By Rev. Spencer Rouse
It was the middle of the night. I had been asleep, but I had not been able to relax completely this first night in my new apartment. My body jerked. I opened my eyes, startled, shaken. Something had thrown me into panic. What? A sinister sound. My mind struggled to focus. My eyes darted around the dark room. What was that noise? A dream? No. There it was again, an angry and powerful hiss. It hammered the low window, rattling the glass against the frame. It echoed the hammering in my chest. My throat closed in pure panic.
My imagination held an image of a monster rattlesnake, determined to enter through the window, or maybe it was the fierce water moccasin? No, both of them, locked in a duel. I froze. The seconds passed. The noise continued, but it was not as angry, not as urgent. Panic subsiding, I turned on the lamp beside my bed, and eased over to the window. It was the sprinkler system!
The pressure of its first efforts for the night created the angry hissing sound, but it had quieted into a rhythm. Relieved and exhausted, I fell back in bed, calmer, but wide awake. I laughed the adrenaline out of my body. I laughed at the trick my fears had played on me. The next night, I heard the same sound. This time it was familiar and comforting. My senses were adapting to the new surroundings, and the heavy energy of my fears had been replaced with less burdensome and more peaceful feelings.
Overall, this type of fear response arises from the perception of danger that threatens life, health, or anything we strongly value. Humans tend to attack or run when confronted by fear at this level. In extreme cases, we can freeze with terror, as I did when my imagination created the threat of the two vicious snakes.
The Source of Fears
For the most part, fears are conditioned responses to some negative experience. This can be from our own past or from secondhand, negative experiences or events around us—television, movies, stories from others, or from what we read. The point is that our minds take over. We analyze the negative situation. Our imagination places us there. We think about it over and over, and fear finds a home not just in our imagination, but throughout our physical, mental, and emotional bodies. However, there is some good news, too: Fears that become conditioned responses usually can be helped or even eliminated.
Overcoming Fears with a Simple Strategy
Quieting the mind is the first step in overcoming fear. The easiest way is to turn your attention away from your busy mind and focus on your breathing. Just observe your natural breathing. Do not try to change the rhythm by thinking about it at this point. Let it follow its own rhythm, whatever that may be. Do this for about five minutes, until you are completely relaxed and your mind is no longer participating.
Now you are ready to confront the fear. Anything that is creating a stumbling block in your life has fear attached to it. Think of something that frightens you and visualize it. We will use fear of snakes for an example here. Visualize an area full of snakes. Do not shy away from this image. Instead, take a deep breath and hold it.
Sense the snakes as fully as you can: sight, sound, touch, smell, and even taste, if you can. Release the breath. Feel the fear arise. Feel what effect it has on you. Acknowledge the feeling. The fear is real. The snakes are not. Repeat the breathe, hold, visualize, and breath release action until the fear has completely surfaced. Now breathe long, slow breaths, allowing the fear to surface as completely as possible, and then move it out of your consciousness with every following breath. Breathe it out of your system. Release it.
Keep up the rhythmic breathing, paying attention to your inhales and exhales until the fear is not present. It helps to say a mantra once you are comfortable with the rhythmic breathing. “I am calm. I am at peace.” This helps replace the fear image with something more pleasant in your mind and body.
Now that you have quieted your mind and lulled your physical body and emotions into a balance, introduce an image of the snakes again. Your body probably will become tense and your breathing will change if you are doing it right. Breathe in and out slowly and repeat your mantra. Go through the whole process again and again. Practice this whenever you want to confront a fear. It may take several sessions, depending on how willing you are to allow the fear to come forward. If this method does not lessen or eliminate the fear, consider seeking the help of a qualified hypnotherapist.
There are other approaches that work well in conjunction with this breathing/visualization technique. If you are holding fears in your conscious and subconscious mind, they are likely to be expressing in your cells and muscles, too. Physical exercise, therapeutic massage, and chiropractic can relax the body, increase blood and lymph flow, and stimulate the muscles, which helps the fears rise to the surface so you can address them mentally and emotionally, restoring balance more quickly.
Regular meditation sessions are another important way to balance and elevate your energy and feel more peaceful inside. Fears—which are a low, dense energy—will not be comfortable in this new contemplative state of being and will begin to dissipate on their own.
In the larger picture of our existence, we can view life itself from the vantage point of love, which is creative, or fear, which is destructive. Anything that is not loving and uplifting pulls us down into the “snake pit” of fear and erodes our life force.
A Course in Miracles tells us “Love is letting go of fear.” Remember that love is always present, but sometimes it is obstructed by our fears. The next time you need to release the grip of fear remember this simple strategy to restore peace and balance to your body, mind, and spirit.
Rev. Spencer Rouse has been a psychic medium, teacher, counselor, writer and healer for more than 25 years. She recently completed her Level 1 and 2 studies of Acoustic Sound, Color, and Body Movement with Fabien Maman (Father of Vibrational Sound Therapy) at the Tama-do Academy in Malibu, and Switzerland. Spencer teaches “Soul to Soul” classes in Sarasota, FL, which focus on how to tune into the true self through the tools of sound, color, and ancient teachings. She also will be presenting an interactive class focused on color, sound and Chi in relation to healing this winter. For more information visit www.psychicspencer.com, email PsychicSpencer@yahoo.com or call 941-706-1005.