Fear is a natural response of the body to any outside invasion or outside stimulus. We might be sitting there in peace, happy and ecstatic to be alive. The world might seem to be right where it’s supposed to be. Everything is exactly right. And then all of a sudden, disaster strikes.
Or at least we think that disaster has struck.
Everything is exactly the same in our outer world. Nothing has really changed. Every stone, every molecule, every breath is exactly the same. But we have changed on the inside.
Hundreds of chemical reactions are going on in the brain, to change who we are, and where we are going. We are having an almost automatic reaction, based on fear, to the stimulus, whatever it might be.
We Can Make This Automatic Stimulus Process Less So
The reason I do all of the stuff I do, meditation, journaling, and all of that, is so that I can make the process of going into fear mode, adrenaline rushing, heartbeat increasing, less of an automatic thing.
There are many stimuli that are going to invade our brain space, and body space during a day. It is inevitable that some of these things are going to matter a lot. Some of them are not going to matter at all. In hindsight, all of them are going to matter not a jot.
But at the moment, everything seems to be urgent, scary, and fear-inducing. We react terribly to all of it, causing all of these crazy things to happen in our brains, that cause us to stagger around in a daze, either behaving like a zombie, that’s in outer space, or like a monkey with its head cut off.
Either option doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t want to escape away from this world and hide in the imaginary places in my head. I also don’t want to run around, behaving like a crazy person, trying to force something to happen.
Through Meditation, I Become More Aware Of The Full Cycle
Not only meditation, but any mindfulness practice, can help you with this process of making everything less automatic. Our reactions to these stimuli can become less automatic. Less crazy. Less out there.
It’s all about becoming more conscious about everything, the stimulus, and the reaction.
When a stimulus comes into our consciousness, instead of going into an automatic fear-based reaction, we take a step back. We chill out. Deep breath. And then we think about what our reaction should be.
We realize that every single time something like this has happened, we think that’s it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen, but it turns out to be exactly the thing that we needed to happen. In fact, almost every single time, it turns out to be the thing that helps us move forward.
When we are conscious and aware, we can remember that fact. Instead of building up fear, and anxiety in our body, we can come back to that place of calm. We do not need to fear this stimulus. Things similar to it have happened before, and we are ready for it. We can deal with it. Everything is going to be just fine.
And therefore, instead of jumping headlong into unseemly conclusions, we are able to take it slow, think about it consciously, and realize everything is alright. We can actually make a proper decision about it, rather than rushing into it, and actually making things worse.
Finally, we realize that everything is happening for an exact awesome reason, and we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.
