The other week I walked out into the bright lights of New York City after seeing a wonderful show on Broadway. The streaming news board in Times Square alerted me that anthrax was just found in the governor’s office. Whoa. The stock market was down again. Hmmn. Another Fortune 500 company was announcing layoffs. Ouch. What did these messages have in common? Fear, fear, and fear. Have you noticed that the number one book on The New York Times Bestseller’s List this week is about biological weapons?
Fear works. Fear sells. Fear grows. Similar to information about food or sex, humans are wired to notice and spread fear-based information quickly. This predisposition is a remnant of our evolutionary history where detecting approaching predators could mean the difference between life and death and whether our genes would be passed on to future generations.
The law of attraction states that like attracts like and so you can expect everything you focus upon to expand. Everything. Including the fear you feel. Thus the more fear we invite into our lives, the more those negative thoughts will be manifested in our lives. We then have even more worries to contend with and the downward spiral continues.
Here’s a personal example on a much smaller scale. When I first moved out to Seattle, I felt some anxiety over the ramifications of moving my business. Would all of my clients leave me? There was no real foundation for this fear, I just had some trepidation over the unknown world ahead of me. Over a few days, my fearful thoughts multiplied like bunnies in a darkroom.
I lost two of my best clients. See, I told myself, I knew this was going to happen. My fears grew. The next day, I lost a third. That was it, I was finished. All I had worked for was going to disappear.
After losing my fourth client in three days, I realized what was happening. The more fearful I became, the more I was attracting the very things I feared most. These events were not coincidence or bad luck, they came directly from my own fearful thoughts.
I then made the decision to focus on all the reasons I was so very excited about the experience of living in a new city instead of focusing on what I didn’t want to happen. Within 3 days, I had 5 new clients show up, all of whom were paying me a higher rate than the clients with whom I had just parted ways.
The law of attraction makes you a co-creator in everything that happens in your life. With your thoughts and actions, you hold the key to the experiences you invite into your life, nothing just happens to you. That gives you the power. But by accepting that power, you must also take responsibility for getting past the fear within you.
Fear is always the gatekeeper in living a life filled with joy. Every person with a truly great life walks up to that gatekeeper and gets to know him, for if the sentry is avoided, we can never arrive at the palace. Make this process easier on yourself by recognizing that true courage is not the absence of fear, but rather reflects the decision to make getting what you really want more important than the fear. The solution is simplistic, but not simple, so here are some tips:
Always, always, always focus your energy on what you DO want as opposed to what you DO NOT want. Examples: “I want prosperity” versus “I don’t want to lose everything.” “I want love that lasts forever” versus “I don’t ever want to lose this person.” “I will kick some tail” versus “I don’t want to fail.”
Become aware of the prevalence of fear-based information and shield yourself from it. Turning off the TV is a wonderful place to start. Limit your exposure to media. Remember, they all know you are wired to pay attention to fear and they exploit that fact to keep you tuned in.
Stay in the present. Much fear-based thinking is born out of uncertainty about the future. Avoid “what if…” thinking. When you can take life one day at a time and enjoy the gift that is the present, just be in that place of appreciation, feelings of fear will dissipate. Today is a good day.
When you are in a place of fear, recognize it and do whatever you need to do in order to put your focus in a positive place. Focus on the opposite of fear — love. Listening to the Beatles always works for me.
Finally, expect to be tested by the universe. Consider this passage from the book, the Alchemist:
Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. That’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees appear on the horizon.'”
If you allow the fear to continually dominate your thoughts, expect to get your ass whooped. If you choose to trust the law of attraction and focusing on what you really want and the positive feeling associated with having it, it’s yours.
Joy wins. Fear loses.