Hijacked By Fear

There are really only two lenses through which we see, experience and respond to the world — the lens of fear and the lens of love. Fear takes many forms — anxiety, anger, resentment, judgment, and guilt. Love also takes many forms — kindness, compassion, acceptance, happiness, and peace. Most of us, most of the time, live in a mindset of fear. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. The world is anything but peaceful and there is plenty to be afraid of. But not only are we afraid of the world ‘out there’, we are also afraid of ideas we manufacture in our own minds — fear of loss, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of the loss of control, fear for our safety and security. Even fear of love.

Our fearful thinking is not neutral. It can cause us to go on the attack. Attack someone else (blame), attack the situation (this shouldn’t be happening), attack ourselves (it’s all my fault). Decisions and choices we make when in a fearful state of mind are not always in our best interests because our primary purpose is to get rid of the fear rather than look for long-term solutions to the challenges we are facing.

Once we are in a fearful state of mind, it can be very difficult to stop and to shift consciously into a more peaceful and loving state of mind. Our minds are literally hijacked by our fearful thinking. Our thoughts go round and round in closed loops and the fear feeds upon itself.

So what can we do?  The first step is to become conscious of our fearful state of mind. The next steps involve looking directly at the fear and shining the light upon it because fear can only live in darkness. Fear leads to lovelessness and lovelessness is the darkness.

“Fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, goodness, casts out all thoughts of beauty and truth.”  — Aldous Huxley

Hijacked by Fear

1 Hour, 2 Minutes