Does Fear Take You Away From Connection?
Fear is an illusion. It’s a construct of our mind, and it’s a disconnect from flow. We project our fear into a potential future that we definitely do not want. We focus on the things that scare us, and we make those things happen in our minds. This creates anxiety, stress, and even depression. But by paying attention to our fears, we can learn how to control them. We can learn how to connect with flow again.
In this article we look into how we project our fears into the future. This is done in order to avoid the present moment and its challenges. However, this process is often based on misinformation and imagination. In reality, the future is always uncertain and can contain many unwanted surprises. By focusing on fear instead of flow, you create unnecessary tension and stress. The best way to overcome fear is to connect with the present moment and let go of projections.
Experiencing fear and dis-connect
In 2017 I walked away from a very damaging mentally abusive relationship. When I left I went to live on my own half way up a mountain in the middle of the beautiful Spanish countryside, surrounded by thousands of almond trees. The house was off-grid, which translates to no electricity and no mains water. It had solar panels, but not enough of them to run a water pump to heat the water, run a fridge or a washing machine, in fact it couldn’t even run a hairdryer without running out of juice before my hair was anywhere near done. It was able to run the lights and Internet in the daytime when the sun was out and for about 3 hours of light in the night. I told myself it was okay, it was just like camping and got on with it.
The views were breathtakingly awesome; huge vistas with hills and mountains, I could see a million stars at night as there was no light pollution and total silence other than swifts and the odd bonelli’s eagle. It could have been incredible to be there, it really was an amazingly beautiful place.
Instead I woke up every day in fear. Fear of hurting myself – I was nowhere near anyone that could help me. Fear of someone lying in wait for me on the rare occasion I went out at night, as there was no fencing or security of any kind. I also had the fear of losing my mind, as I was on my own pretty much 24/7, apart from my beautiful dog Asha and my two cats Kooky and Dixie. Plus a million other fears that had no name but which I felt as extreme unease, a tightening in my chest and solar plexus and a constant feeling of impending doom.
After living there for a while I contacted a lady called Maya who ran a yoga and healing centre about 40 minutes away. I knew she did reiki and thought connecting with her, actually physically being in another human’s presence, would help me with my feelings of loneliness and total isolation. She told me to come down the next afternoon. All we did was talk and at the end of the session she said, “why don’t you stay for a group that is going to run in about 15 minutes? You can meet some other people and it might be good for you”. I agreed without asking what the group was about, as I knew enough about saying “Yes” when the universe presents you with something, so I stayed.
There were 8 women from their early 40’s to their mid 70’s. A lady called Barbara, who was a psychic, ran the group. It was called a “spiritual development group”. We were taken through a meditation and told to connect to our guides and angels. At this point I wanted to run out of the room. I have always been open minded about energy (I am Reiki trained and a Colour Mirrors colour therapist) but I had a completely closed mind when it came to people talking about “angels” and “guides”.
At the end of the session Barbara went around the room asking what had happened for each person. Everyone was gushing with their stories of lights, colours, sounds, vibrations and messages, some had seen specific ‘guides” others had a favourite archangel they liked to work with. I thought they were all under some form of mass hypnosis and were talking absolute nothing.
Eventually Barbara asked me what had happened for me in the session and I said in a very passive aggressive way “I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything. The only thing I can say is that at some point I felt a tingling on my scalp”. I thanked Maya and went home thinking what an absolute waste of time that was. I made a decision that I would not be returning to that particular group. but I did feel better for having been around and spoken to people.
That night I went to bed really early, as I felt utterly exhausted. I thought it was just because I had spent some time with people (I am an introvert), which can drain me. I still felt anxious and fearful about my situation but I was too tired to care.
When I awoke the next morning at 5 am, I felt as if I had been plugged into the national grid. All my fear had literally vanished. I felt incredibly energised, like I could climb Mount Everest and still have energy to spare. I went for my first pre-dawn walk with my animals and felt present as I watched and amazing Spanish sunrise.
I felt joyful, connected, powerful, infinite and full of possibilities. My mind was racing with a thousand ideas for songs and poems that I wanted to write, and I knew I would be able to finish a book that I had started to write 3 years previously. A thought fleetingly crossed my mind that maybe I had actually gone mad, but if this was madness, bring it on, anything was better than that feeling of dread, disconnection and fear, this felt wonderful by comparison.
The next few months were amazing. I hardly needed to eat or sleep, I felt connected to something that filled my heart, gave me an unlimited supply of inspiration and graced me with the energy to accomplish anything I set my heart on. I used that energy to write songs and finish my book. I attended regular yoga classes with Maya and continued to be part of the spiritual development group.
I loved the new connections and friendships I made with other expat women. I felt like a totally different woman. Eventually my sleeping and energy levels returned to “normal” but the fear did not return. I feel that what I experienced was a dramatic journey from fear to connection.
Whenever I am in connection to something greater than myself I cannot be in “fear” as the two are mutually exclusive. I suspect that in reaching out for help and saying yes to possibility, sitting in the energies in a room that has been used for a long time for meditation and healing, I opened myself to positive energy ‘prana’, God, angels, the universe or ‘chi” depending on your beliefs, and it had a profound effect on me.
I would love to live in that energised space permanently; it was an incredible ride. I wrote a whole album of songs, which I later recorded and released, and finished my book, which I published in 2018, but I suspect the vibration was too high for me to handle long term. I was blessed to experience what true connection feels like and it is absolutely awesome. I really hope one day to experience it again.
What stayed with me is that fear is an illusion, a construct of my mind, a disconnect from flow. None of what I feared actually came to pass. I projected my fear into a potential future that I definitely did not want. My experience of living in the house up the hill proved to me that my fear was not about my situation, but about my thoughts about my situation.
After my ‘awakening’ I still lived in a house in the middle of nowhere, spent most of my time alone, had no electricity or hot running water but I felt joyful not fearful, I lived in the moment rather than a projected fearful future.
Fear in general and fearing the future require a vast amount of consuming energy. Instead, you can focus on the present and what you can do to create the best possible outcome. In fact, fear is an illusion that makes us disconnect from our true potential. You need to be inspired by other people’s courage and most of the time other people have more courage for you than you might have for yourself. When you’re in flow, you’re fully immersed in the moment and nothing can control that. So don’t let fear paralyze you; awaken your creativity, embrace it, unleash it and use it to your advantage!
