Thanks to Inspiration Line at www.InspirationLine.com for the following article!

 

 

REGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS

"Courage is not the absence of fear,
but rather the judgment that something else
is more important than fear."
--- © Ambrose Redmoon

 

Dear Friends of Inspiration Line,

NOW is the time ... we owe it to ourselves, our family, our nation and the world to step past our fears. Fear is a disease (dis-ease) which infects exponentially. Pushing fear from our bodies takes a concentrated focus on something outside of our own needs - nature's beauty, birds, wildlife and our dear pets; helping others, even in the most simple ways; filling a day with kind words and deeds, etc. That action, which every one of us has the capacity to accomplish, translates into Courage.

Let's consciously choose to think beyond our little nests and consider the bigger picture. Let's stop selling off our stocks and mutual funds, stop canceling airline reservations, and open our eyes to the effect that this has on the Nation as a whole. This is exactly how the terrorists wanted us to react in order to weaken our country and throw us into chaos. For GOODness sake, let's recognize our innate power and come out of our protective huddles to stand strong and united in TRUE freedom. Let's not allow Fear to make us part of the problem, instead of a vehicle for solution.

In "The Mental Equivalent" Emmet Fox writes about an old legend of the Middle Ages in which a prisoner is incarcerated alone in a dungeon for twenty years. Finally, the poor fellow could stand it no longer, and resolved to attack the jailer on his next visit, with the expectation that the jailer would kill him in self-defense, thus ending the prisoner's misery. In preparation, he examined his cell door carefully, and was amazed to discover that it was unlocked! He walked down the corridor, past several guards who ignored him, and made his way home, where he lived happily ever after. As Fox points out,

He could have done this any time through those long years if he had known enough, but he did not. He was a captive, not of stone and iron, but of false belief. He was not locked in; he only thought he was. We are all living in some kind of prison, some of us in one kind, some in another; some in a prison of lack, some in a prison of remorse and resentment, some in a prison of blind, unintelligent fear, some in a prison of sickness. But always the prison is in our thought and not in the nature of things . . . You are not locked in a prison of circumstances. You are not chained in a dungeon ... turn the handle, walk out, and be free. Build a mental equivalent of freedom .... by thinking of it, having faith in it and acting the part, and the old 'limitation equivalent' will gradually fade out, for the door is unlocked."

It is my deep belief that we can train ourselves to "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" by replacing fearful thoughts with constructive ones ( www.SusanJeffers.com ). For, as Emmet Fox explains, "You only can get rid of one thought by substituting another. If a carpenter drives a nail into a wooden wall or into a beam, there it is. Now if he takes a second nail and drives it against the first, the first is driven out and the second one takes the place of the first. This is what happens in your mind when you substitute one image for another."


Following are some specific guidelines from Susan Gunther, Psychologist at MacQuarie University in Sydney, Australia:

Looking after your emotional self:
Take the time to explore your emotions. Work out what exactly you are feeling - e.g. anger, grief, frustration, sadness, disappointment, etc. Give expression to your feelings. Don't bottle them up!! By releasing your feelings in the following ways you are both validating your emotions and at the same time helping to clear them out of your system. This is important for maintaining emotional, mental, and even physical well-being.
There are different ways you might try to give expression to your feelings - find something that suits your personality or your mood at the time. Some ideas might be:
Looking after your thinking self
Practice 'thought stopping'. Every time you catch yourself thinking one of your recurring negative thoughts, say loudly in your head or even out loud "Stop!". If you can pick up on and stop your negative thought early enough, you will be able to avoid many of the bad feelings that would normally follow the thought.

Practice 'translating' your negative thoughts into more realistic, positive ones. One way to do this is to get a large notebook. At the top of each page write a different one of your negative thoughts that you have identified. In red capital letters underneath each thought, write out a positive but realistic translation for the thought. Then fill up the rest of the page with a list of evidence to support that positive thought. Be as detailed and specific as you can in your evidence list.

My message is fairly simple: Let us HONOR the victims of this terrible incident by shifting our focus now to beauty, harmony and kindness. It is not unloving to turn off TV newscasts with heartbreaking images and postulating pundits who know that fearfulness draws avid viewers. We can replace those mental pictures with images of nations throughout the world displaying, as never before, their love for the United States. www.trademasterz.com/interview . Let's not become so caught up in pointing fingers and scrutinizing every "foreign-looking" person we encounter, that we forget that ....
"The door of the Soul opens inward."
We can exchange our worries over "what will happen to ME and MY family" for "how can I show more kindness to cashiers at shops and supermarkets; other cars on the highway; waitstaff at restaurants ..... and airport/airline employees the next time I get on that plane which I am no longer too afraid to board!"
BECOMING A BETTER PERSON
is more important than fear.
Blessings of Courage,
Chelle
Editor@InspirationLine.com