When Overwhelmed With Fear
Fear is to be expected in the process of spiritual awakening, even crippling, terrorizing, paralyzing fear.
Fear that keeps you up all night, when you’re tossing and turning in your bed, unable to sleep.
Thoughts keep gnawing and you can’t seem to get off the emotional roller-coaster.
Here follow some things that will help you go through these times, but the most important thing is to remember that the discomfort that the ego feels is good news for the soul; great inner work is being done and the fear is an expression of the resistance from the ego.
- Be in nature – good for grounding yourself, coming back to the earth from being lost in your mind and stream of thoughts. Ask nature for cleansing and cleaning you and bring you back to balance and harmony.
- Pray, even if you feel resistance to it, even if you feel angry with God, even if you feel hopelessness, even if you feel no one hears you; pray anyway.
- Meditate. Just sit, do nothing, don’t even try to meditate. Just sit in silence. Breath.
- Cry if you feel for it. Sometimes we can feel deep sadness but are unable to cry, especially when we feel deep hopelessness, at those times it can even help to help those tears out and to cry without crying, it can start the process and be a huge release of the inner turmoil. Don’t act brave, cry if you have to.
- If you can’t sleep, listen to holy/sacred scriptures on mp3. The New Testament for example is many hours long. Put it on while you lay in your bed and focus yourself on God.
- Turn to God and pray even more. The Truth shall set you free, trust it even if you can’t see it or even feel it at the moment.
- Have faith, know that this will pass. Remember last week when you were happy? Now you’re sad and fearful and that too will pass.
- Recognize the stories you make up about the situation, just notice how your mind dramatizes it and see how much of it is actually a reality and how much is a mind-made story. This can be very relieving and can allow your shoulders to relax a bit when you see how the mind operates on fear.
- Avoid thinking too far ahead. Do your best to stay here and now as much as you can.
- Avoid imagining consequences and outcomes. We can’t know them, we can only go with the heart one step at a time, and the heart rarely shows us two steps ahead.
- Talk with someone who knows how it feels, someone who can relate to what you’re going through.
- Don’t distract yourself with unenlightening activities such as drinking alcohol, popping pills that numb you, excessive mindless online browsing and TV etc. If you feel completely overwhelmed with feelings, take the immediate heaviness off by watching a comedy or something, but the very best thing is to get out in nature.
- Don’t make hasty decisions, sleep on it, see how you feel about it in the morning. Oftentimes decisions made when in turmoil or confusion are decisions based on fear and not very wise.
- Pray. Did I mention that? Don’t stop praying, and I know that this can be very difficult when the ego is revolting against transformation and growth, it will even make prayer into something repulsive. Don’t ever let go of praying. Pray that God takes over your life – Now.
“I’m yours God – whatever it takes, I am yours”.
(Click on image to see larger)
Typical Scandinavian thing; when the first Tussilago is seen, that means spring is here! I saw these a couple of days ago or so and they made me smile BIG 🙂
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i am now going through the above…..having taken a leap of faith and overcame my fears to return to a country of which ii did not have good memories, i returned after being offered what seemed like a golden opportunity. But i got the shock of my life when some 4 weeks later the dream job turned sour on me and i was back where i came from and in a worse situation than before which is what i had been trying to get out!
I have been through every emotion i can, i don’t sleep at nights because this latest experience showed me that nothing is guaranteed, nothing is secure, nothing stays the same….
All i can do is try to be still having tried all the other methods to band aid my emotions and which was leading me down a slippery slope….
At the moment i am too scared to do anything as i tried and seemingly failed….i can’t see what this experience did for me positively as i lost out on a job, income and an opportunity…..
Am i missing the point here?
Sara, from your comment here:
https://mariaerving.com/facing-challenges/#comments that I received after this one plus the personal email you sent me I take it that you’re perspective has changed a bit and that you feel more peaceful about what’s going on and can see a wider view of what’s going on?
On the surface of life there might be storms and challenges, but there is something below the surface that needs your undivided attention now, and that is that which is true and real, and not what you think it’s about.
Whatever we ever think about something; that’s not the truth of it. Only assumptions and conclusions made by the mind.
We can’t comprehend the larger picture, we can only trust (and see later on in retrospect) that it was as it was suppose to be, even if we didn’t like it at the time.
I went through something similar when I had to move back to Scandinavia from Spain, I was homeless and without income, and I lived in a small borrowed trailer in the middle of nowhere, and the time I spent there was a true blessing for me.
I knew it was and I don’t think I ever resented it, it was just inconvenient and not that comfortable, but obviously I knew it was only temporarily.
It still gets me very emotional to think back, it was such a profound time for me when it comes to my spiritual life.
I often cried tears of joy and gratitude, and I made sure to spend my time on that which was important to me, which was God and my spiritual pursuit.
This time in your life may call for you to go deeper than what’s going on on the surface of life and rejoice in the things you mentioned for me personally (in the email), which you are, from what I could tell.
So that’s really good. Sometimes all it takes is a willingness to look at things differently, and then from that place of peace that the looking from Spirit brings with it, solutions can come forth, when and if needed.
Not to diminish you challenges or make your pain insignificant (because it’s not), but this to me only shows that what you ‘lost’, was not for you after all.
And I’m sure that if you look deeper, you will find the deeper meaning with it too.
Now it’s time to surrender, as you mentioned in your comment; you have realized that your own ways are not working, and that ‘failure’ is actually a victory for the Spirit.
Stay with that surrender; pray, meditate and ask for guidance, keep going within and what you need will show up. Not maybe what you want, but we always get what we need. Sometimes we need a challenge.
I’m glad that you shared this openly with me and others here on my website, and feel very welcome to keep us posted on how things evolve for you from here on.
Here’s a post for you that you may like: https://mariaerving.com/a-note-from-god/
Hi Maria
Thanks for your reply….that was the reason i shared my own personal journey and my feelings for others to share…..although i felt a victory at seemingly achieving the impossible ie a job in Spain where unemployment is record high….when i arrived i felt as you described when you were there….out of your element and i too hardly spoke a word of Spanish……my biggest feeling was one of lonliness there which plagued me until it was settled for me…….
Coming back to Germany was no easier and i had to board a plane (got a seat was out of there 2 days later) knowing i had nowhere to return to. I had contacted someone and arrived in Germany and went straight there for the first two weeks.
Then my best friend said i could stay with him and although we are in far from ideal living conditions, both of us in one room with two mattresses on the floor…this is where i began the struggle and the process of letting go as i simply could not struggle any more….
As we speak i am emailing a colleague who is also now wanting to leave the company i was “let go” from….the same colleague said people are leaving in droves….i know i would have stuck it out for the money but that decision was taken from me……all that glitters is not gold?
It’s good that you have roof over your head, I’m glad to hear that.
If we have the basics, we’re usually fine.
Not that we should settle with that (although if that was what God had for me I would be content with that), but sometimes we need to ‘lose’ everything in order to gain the life that is meant for us.
I didn’t feel out of my element though when I lived in Spain (I loved it there), only slightly at unease when I knew my work-buddies were talking about me in Spanish and giggling, but it wasn’t that big of a deal, they were lovely ladies overall and I feel blessed to have had the experience 🙂
(And I did take Spanish-lessons and never felt inferior because I didn’t understand everything).
The “stuck it out for the money”-part that you mentioned in the end of your comment is not how I live my life.
I work for God (God lives me) and whatever God wants me to do, I do. I don’t do what I do for the sake of getting money, I do them in service to God, so I don’t share that perspective.
I read your other comment on the other post as well, and yes, spend the time in solitude immersed in those things that truly matters to your heart, and also have a honest look at where your values and priorities lies now that you have the opportunity to be alone in contemplation.