I have often villainized fear. Resigned it to a problem of the ego, treated it as it an enemy. I have said, it’s all in my mind. And I’ve even “felt the fear and done it anyway.”

And I could do it and keep doing it. I could move through even with fear ringing in my body. Whatever it was. This all came with some amount of force; it came at a cost. It was exhausting. Constant resistance somewhere in my body. Tension.

When I have rejected it as a problem or call it my enemy, I gave it another layer of power unconsciously. When I tried to downplay the power of fear, fear can come up and wanted to be seen harder. When I did not want to see was that by resisting it, I was deeply connected with it.

And there was a good reason for that.

The Source of the Fear

Fear isn’t just in the head – the mind is in the gut. Fear is in the body, physiological. It’s also spiritual and energetically resonant in us.

For me, the fear belonged to aspects of my own past, my past lives (as I intuit them) and people in my ancestry. Our soul finds many ways for us to learn what we need to; we have left ourselves fail-safes.

And what landed each time at the deepest levels were love, strength, and power. Love underneath the bonds that were terrifying when they were lost. Power behind visceral spiritual situations that I wanted to challenge myself with, strength in the soul that can handle it all.

You don’t necessarily have to find the source of the fear, as I suggest, but I find that it deeply resolves fear on many levels of our being when we do.

Everything has a place, and when fear doesn’t seem to fit in a situation, it is merely misplaced.

Fear wants you to locate where it belongs- to honor it’s place. The true source in your history, past life, or lineage.

Message from Fear:

I belong somewhere.

I may not be completely appropriate to your situation right now. But what’s happening might remind me of a past situation and I hope you can see me now.

I may belong to your past, some of me.

But some of me belongs to other people in your family perhaps.

And even further back, some of it may belong to a situation, family member, that endured something so unbearable and terrifying. Or perhaps in a past life.

Either you or someone couldn’t speak of me or feel through me before, and therefore I am here now. You’ve inherited me and possibly accumulated me over time.

Moving beyond it, moving forward without digesting it, was the way to survive it at the time.

But if you can see where I belong – give me my place – I won’t have to knock on your door all the time. I won’t have to chase you. I won’t have to wake you up in the middle of the night so that you feel me shaking to your bones. I will rest then. Sit back. Let you live your life with ease and safety. That’s what I’m here for – ensuring safety.

In the human form and body level, I am brilliant when I am needed. When I have to act quickly; when something is dangerous or risky. I am alert, sometimes forceful, directed, and powerful at my best.

Usually that is a life or death situation, but I have aggregated so many layers over time that sometimes I come up when it’s not life or death anymore. I belong somewhere where was life or death, or where it seemed like it was.

You still need me now, just in case of a situation that is life or death – and I’m here to protect you if something happens. If I’m understood and not stuck from the past, I’ll act swiftly and with confidence.

I am here to give you the alertness and shift your nervous system into a mode where you can protect itself. Where you have the adrenaline fueling your limbs to move fast if you need to. To get out of the way, to push, to run, bite, scream…

But you might not need me in the reality now, only to restore something that is waiting for you. If I have my place from where I came from in the past, then I won’t need to come up all the time.

That is the place that I am most useful, where I belong and when I’m called for in survival. But not in your every day life. I’m not meant to be here for long periods of time, only short bursts. I rest once I am honored and used.

When I paralyze you, or stop you dead in your tracks, keep you in bed, it means I have built up so much. It is that I am so big and loud. I know I become too much – I’m trying to send you a message.

Helloooo! I want to help you know something, restore something much deeper than this moment. I am a reminder of something that’s stuck in time. I am hoping you’ll get the information and wisdom of who came before you, but it seems a bit held.

Getting to the root of it, did you have something happen in the past where I would have been warranted? Did your family lineage, dead and alive, have anything that happened where it was so scary? I am guessing I could belong to any number of situations: losing a baby, losing a loved one, disease, betrayal and hurt, war, immigration, separation, a devastating loss, hurting someone, sexual or emotional abuse, physical abuse, getting hurt, a car accident or bike accident, a crash of some sort, explosions, unexpected incidences, an interruption in feeling connected to our parents and caretakers.

There are things you can do to soften me, to make it tolerable and with ease. Find what is safe in the now (or get to safety). Notice the sensation of being safe. Imagine those or be with those that enliven the connection of safety and everything being ok now. Connect with the divine safety of the earth, of the universe.

And even if you do all that soothing, which can help you now, I might not let you ignore me if I am big – from the past. In this case, getting to ease can help you find finally find what place I have – what context I truly belong and belonged in. What context I wasn’t able to be fully processed or spoken for, claimed, but ended up free floating to whoever was must receptive to me to be heard.

The more you resist me, the more it locks fear into place. Digest me please, in some way. Forgive yourself for having so much of me. Forgive me. Understand me.

I belong somewhere in the soul of your family, society, past life, or in your story. Your body wisdom, senses, and intuition are all ways you can clue in. I need you to acknowledge I have a place. Where are the places that I belong?

Love, Fear

Featured image by Matheus Bertelli.