Everyone has different fears and everyone handles their fears differently. The first thing we have to do is look at what
triggers our fears, then we can see how we behave when they come up.
What are you afraid of?
- Someone close dying
- Health issues
- Your partner leaving you
- Being alone
- Not being successful
- Money issues
- Aging
- How people perceive you
- Not being loved
These are a few of the issues that you could have fear around. I think we might all have a twinge of fear around most of these but what we are looking for are the big fears that makes us run for the hills. The fears you really want to look at are the ones that make you want to medicate the feelings so you don’t feel them.
When we come up against our fears we have a tendency to run away from the feeling the fears give us. We medicate our feelings so we don’t have to feel them.
Let’s take a look at what we might use to medicate our feelings so that we don’t have to feel them.
Medicators
- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Relationships
- Being busy
- Working
- Shopping
- Talking
- Smoking
- Gambling
Do you get the picture?
You may need a spiritual retreat to help you understand your fears and medicators.
We are so conditioned to not feel our feelings that when they come up, we check out either physically or emotionally. Maybe your parents told you “it wasn’t that bad,” or “don’t be a baby,” or maybe no one in the family ever talked about feelings. Was the yelling and fighting so bad you never want to go there again? There could be many reasons why you stuffed your feelings. What we want to learn is how to be with our feelings, to actually learn how to embrace them.
To embrace our feelings, we have to let them come up and just be with them and not medicate them away. Look at them, how they make our bodies feel and what emotions come up with them. If it’s utter sadness, feel it, explore it, and sit with it until it moves through you, even if it’s horrific. Believe me, if you aren’t medicating your feelings, they can seem unbearable! It’s at this point if you stay with yourself, and don’t run from what you’re feeling, your life will shifts miraculously.
It’s amazing what you learn about yourself through this process. It’s also amazing what fears you overcome by going through this process.
This isn’t easy!
You will get see where your addictions lie. The urge to medicate will be extreme, trust me. You will need a support system. A spiritual retreat may be the support you need. I believe we all need teachers/mentors in our life. We have blind spots that only someone on the outside can see.
