Handling Fear

I was saying in a previous post how I had been going through a difficult time and how I thought it was unfair that fear blocked you from moving on when you need it most. I did find relief eventually by continually praying. My prayers were desperate but at some point I must have relaxed enough to enable me to hear the answer I needed to hear to move forward. Things have been good since then, brilliant in fact, I have felt close to God and aligned with the universe. You would think that if you were perfectly aligned, life should run perfectly, everything falling in to place just as it should but life does not happen like that. There are ups and there are downs and now I have come to another tricky situation. I now feel more equipped to deal with it which is why I must tell you about this. Fear is such a natural human response, anything that happens that is out of the ordinary, that challenges our regular existence instantly results in fear which clouds our decisions. The excuses that fill our heads to try and escape the fear are so loud and strong they block out the calmness that we must adopt to hear God. We want to listen to the fear because that feels safer, easier. We convince ourselves that these thoughts are there to protect us and those close to us from more hurt or from making mistakes in the future, so we must take them seriously. A situation has arisen in my life, a possible life changing decision. I instantly felt afraid, I wanted to ignore it and remain in my safe, predictable life. This time before the fear took hold completely I prayed to God. I actually said to myself I am not going to think fearful thoughts about this yet I am going to ask God for help. The first thing that I came across was a talk by a famous spiritual leader. He said that in the past when his life was difficult and he had no job and little money for food, he told people he was going to the job centre but what he actually did first was went to the park to meditate and ask for help. He didn’t always admit this to others because most people live in fear and they would not understand this course of action. ”Never mind sitting in the park, you need to be looking for a job’ they would say. I decided that before fear took hold I would meditate too. It was difficult to calm my mind as my brain was filled with scary thoughts and my heart was pounding but I kept on repeating to myself over and over ‘I have nothing to fear, God will guide me’. I said this over and over until the fear subsided and I began to feel reassured that I was going to be OK. The hardest thing on this spiritual journey is to have faith and trust in God. When life is going swimmingly it’s easy to declare your faith but it’s when difficult times arise, to find the strength to put your faith in God is the real challenge. To trust that he has your back and to walk into the unknown - that is the real test for us. For me, my decision has the ability to negatively affect my finances, to change my career for the worse with little possibility of going back. While writing this I feel fear rising inside of me but for now these are just thoughts which serve no purpose I must lean back and let them pass by and just take each step as I come to it and know that God is there for me. On the other hand my life could move from being mundane, safe and predictable to new and amazing. When I write in my journal of the life that I wish to manifest for myself it is so far removed from the life that I live now. How can this come in to being without some big changes? This is the problem with fear, we want to protect ourselves so much from fear we surround ourselves with walls to keep us safe but that stops us from going out and feeling the sun on our face and the beauty of the world. I’m not saying that fear won’t rear its head again, in fact I am certain it will and it may win but I feel this is a test for me to show God that I do have faith in him and I can move onto the next level of my spiritual journey, that of trust and the ability to step into the unknown relying solely on my faith in God. Am I up to this challenge?

A lesson about faith

A few months ago in the summer I was tested or maybe I was given an opportunity to learn a very important lesson. The weeks before had been glorious, the best you could wish for. Sunshine, no stress, spending long summer days with the man I love enjoying everything life had to offer. I had been doing some meditations focusing on prosperity and abundance. In the midst of this perfect existence we were suddenly put in an unusual situation. In our narrow minds we could not see how this could be a good experience, our fears told us that we must do everything we could to get out of this situation and return to the normality we had been experiencing. Inside I felt that there was some meaning behind what was happening but I did not know what and my fears were very present as much as my husbands were. I tried to meditate but I was unable to find calm. I’m not making excuses but it happened at the wrong time of the month when my hormones were making me particularly sensitive and my husbands fears were so strong that I felt I was being swept away by them. We let our fears determine our choices. At a crucial point I remember having a sudden feeling that we should step back and let fate take it’s course and fate in fact stepped in as far as I was concerned and stopped me from making a very costly mistake but my husband was not having any of this. Despite the signs trying to stop him he continued to push forward with his plans and eventually they came in to play. With hind sight we can now see that those choices were not only costly financially and still causing my husband a lot of stress but had we leaned back, let go and let God we would have had more money now than we would have had before (maybe my earlier meditations focusing on abundance and prosperity were the course of this)  and possibly some happy memories of that period in time. For myself  I did not suffer financially although my fear stopped me from gaining financially either. I did learn a valuable lesson though. I wonder now if that was God’s plan. They say nothing is meaningless. I look back now and realise if my faith was stronger and I was able then to put my fears aside and connect with God I could have dealt with the situation better. I cannot control my husband’s fears however and they may have been so strong that the outcome would have remained the same. I feel blessed that I have learned and this lesson has stayed with me and is helping me now. I have prayed to God to end my husband’s stress and put right his financial loss. I don’t like to see him so worried. I know that this is between God and him but I can only send my love.