that we interpreted as the devil or however you want to say that.

What's interesting in that is on a spiritual path the choice becomes fear or faith.

So we either listen within,

Follow a calling and deeply trust what we experience inside or we succumb to the fear of that which lies in the shadows.

The fear of the unknown.

The fear of the what if and what if that and what if this and what if that.

Right.

Understand that our imagination is limitless.

This is the point our imagination can connect with divine infinity.

That's what it's designed for.

If we use that ability lurking in the shadows of the darkest possibilities will we ever step forward in faith?

This is really important.

When we live in the land of all the possible things that could go wrong what are we doing?

We become completely stuck.

Right.

Instead imagine you actually access that divine self and I don't mean this as some ethereal yogic tantric seventh chakra experience.

I mean who you really are.

Your greatest self when you touch inside right here and you feel that infinite self that you are,

That soul that you are,

That timeless being that you are right now and you listen to that desire and you have optimism and you think yes,

What if I did that?

Yeah,

But what if it went wrong?

What if it did?

Perhaps I'm simply meant to take this step.

Perhaps I'm simply meant to take this journey.

I don't know.

And what if our imagination is used in cultivating that optimism?

Right.

Instead what if we go,

What if this?

What if that's possible?

What if that's possible?

What if this is possible?

Wouldn't that be amazing?

Oh my God,

The possibilities are endless.

You know there's that saying in almost all of the great religions,

A person cannot have their feet in both camps.

It's one or the other.

If we have our foot in the fear camp,

Our imagination and all of our infinite insomnis will dig a massive hole for us and we will bury ourselves in it with our own imagination.

Or our feet are in the camp of faith and optimism and we use our imagination to create incredible things.

Right,

The sky's the limit.

It's an entirely different world.

It's very important to be careful of the thoughts that roll through your mind.

Sometimes our thoughts,

And I will directly look at each one of these fears,

But it's very important to consider where these stories and imagination come from.

I was a teenager in the 80s and in the 80s and I was really good in school.

I really loved to learn.

That's a huge place of expansion for me.

Everybody expands in different ways,

But I love learning.

When I hit high school in the 80s every single movie that was out there was about Revenge of the Nerds.

Everything was this horrible relationship between the nerds and the cool people,

The ugly people and the pretty people.

Something got deep in my psyche that there was something wrong with me.

There was something really wrong with loving learning,

Wrong with who I was.

I wasn't strong enough.

I didn't have a strong enough sense of self.

I had very,

Very little self-confidence.

I really felt like the pariah in the crowd.

Again,

It's interesting how fears can totally send you down the wrong path because much later when I went back to a high school reunion,

It's almost like my body,

My being kind of reverted back into this very awkward teenager.

Not only did I like learning and I was good in school,

I had full face acne,

Flat chested,

I felt so dorky.

I was literally the opposite of what every 14-year-old girl ever wanted to look like or be or whatever.

I just felt like I was a leper among the beautiful people or something.

All of that experience really got into my heart.

It really and all these movies that we watched,

There were about seven Revenge of the Nerds movies.

I highly identified with the nerds in a very formative time when I was trying to define self.

A very formative time for our third chakra.

Our third chakra,

We dive into it between the ages of 14 and 21.

This was a very devastating thing for me as a soul.

Then,

How easy is it for me then to be completely driven by the fear of rejection in the rest of my life?

Whether it's the man I ended up marrying and being desperately terrified that he was going to leave me one day once he realized that he had married a nerd.

I don't know how he actually figured how I pulled the wool over his eyes.

One day he's going to figure it out and realize that he's going to want to go and find someone who's actually worthy of him or someone he'd want to spend the rest of his life with.

These fears,

They were placed inside of me.

My husband would have just literally looked at me.

If I had admitted this to him,

He would have gone,

To this day he'd be like,

That's crazy.

What are you talking about?

It's not real.

I went back to this high school reunion and I walk in all slumped and like,

I wonder if the popular kids are here.

Really?

I was 30 something years old and I'm all worried about what the popular kids think?

Talk about just bizarre,

Deep training.

Then you get chatting with people and they're like,

I always wanted to be like you Katrina.

I'm like,

What?

Whoa.

Then I start having great regret for all the years I spent in this negative imagination space succumbing to the fantasies of Hollywood of all places.

I remember at that time computers were just coming out and people would talk about how Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and all that kind of thing.

It was like,

One day those are the kind of guys that are going to be your bosses and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah and everything.

At the time we little nerds were like,

Really?

One day we'll be important?

Because this is before the whole information thing,

Right?

That experience fed my brain to the point that I thought this was real.

It wasn't real at all.

It's very,

Very important.

In the land of utilizing our fears,

If you were to write down the fears that really make you stuck,

To really ask yourself,

Where did they come from?

Are they even yours?

And if they're not yours,

They're not real.

And that means you delete them.

Like we have the inner discipline to go,

No,

Not true.

And I'm not spending a single second thinking about it.

There's a meditation called Neti Neti.

It's spelled N-E-T-I,

N-E-T-I.

And it means many things,

But one of the things it means is not this,

Not that.

And it's one of the few meditations that,

You know,

Often times when we do a meditation,

We sit in the center and we allow the thoughts to flow through our mind.

Right?

We just allow them to flow through.

We don't engage with them,

But we just let them flow through like,

You know,

Clouds on a sunny day.

In the Neti Neti meditation,

You don't let them float through.

As soon as it enters,

You go,

No.

As soon as another one enters,

No,

No,

No,

No.

It's very,

Very different.

And if fears are a big deal for you,

It's really worthwhile looking at this one.

And again,

It's that simple.

You sit in silence and as the thoughts come in that normally send you into this negative imagination state,

You go,

No,

No,

No,

No.

Just like a child who wants to have a third,

No,

I know,

But no,

I know,

But no.

Right?

And it's a fascinating discipline.

Because these are very,

Very,

Very bad habits that have been cultivated in our lives,

In our media,

In advertising,

In Hollywood.

And understand that you know,

I went back to university 10 years after I got married to study psychology.

And one of the most devastating things I learned there was that 70% of psychological experiments were done by marketing companies.

And understand,

I mean on the surface you go,

Oh yes,

Yes,

They're trying to understand the human psyche.

It's like,

No,

No,

No.

They are learning how to use the human psyche against us to buy things that we don't need.

You don't need advertising to buy food or shelter or anything that you actually desire.

If you're a painter,

You don't need advertising to tell you to buy an easel.

But you do need to be able to get inside someone's psyche and use their psyche and their fears against them and their negative imagination against them to make them buy something that they don't actually need.

And this was so disturbing to me on a deep level.

Like it actually,

It made me realize I was in the wrong,

I was studying the wrong thing.

I was in the wrong place.

Because there was something fundamentally wrong with what was being studied.

So to understand there's a really,

A really great movie called They Live.

You probably have to buy it on YouTube or something now.

But it's really interesting and they talk about how there's this signal going out into the world and you might see an advertisement of a woman lying on the beach but what it's really saying is procreate or you'll be alone or something like that or you know money is,

You know it has all these subliminal messages.

But what's really true is some of the stories in our minds are also fed by subliminal messages from advertising.

And we don't have to be all negative about it.

It's just a truth to be aware of.

That if for some reason we feel like oh if I don't have the perfect body I'll be rejected.

Well what's under that?

Well because then I'll be alone and I don't want to be alone.

And under that is that primal desire to be connected and be loved and be part of the herd,

Right?

But to really be clear that a lot of this comes out of advertising.

You know,

The beautiful people get the beautiful people.

If you're unattractive no one will love you.

It's such crap.

It's not even remotely true.

Like not even remotely true.

That's not how love works.

That's not how attraction works.

I mean I always love when I fall in love with someone who's sort of the,

Doesn't check all the boxes.

Right?

That's when I know it's a juicy one.

Those are the ones you know,

When you're kind of like I don't know what it is.

I just can't get enough of this person.

This is where you have to look at the evidence on the ground.

And there's no evidence to support this.

Right?

Real love has nothing to do with what you look like or how tall you are,

How big your boobs are,

Whether you have fat on your body or no fat or whatever.

It's not true.

But it sells a lot of gym memberships and a lot of botox.

So we just have to be,

We just have to keep our wits about us.

Right?

Just to be aware of what's really feeding these stories that are feeding this false imagination.

Sometimes fear also indicates that change is coming.

What if you have a fear of failure?

What if there's something you really want to do but you're afraid of failing?

Maybe the truth is it's going to happen.

Not the failure,

But change.

You're going to stop.

But change.

You're going to step out into something new.

And the fear of failure,

Maybe it's not even a fear.

Maybe it's just anxiety.

Maybe it's just the quiver of a shift.

And it's like what if it doesn't work?

What if it does work?

What if it doesn't work?

What if it does work?

What if it doesn't work?

Right?

And the fact that you have a fear,

It's just an awareness that the wheel is turning.

New things are on the horizon.

Change is coming.

What if it's not about focusing on the failure or the success,

But just knowing that change is part of our life.

Like this is really important.

Right?

I've done other talks about thriving and change and imagining that change is actually normal.

But again,

We've sort of been sold a bill of goods that said no,

No,

No.

Comfort is the goal.

Right?

The goal is to find the way,

Hold tight,

And don't ever change.

But that's really stagnancy.

It's actually death.

Right?

Whether we're still breathing or not,

Our soul isn't moving forward anymore.

It's not having new experiences.

It's not growing.

It's not expanding.

It's like a child that figures that my son was great at crawling,

Like really great at crawling.

And he was the eldest.

And we lived on a farm and there weren't a lot of other kids around.

We were pretty isolated.

So he was really great at crawling.

And of course,

I don't know whether parents still do this,

But we like to compare ourselves to others.

People say,

Oh,

Well my son walked at nine months.

Like we do this thing.

Well,

Aaron just crawled and crawled and crawled and crawled and crawled and crawled and he just seemed to have absolutely no interest in walking.

And it was like,

Huh,

I wonder if he's ever going to walk.

I mean,

You kind of know he is,

But maybe that's just my son,

Right?

He's kind of like,

Yeah,

Whatever.

I'm really good at this.

May as well just keep doing this.

Right?

And I don't know,

13 months went by,

14 months went by,

He's still crawling around.

And then one day we went for swimming lessons.

And he's crawling in and all the other kids were walking.

And he kind of just looked at the other kids and he looked at me and he just stood up and walked behind the kids into the pool.

It was so funny.

But in a lot of ways we live our lives.

Like,

You know what,

I'm good with crawling.

I am an amazing crawler.

No need to do anything else.

But the wheels turn and eventually we walk.

And sometimes there's some anxiety inside of that.

But sometimes I think that we misread anxiety and call it fear.

Because we're not accustomed to change.

We're not accustomed to the excitement of newness and expansion.

Right?

The truth is the excitement of newness and expansion it does make our heart pound and it does make us like what if,

Oh my god,

What if,

What if,

What if,

What if.

But now I'm alive.

This is what alive looks like.

This is me like,

Okay,

All systems are going.

Okay,

I better dig deep.

I better rally the troops.

I better figure myself out.

I better release some baggage because you know what?

We're doing something new.

But in a world that thinks that comfort is the end zone,

We may call it fear.

But it's not fear.

Excitement is expansion.

When we call it fear we go and then it's almost like as soon as we say fear the negative imagination takes over.

It's just a very interesting thought.

The other beautiful thing about fear in terms of using fear as a tool of healing is to really look at our fear with compassion.

Like everything I'm saying,

Like if I have a fear,

And I do,

We all have fears.

We all have things that rise up that make us think,

Anything that's new,

Anything that's unknown,

Right?

It's all good.

Even just simply the unknown.

Knowing that I'm going to step into the unknown is going to bring up fears.

That's awesome.

The key is to look at ourselves with compassion and say,

Huh,

This is really making my heart pound.

Okay,

Wow,

Okay,

My brain's just gone into 400 rabbit holes.

What is going on here?

The awareness of the fear is like,

That's like the portal to the new exploration.

That's the beginning of a new aspect of ourselves coming to light.

Imagine the fear of death or the fear of illness.

Someone in the group mentioned that she'd had a diagnosis and she was really frightened of this illness.

And I mean,

There's a million reasons for this,

But I'm going to go more into my own experience that,

Like back in 1999 when I was really sick and because cancer runs in my family,

There was a lot of fear around having lumps growing in my breasts.

But what was really under the fear?

When I wrote the book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer?

,

I studied a lot of people who were sick and got better,

Right?

Or who were sick and died,

But they kind of shouldn't have died.

The illness wasn't that bad.

And one of the number one things that happened with people who had spontaneous remissions is they got their diagnosis and they fell into this existential crisis because they thought,

What have I been doing with my life?

Am I going to die with my music inside?

Have I been working so hard at a job I don't even love?

Not being honest with the people around me,

Not choosing love,

Not choosing joy,

Not choosing fun and lightness and I'm just going to die?

No,

No,

No.

That's not the promise.

The promise is we work hard,

Then we get to enjoy our lives.

I'm getting cut short here.

But of course the truth is that's not,

That whole promise,

That's not true,

Right?

Because the truth is by the time we retire,

Sometimes we've forgotten what we ever loved to do to begin with,

Right?

And then we just end up empty.

So sometimes a diagnosis is the beginning of a personal exploration that only we can take.

There is no one else in our circle,

There is no one else in our family that can help us as much as they'll try.

You get the diagnosis and something goes deep inside of you and there's this dark depth inside that only you go into and you sit there and you go oh my god.

So many of the people who had spontaneous remissions and so to understand the word spontaneous actually means that it came from within.

Spontaneous doesn't mean that it just started or it just magically appeared or that's not what spontaneous means.

Spontaneous means that it erupts from within.

If you make a spontaneous plan,

It's an idea that came up from within.

So a spontaneous remission is a remission that happened from within.

So a lot of the people who had these spontaneous remissions they get the diagnosis and all of a sudden they just sort of realize oh my god,

I haven't even been living.

All I've ever been doing is just making money and putting food on the table and blah blah blah but what if I die and that's all I accomplished?

Like what about me?

So what they did is they went out and they started doing the whole thing and now I have that country song in my head.

You know,

Was it good?

I went skydiving I went mountain climbing I lasted 25 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.

Yeah,

Anyway I can't remember what the song is called but it's some country song.

But they actually went out and they started to live and they started to have faith.

They started to realize that no,

If I actually live things will work out and maybe I don't need the two car garage and the huge house.

Maybe I don't need to work that hard to maintain that.

What if I just did this much and I worked part time and I rented or I lived with a friend and I actually lived.

And then one day they go back to their doctor's office and because they have a hernia because they took up gardening or something and the doctor's all like,

You're still alive?

I thought you died.

They're like,

No,

I just started living.

It's just really interesting when we look at the fear.

So this fear,

For example,

Was the beginning of understanding why they were even here on the earth.

So if we look at all these fears and we actually allow them to be portals to understanding ourselves.

To really understanding who we are.

If we have fear of rejection,

For example,

Let's look at that one.

What's the real truth?

So our false imagination says,

Oh my God,

No one likes me.

I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life.

There's obviously something wrong with me.

I'm obviously ugly or too fat or too short or too old or I don't have the right job or something.

And ugh,

I am just a loser.

This is all false,

What I'm saying.

None of it's true.

What's the truth?

The truth is that this person is not the one for me.

That's all.

There's nothing more to it.

This one single person is not the one for me.

If I go to get a job and I don't get the job,

Well then that job,

That singular job is not the one for me.

And that's it.

It's not that there's no jobs.

It's not that I'm a loser and I don't contribute to society.

That's all false imagination.

It's bad,

Bad use of our infinite power.

The truth is,

That's the reality.

If it persists,

Then we go,

Interesting,

The fear is persisting.

What's going on here?

So then we go inside and we say,

Where did all these fears of rejection come from?

Why do I feel like.

.

.

So for example,

I was chatting with a woman yesterday and we were talking about going deep into our belief systems.

And one of the things for her was when she was young,

Her father,

Because she had sex when she was a teenager,

Her father told her that she was used goods.

She wasn't worthy anymore.

She was worth nothing to anyone.

Well,

Okay,

Well we can think,

Well he was just a jerk or something.

But the bottom line is,

There is a weird belief about that.

So in the land of women,

What if there's a deeper belief that says,

Actually my sexual power is my greatest power?

And in the end,

I'll pull that card if I have to.

Or what if everywhere I go,

I need every single person to think I am sexually attractive or else there's something wrong with me?

Really?

You know,

I remember talking to a woman once and she really wanted to just go to a bar and dance with her friends,

But she didn't want to get picked up on.

Right?

She didn't want to kind of have the eyes of the others,

You know,

Staring at her,

The dudes.

And I said,

Well then just go without makeup.

Wear a baggy sweater and some ripped jeans and just,

Oh I couldn't go to a bar without makeup.

I'm like,

Why?

Because you might not be attractive to the opposite sex.

It was really wild because she actually did it.

She actually went to the bar.

No makeup,

Baggy jeans,

Baggy sweater,

Danced with her friends.

And she really had a good time.

And so it's really important and all genders have it.

It's in all kinds of communities.

But to really look deeper into this and say,

Do I believe that that's my only,

You know,

What I really contribute to society is my,

You know,

Are we really just supposed to be the beautiful ones?

Is that all we're good for?

Like is that really true?

Is that really the only truth that,

You know,

I'm going to use a heteronormative way here,

But you know,

Is that the only thing men are good for is putting food on the table and creating a healthy home and all that.

Really?

Is that really all we're good for?

No,

Of course not.

We're souls.

We're infinite souls.

So if we go deep enough into these questions,

Eventually we're going to get down to a question of meaning and life.

And we're going to ask ourselves,

Wait a minute,

Why am I here?

Is this really why I'm here?

Right?

What if we have a fear of,

It's interesting,

Like one woman,

She was talking about the fear of changing jobs,

Right?

She's the breadwinner.

What if she changes jobs and things don't go right or things don't work?

You know,

It's a natural fear.

Definitely a natural fear of someone who wants to care for their family.

What if you know that there'll always be an answer?

What if whether you change jobs or not,

There'll always be a solution at every step?

A couple weeks ago,

My daughter was over and we were doing a jigsaw puzzle.

My daughter's 23 and she's a pretty cool cat.

And she,

Uh,

Things don't faze her until they do.

And then if you've pissed her off,

You're really going to get it.

And she just does not hold anything back.

She's pretty hilarious.

But most of the time,

Nothing really fazes her.

So I was actually asking her about,

You know,

This whole COVID situation.

I don't want to talk about that here,

But I was asking her about it because every so often,

I'll get pretty hot under the collar about things and get pretty righteous and angry and stuff.

And I said to her one day,

Because nothing fazes her about it.

She just floats through and does this and does that.

And she's just like,

Like nothing fazes her.

And I'm like,

So finally I just said to her,

I said,

Okay,

I appreciate the fact that it's not fazing you.

But I kind of want to ask,

Like,

Why doesn't it?

Like,

Where did you get this from?

Like,

You certainly didn't get it from me.

Like,

Where did you get this from?

Why doesn't it bother you?

And she just looked at me and she said,

You know,

Mom,

I love it when she starts with,

You know,

Mom,

I have real faith in me.

I have real faith that no matter what happens,

I'll make a choice and I'll be fine.

And since I'm still talking about it,

I'm obviously still processing that myself.

So imagine we change jobs,

But we know that this is the next step,

This is the next choice,

And when the next challenge comes,

I will make a choice there too.

And when the next challenge comes,

I will make a choice there too.

There's something amazing,

Again,

It's this fear versus faith thing that says,

But imagine even just simply having faith in you,

Right?

That you do have the answers,

That all we have to do is sit and listen,

That no matter what,

It's all good.

The other fear I want to talk about is this fear of what others think,

Feeling shame,

Not knowing enough,

Because they're all kind of wound in together.

Imagine if we really look at that.

What is the real fear versus the imagined fear?

Well,

The real fear is being kicked out of the tribe,

Right,

Being kicked out of the herd.

Okay,

That's acceptable.

But is this the only herd?

Is this the only group?

Really?

Is this actually a life or death situation?

No,

It's not.

I can't fathom that there's anybody here that's actually in a life or death situation that is based on whether or not other people like you.

Right?

And this is really important because that's the only real fear there,

Right?

Everything else is like even the fear of feeling shame.

Shame isn't real.

Shame is a tool used by others to keep you down.

It's not real.

It's like if you see that picture of the horse and he's tied to a plastic lawn chair and you know,

They do this,

I guess,

With when they train circus animals,

That they'll use like big chains that kind of hold them when they're small.

So by the time they're like thousands and,

You know,

A couple of tons,

They can be controlled with a simple rope.

That's like shame.

It's not real.

It's just used to make you small.

It's used to quiet you.

It's used to make you feel like you don't have strength.

And it's really important to really know that there's no foundation in that.

And the fear of what others think,

What's interesting about that is it's often actually a lack of connection to our own truth.

When I first published my book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer,

I had a huge fear about what other people would think.

And you guys all know,

I mean I talk about people pleasing enough to know that this is a fear I've certainly danced with my whole life.

But the fear of publishing that book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer,

To think oh my god,

What if people think I'm wrong?

What if they think that I'm not a doctor?

Who am I to talk about cancer?

Who am I to talk about mind-body-spirit connection and health and healing and miracles?

And what if people think I'm a religious nut?

What if,

What if,

What if,

What if?

Right?

But eventually I realized that you know what,

I had a message to share.

I had an experience to share.

I did research.

And I feel like what I'm saying is truth.

And there may be many people out there who think I'm a nut job.

It's okay.

A lot of people read that book and I'm really grateful because they wrote me and said wow,

This book changed my life.

Right?

And I'm not saying that to make myself feel good.

It's just that there was a lot of fear there.

Like even when I would do talks about it,

There was always a couple people in there who would yell at me and say oh,

Are you saying that my sister died and she created her cancer?

And it's like no,

That's not what I'm saying.

They're interpreting it from a completely different paradigm.

And there's something that really was empowering for me to be able to stand my ground and say it's okay if you don't understand.

I'm cool with this.

It is my truth.

And it is actually how I see the world.

It may not be how you see the world,

But it is how this soul sees the world so far.

And that's all.

There's something so empowering.

So if our fear is about what other people think or the fear of shame that could get put on us,

The guidance may be to really find yourself.

Find your truth.

Honor your truth.

Get to the bottom of that.

What about fear of death?

Isn't fear of death interesting?

We have no evidence.

Again,

If we look at evidence and we look at what's a real fear and what's an imagined fear,

Animals don't walk around afraid of dying.

They're just living.

So you have to ask ourselves,

Like,

Is it even a real fear or is it created out of our imagination?

Is it created out of stories that maybe religions who said if you don't do this,

You're going to fry in an eternal hell.

But is it real?

The truth is in my world and I don't know anything about death.

I don't pretend to.

But all I do know is anyone who's ever had a near-death experience says it's beautiful.

Says it's full of light.

Says it's full of choice.

I have so many close friends who remember multiple lifetimes.

That life really is just walking into,

Walking through another door,

Into another experience.

So it's curious when our imagination I don't know,

It expands it into this huge story of something else.

And also the weird fear of death is I think also it takes us back into that question.

You know,

Like one time I was on a naked cruise and I did the naked macaroon and naked with a thousand some-odd other people and then I went back to where my husband was sitting and I said,

Okay I can die now.

That was the funnest thing I've ever done in my life.

There's something about having lived a full life that just brings you peace about it.

Thanks so much for being here.

I'll see you later.

Reviews

Loved it! I identified 💯 with a lot of what you said. Ty!🙏🏼👑👼🏼💙

I love your reflections here! I’m a fellow 80s nerd and my response to the one dimensional way we teens were shown to think was to believe that I was alone, that people of like mind didn’t exist. I am still struggling with how to identify fellow travelers in “real life” settings. I’m thinking the answer is related to the courage you developed daring to publish your book. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Always love your perspective and personal stories to support the topic. Thanks! 💖