A few years back my good friend Chris Foster posted the most beautiful, candid and uplifting personal account of how he handled fear in the anticipation of a medical exam for a health issue. His situation is as relevant today as it was back then, perhaps even more so with this global pandemic. It is also pertinent to our crossing yet another threshold into a new year just weeks away. I think you will find a way forward through these fear-laden times. But I’ll let him tell his story.
The Happy Seeker
By blogger Chris Foster
Fear is on the rise in America, or so it seems. That’s what the newspapers and TV say. Perhaps it’s on the rise everywhere. Fear has a way of generating more fear—just as love has a way of generating more love.
Personally, I’ve known a fair bit of fear in my life. My standard response, when fear came up in me, was to do my best to ignore it, or suppress it.
It never really worked, mind you. The more I tried, consciously or unconsciously, to repress my fear, the more firmly entrenched it became, and the more it continued to haunt me. Fear is good at that. It likes haunting people.
But here’s the good news I want to share with you as we pass the threshold into a New Year and contemplate with joy and perhaps a bit of foreboding the possibilities that 2016 [and 2022] may hold in store.
Fear is not the scary, unconquerable monster we may have thought it to be. Believe it or not, fear can be our ally, and teacher.
A couple of months or so ago, I was due for my annual CT scan. I’m a two-year cancer survivor, and Kaiser likes to keep a close eye on me to make sure that there is no recurrence of this feared illness.
As the date of my appointment drew closer, I wasn’t entirely surprised when feelings of anxiety began to arise in me.
What was the result going to be? Would everything check out okay? Or would something suspicious show up?
Then I had an idea. A life-saving idea. An idea that I believe is being beamed from Heaven to all of us in these days.
Instead of trying to ignore my fear, or suppress it, as I have done so often in the past─how about acknowledging it, and feeling it, and then simply letting the fear be?
If a thunderstorm erupts in my neighborhood—as it does at times here in Colorado—know there is no need to get in a battle with the storm. It would be kind of futile anyway.
Just as a storm has a beginning, so too it has an end.
So instead of fighting the anxiety that rose up in me from time to time when I thought about my coming test, I simply let the fear be. I realized it’s not so different really to a Colorado thunderstorm.
Putting it another way, I let the fear simply pass through me, and as it did pass through me, a miracle occurred. I experienced the truth of my own essence, my own presence, more strongly than ever before in my life. It was a transforming moment, and it was wonderful.
I realized that fear comes and goes, but the truth of who I am, and who we all are, is ageless. It does not change. It was never born. It will never die. It is always present. It doesn’t come and go.
In a strange kind of way, what I had thought of as “fear” became an ally that helped me become more conscious of the inherent goodness and wonder of creation.
So here’s the message I would share with you as 2016 unfolds—face fear and be free.
I wish you a wonderful and blessed New Year. Any thoughts on the above will be most welcome. Also, may I remind you that my new book, The Upside of Cancer, is on sale now at Amazon. It offers a wonderful dose of courage and hope to anyone facing a difficult challenge in their life.
Winston Churchill once said “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” This has proven out to be true in my own experience in facing the decision to take the Covid-19 “booster shot” or not. I chose not to take it, and that decision dispelled any and all fear of being infected by this dreadful micro-organism going around. I courageously decided that my body’s immune alliance is sufficiently empowered by my radiant attitude — and conscientious care — to protect it from being infected, as well as in handling infection effectively should it occur. That said, supporting my body’s immunity has been my practice over the years.
When we do the right things for our bodies, they come through for us in thick and thin. I hope that you’ve found faith and courage in Chris’s story to help you make appropriate decisions about your health and life that are right for you. Take courage as you simply let fear move on through your heart and out. When it’s gone, you remain intact. The immortal and eternal You cannot be infected by this or any other tiny microscopic organism. Empower your body by letting it know your confidence and trust in Life and in its strength. Until my next post,
Be love. Be loved.
Anthony
tpal70@gmail.com
Credits: Chris Foster, The Happy Seeker.
You may like some of the articles I’ve posted in my HealthLight Newsletter, particularly this one.
Lagniappe: Welcome Home to Lemuria — beautiful relaxing mantra chant and toning.
Healing Tones 
Comments on: "Fear Comes and Goes — Let it Go" (1)
I’ve had a similar experience with fear that Chris had. Fear itself can indeed be an ally and an opportunity for learning something useful. I believe Jesus made the statement: “Perfect love casts out fear.” To me this implies that in order to be cast out, fear must first be welcomed in. No resistance, no effort to suppress fear or somehow flee from it. Just welcome it in. It is the resistance to fear or to any other negative emotion that can damage our capacities of heart, mind and body. Welcome fear, and let the Love at the core of our being dispose of the fear in whatever way it creatively will.