The Effects of Fear

Fear is really an illusion when you think about it long enough.  Fear is not what we were born to feel, love is.  Yet the reality is that we do feel fear for a variety of reasons both warranted and not warranted.  Fear can have a life of it's own in our mind.  At times we feel fear and then find that we were worried and fearful for nothing.  In fact more often than not our fears are unfounded.  The triggers for fear are as varied as we are as people with so many different personalities.  What we need to eventually face is the effects of fear so that we understand that it is crucial to find peace and courage to unveil fear and to counteract it.  First we must acknowledge how fear affects our lives in different ways:

1. Fear stops us from our journey:
Fear impedes our journey and stops us from staying on the right path, the one that will be of the most value to us and the one that is the most rewarding for our spirit, body and mind.  Fear stops us from taking the journey most aligned to our best life and fear takes us off the path that we should be on that will be to our best benefit.

2. Fear creates more fear:
When we live in fear we create more fear.  We get caught up in a vicious circle where we feel we are more and more out of control and fear takes over.  Fear begets more fear just as love begets more love and courage begets more courage.

3. Fear will poison our spirit and our ability to be kind:
Fear makes us a little paranoid of others and effects our ability to connect with others, to show kindness and be in a place of loving others.  It makes us suspicious of others rather than lead us to trust others.  Fear is a lot like anger in that the more we fear the more poorly we feel.

4. Fear blocks our love:
Fear blocks us from what we could have more of such as love.  Fear blocks us from love because as long as we are in fear we cannot truly love others or ourselves.  Fear blocks others from loving us and wanting to be around us.

5. Fear makes us angry and dysfunctional:
We cannot function fully when we are in fear.  We become dysfunctional because fear is a feeling that keeps us in this dark and lost place.  We function much better when we let go of the fear or do it anyway in spite of the fear.  We cannot let fear makes us dysfunctional and become frozen and unable to move forward in our decision's and dreams.

So how to we handle fear and the effects fear has on us?  We must begin with knowing that fear is an illusion and that it is not how we are suppose to live.  We did not come to this world fearing but rather truly peaceful and loving.  We must know that fear is usually in our mind and that there is not a real reason to be fearful most of the time.  In fact it is usually a paranoid feeling that looks like fear or that creates the illusion that we must be fearful.  Knowing what we want in life is crucial to eliminating fear.  Overcoming it takes doing something anyway and doing it with the confidence that you have nothing to be afraid of but your thinking.  Think yourself out of the fear just as you thought yourself into the fear.  Replace the fear with love and walk away from the fear.  Do what needs to be done with the confidence that your fear is not founded.  It is just something you are thinking is going to happen because you are paranoid.  It is basically illogical.  Tell yourself "This is not fear, this is a false illusion in my head put there by my own thoughts and not based on fact".  Talk to your source of strength and share those feelings of fear so that they have less of a charge and less control over you.

Courage is the opposite of fear and we all have courage.  We have all overcome a lot in our lives.  We all know that we can do it because we have before.  There is no bad situation that cannot be turned into something of good.  Fear is a feeling like any other and we do have a choice to stay in fear or to become the courageous person we were meant to be.
Elliott Maximo Collazo Gonzalez