One of the biggest challenges of physical life is dealing with fear.
The brain being a survival machine is prone to be “wary” of life all the time, it’s constantly on the guard, worried about the future, doubting the possibility of a positive outcome, confused about existence and always wondering if its missing out on something.
The two basics needs of a brain are:
- Security.
- Entertainment.
In fact, it cannot really enjoy entertainment unless it feels secure in some way.
The brain can feel secure in a particular circumstance, mostly when it has the perceived “protection” of a stable job, a stable relationship and some stability in health.
However, there is also an awareness that things can change anytime, and this uncertainty breeds fear, thus making you feel insecure even in the midst of an externally secure environment. On top of this, a brain is capable of creating random fears and phobias, sometimes totally childish fears which seem to have a grip nevertheless.
Living a live as a prisoner to fear is about the most constricted life one can lead, finding relief only in a drugged state or in sleep.
Fear is not such a big deal as you make it out to be. The reason you stay a prisoner to fear is because you never see it for what it is. Fear is very ordinary, it’s extremely limited in its power/intensity and cannot influence you if you just develop some understanding of it.
Understanding fear is the first step, the second step is to allow it’s the dissolution of its intensity till it comes close to “zero intensity”.
The first step, of understanding fear, is about getting to know it as it is, by removing all your delusions about it. The second step, of dissolving fear, is about bring an embrace/allowing (light nature) to fear (dark nature) so that it balances out into wholeness.
Whatever you allow fully always loses its negativity – if you can just understand this pointer, there really isn’t much else to understand.
Step 1.) Understand your fear
Fear is the mind’s way of being protective of its existence, some fears of the mind are reasonable, some are just bogus, in either case the deal is not be a slave to the fear.
If the mind has a reasonable fear, just allow it fully and the solutions required can start manifesting. If the mind has a bogus fear, just allow it fully and it will get dissolved in force.
So ultimately the bottom-line towards freedom from the force of fear is to allow it fully. However, as soon as the mind fears something, we get worried, this is because of two reasons:
- We assume that the right response to a mind’s fear is to be afraid/worried about it. This is a wrong assumption and this assumption is at the root of why fear keeps gaining momentum in your being.
- We don’t trust the well-being inherent to our life-stream and thus believe the fearful projections of the mind instead of being in the flow of letting life orchestrate the right events/timing, moving from inspiration, knowing that the force of life is on your side if you allow it to work for you.
Don’t take your mind so seriously. The mind is a very limited machine, it runs totally on its programming (natural and external conditioning) and has a very narrow vision.
If you’ve lived enough life you will realize that your mind’s conclusions/projections are not always true, and even when they are true it serves no purpose to worry about them because a solution can come in more quickly if you are open in you being.
Your inner stability depends on how free you are from your mind – a person who panics at the slightest negative thought in the mind is a total prisoner to the mind, with close to zero inner stability.
Growing in inner stability is about becoming less and less influenced by the mind movement. When you see that the mind is just a machine, with a certain programming, you don’t take it to be your “master”, you don’t sit cringing about each of its thoughts – just let it be, even the act of trying to suppress the mind is an act of fear.
For me, the biggest moment of freedom was to realize that I don’t have to do my mind’s bidding, neither do I have to serve its tantrums or craving, neither do I have to sit reassuring it all the time.
Your mind just a neural network, a conglomerations of cells doing a job, not different than the microchips in your computer creating the illusion of intelligence – in truth, it’s just a mechanical intelligence running on its conditioning and past database.
To me its seems almost ridiculous now, how I used to buy all the beliefs of the mind, all the random thoughts that it was producing and all its limiting judgments and opinions – to buy into everything your mind says is about the most limiting life you can ever live, it makes you a very “closed” person.
My mind, like any other mind, has opinions, fears, judgments, interests, inclinations, preferences, bias, attachments and desires, the only difference is that I also have a space where I am free of all of this and I thus have a choice in my relationship towards my mind – I am not at the beck and call of my mind, I am not a servant to it neither am I always opposed to it.
I enjoy my mind, to me it’s the most entertaining unit possible even in its idiosyncrasies. You can’t enjoy your mind unless you are free of it. If your whole identity is based on what your mind thinks, you are a slave to it and hence you can’t really enjoy it. People who are way too serious about life are the people who take their mind’s opinions and perspectives too seriously – there is no space in them which is free of the mind’s influence.
The mind is not a master, it’s just a machine, quit being so servile to it.
Step 2.) Develop an independence from your mind
The most important aspect of growing in awareness is to first come out of the shell of your mind.
As I said above, my mind is capable of opinions, discrimination, judgments, bias, preferences and fears – but I am also free of it, at any moment I have the choice to either go with my mind or retain my “openness” and this is a huge freedom.
When one is unconsciously lost to the grip of the mind, there is no choice but to go with the mind all the time. There was point when I actually made a commitment to no longer be a slave to the mind, and develop an independent space within me that was free of the mind’s identities and beliefs.
My mind had a very strong momentum of negativity going on, and staying true to this commitment was highly challenging especially when it went into a rampage of fears with all the perfect arguments to defend its fears. The deal was that I understood the mechanics of a mind and hence I stopped buying into its pull. I just let it be, I call this state “relaxed awareness”, but really it’s just a commitment to not give in to the mind’s pull and stay in an open space of allowing it.
It’s not easy to stay allowing of the mind, without buying into its pull, when it has a strong momentum going for it. In fact, it’s really tough initially. However, once you have an understanding that the mind is just a machine and that its momentum comes from your attention to it, you realize that its momentum cannot last if you stop giving it attention.
By “attention” I just mean belief/identification/trust/interest, a lot of readers get hung up on the literal meaning of the words instead of just seeing the pointer involved in it. When I say don’t give attention to the mind I don’t mean try to run away from your mind, or try to ignore it, in fear, I am just referring to the simple state of allowing the mind to be, without buying into it.
Look at your mind the way you would look at a computer that’s running on programming, can you see how most of its thoughts are just plain repetitive, like a closed loop? It’s just running on past momentum, you don’t have to give credence to these thoughts – the moment you let go of your interest/belief in these thoughts, they automatically ebb away in force and dissolve.
Don’t look for security as soon as the mind pops an insecure thought – understand that it’s just a thought, a perspective of the mind, nothing more. You have the independence to not buy the perspectives of your mind and let yourself just stay in a space of “openness” (what’s called resting in the unknown) and let life bring you the required insights, understandings and solutions.
For example, when the mind goes “I hate being alone”, don’t regurgitate this thought, instead just let the thought be – don’t go around trying to appease your mind all the time, this way you will just become a slave to it. I am not saying that you should oppose your mind all the time, I am just saying that you need to develop a space of freedom within you where you have the independence to not be influenced by what your mind thinks.
Most of us just keep repeating what our mind says without even taking the time to question it, or introspect it, or to look more deeply at it – if the mind says “I hate this thought, I can’t bear it”, we just accept its opinion instead of understanding that its just the mind’s opinion and you have the freedom to not buy into it. You might just have had a break up, and your mind is going crazy with the repetitive thought of “I can’t live without him/her” – if you have an inner stability you will have the space to allow the mind to have it moment of grief without getting into a twirl to reassure/fix it, knowing that its momentum will die away with time; On the other hand, if you lack inner stability you will end up sending a hundred texts to your ex, making it all worse.
The therapists would go out of business if people just understood that they don’t have to fix their minds they just need to stop buying into everything it says and the mind will sort out on its own, time allows for the momentum of the mind to come down regarding any thought it might hold. Developing this inner stability is the basic foundation needed to have a balanced physical life.
Step 3.) Allow dissolution of the force of fear
All fears are ultimately thought forces in the mind. To dissolve a fear you need to merge it with its opposite, which is fearlessness (openness).
True fearlessness is about being allowing. So when a fear arises, if you become allowing of it, it starts dissolving in force.
It’s a very simple logic and it works for even the most intense fears you might have – there is no other secret.
You can discuss your fears with a multitude of therapists, take a bunch of medications, join a host of chat groups to discuss them and basically keep trying to get rid of the fear and nothing really changes except that the fear gains more momentum out of all your fights against it. But, the moment you allow the fear fully, and totally, without looking for an escape, it starts losing its force automatically and the energy of the fear is transmuted into energy of creation (creating a reality with a solution that ends the external manifestation of that fear).
The word “allowing” is crucial, and it’s important to understand the implication of it. Staying in a place of allowing is really not a technique, however you can start off initially by using it as a technique or a practice – what I call the practice of relaxed awareness, or staying in the space of being.
But at some point you want to let go of the mindset of using it as a practice and make it your way of living.
“Allowing” is not a practice, it’s a way of life – it’s not something you do to get rid of fear, it’s about connecting with your true body of spaciousness. The state of allowing is a pointer towards your natural state of openness, it’s not meant to just be a temporary technique to help you get rid of some specific fear that you are dealing with right now.
A lot of people talk in the comments/emails about how they’ve been practicing allowing, and are seeing progress but want “more” techniques, and it’s obvious that they’ve not really come to a place of “real allowing”, they are still just using it as a technique to protect themselves against fear. A real allowing can only happen when you stop trying to protect yourself against fear, stop trying to get rid of fear, rather just become totally open to it.
The problem is that the moment I use words like “relaxed awareness”, space of being, or state of allowing, it always comes across as if I am giving a technique when I am actually just pointing to a state of being – a state of living life.
If you say – “I’ve been allowing for two or three months and the fears are still there, so what else should I do” – it just means you did not get the point at all, and you’ve just been doing a “practice” to keep protecting yourself against fear, you’ve not really allowed the fear in to the point where you no longer fear it. The deal is that you can only become truly allowing of a fear when you stop fearing it, and the question the mind keeps asking is “how do I stop fearing it”, this is the loop of confusion.
The answer is – “just allow the fear in without holding distance”, and keep doing it until you no longer have to ask “how do I stop fearing it”.
The only way a fear can dissolve in force is when it meets the space of true allowing, a true openness, a true embrace – only you can know if you are really allowing it, don’t just do it for the sake of practice, do it to know your own power of allowing – this is how you will find out how spacious/vast your being really is.
I so needed to read this for affirmation just now! In the past, when fear would arise I used to think myself into panic that I had to take action. I’d either agree with it or I would oppose it and ‘act’ fearless. Basically, I would react to the fear. Recently, I find myself allowing fear without feeling the need to entertain it or act on it in any way. I ask myself where the fear is coming from and then I let it be. I’m finding that this allowing gives way to a feeling of well-being and makes me happy that I am being gentle and loving towards myself. Thank you Sen for your support. Bless you.
sen what should we do if our mind is addicted to “high” states such as coffee, cigarettes, etc. i understand its good to enjoy these every once in a while but every time i get a little bored i feel the need to drink coffee or smoke a cigarette, etc..
What should i do about this? I would like to be comfortable in a low state without having the need for the high states
Abet, you can sense a inner drive to not be hooked on the “forced” high’s because it feels like an imprisonment of sorts. If you simply heed this inner drive you will naturally feel disinclined to follow up on forced highs and be more willing to simply allow what is, connecting with your being, allowing a balanced movement, respecting the intelligence of your body.
Oh Sen, that is great. Since I discover your post I have thought I was letting go of fear.
My daughter,my finance.,, others… But I still feel the fear wants to pop out time to time.
I can say I am in much more compfortable space but not free. I didn’t really need to read
this post to understand this but this post help with my confusion . Or I should say It will
Help with my confusing of understanding my fears…
One question I have if you can let go one fear would that clear the other
fears or the fears will come up sepratly ? Or if you understand the fear y
I can be free of fear forever :))
I can not beleive how much (I wasn’t aware of )how many of fears I had and have. I really want to get
Out from this prison. Thank you for being .
You say, “The deal is that you can only become truly allowing of a fear when you stop fearing it . . .” Sen, isn’t the “you” that fears fear, really consciousness (our non-physical aspect) over-identified with the mind/brain (our physical aspect)?
Jim, the sense you have of your presence is the “you”, there is no further need to label it, you can call it your non-physical consciousness or just your presence as life. In truth, there is no real separation, you are the physical and non-physical at the same time – so you are the brain and the consciousness beyond the brain. The reason I talk in terms of separation is to give an idea or pointer towards realizing the one is not a prisoner to one’s thoughts.
Sen, in your own journey did you ever feel the need to just be present when the mind was strong or when it was passive did you revert to just being present or were you 100% allowing all the way?
Dave, it takes time to come to a place of total allowing, and once you do reach such a place the release happens at fast pace, but it takes a while to adapt to such a pace and it happens slowly over-time as you become more and more allowing in your being. Initially, its about growing in awareness by just observing the mind and the feelings, after that it’s about starting to allowing a free reign to the mind and feelings gradually as you become more and more comfortable with this state of letting go of trying to control.
Hi Sen,
My biggest struggle of late is waking up with huge anxiety. It isn’t just in my mind, but in my body- including trembling. Obviously I am living with fear, but stepping back when feeling so overwhelmed is very difficult for me.
Thoughts?
Thank you!
Kris, it’s part of the release that’s happening in your body. What’s needed is for you to not think of it as “wrong”, or panic about it, rather just understand that its a positive deal, a detox if you will. Instead of fighting it or looking to get rid of it, just become more allowing of it and let it happen – let the energy movement happen in your body while being open to it, allow yourself to rest more so that your body can recuperate better from the release, and let go of struggle (forcing yourself into action) as much as possible. It’s just about being “okay” with allowing these anxious feelings.
Thanks for the response. Quick question though- how can I tell the difference between negative energy release and a good old fashioned anxiety attack?
The anxiety attack is simply an indication of a high momentum of fear in your mind, and the load/accumulation of fear-energy in your body which fuels the momentum. So, it’s basically a wake up call towards becoming aware of this build-up and start consciously releasing it by no longer giving it identification rather just staying in a place of allowing.
alchemisa- Couldn’t agree more. I have the same issue- scary thoughts –> random panic –> remain anxious awaiting the next unpredictable scary thought to pop up truly believing that I’m not the one in control of them or my reaction to them (which I consciously know is false).
Sen- I check out your new posts daily and this has been one of my favorites so far.
I’ve been living with panic and anxiety for 2 years now which has led me down the path of self-education, reading and learning about the conditions of the mind and body. When I get discouraged thinking that I’ll have to suffer from panic forever, I just remind myself that this is only a gift in disguise. Before I had my first panic attack 2 years ago, I thought life was so easy. I enjoyed a carefree life, rarely felt sad and didn’t worry about anything (except the health and happiness of my family members). But now I’ve learned that there is more to life than what we think and see. I have a better understanding of my body, my mind and have become more spiritual because of my anxiety ‘disorder’ so I can’t help but to be grateful for that. I am more tuned in to life. Through different readings, I’ve gained a true understanding of the symptoms I feel and am able to minimize and sometimes prevent panic from happening just by allowing and accepting the physical sensations of anxious and my tired nerves to be what they are, but the fear of uncertainty and the meaning of life still remains. This post was very beneficial for me and it has helped me to understand more about the fear of panic (which usually is what triggers me) and how I don’t have to be a prisoner to it. The mind is an independent organ and will say whatever it wants, so we need to remember that we are just the mind’s observer… nothing else. We are not dependant on our mind; we are separate. The mind will not always obey you all the time, because it is confused by past experiences (like that first panic attack which apparently traumatized my mind) and has a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality. I was happy and carefree before my first panic attack because I was not enslaved by my mind then; I didn’t worry about ever little thought and I didn’t monitor my body’s feelings and sensations every minute of every day (which I’ve been recently). To know that I was a happy, healthy person before the fear of panic took over me just ensures me that I am still that girl, but I’ve been listening and obeying my mind’s illusions and lies for 2 years (too many) that I have to begin to consciously condition my mind back to normal, and not be so afraid of what it’s telling me.
Just think… if it’s true that the mind doesn’t lie and all of it’s fears and worries are real, we’d all think our ways into a careless, happy, multi-billionaire’s lifestyle with two yachts, a private island and G650 to fly us there… but the mind is just a dreamer.
Thanks again! I really appreciate the post!
(Sorry for the length of my comment..)
Mariedaniel…
Oh my goodness, You have taken the words out of my mouth!!
I’ve been the same for a few years and ‘become a slave’ to my mind. I’ve had a miserable time when in actual fact I have so many things in my life to feel massively privelidged about.
I only found this page a few days ago when I was still desperately searching for help or explanations and for the first time in a long long time I’ve taken a deep breath and let go…
I still wake in the morning with little thoughts entering my mind, it’s like they’re pushing each other out the way waiting for the panic to grip me, but I’ve been able to let it go and not be paralysed with the fear/panic/confusion/repetitive wondering.
I actually feel like I have a huge empty space where the panic was and I’m hoping that this will eventually fill with some positive energy.
It’s been so long since I had any physical energy to do things, every day is like dragging myself through a thick heavy fog with no meaning or ‘point’ Yesterday I managed to go to the postbox and post a bill with a lightness that had become a distant memory for me. It’s sounds such a stupid little thing to be glad about but in hindsight, for me to put a piece of paper in an envelope previously was like climbing a mountain as I was so exhausted from the stress & panic.
I’m hoping that this becomes my new way, it’s lovely.
How funny that relaxing, accepting, letting go has such non-scary effects.
Thank you Sen
This is beautifully written and what I struggle with..my biggest obsticle…Somedays are good others are not..but the good days are more frequent..I have to remember to observe what my machine is doing.
thanks
Excellent !! this is Insightfully.. Thanks Sen you have been expressing meaning of “allowing ” very beautifully in various ways.. it is “the Way of life”.
Thank you for this article, Sen. Realizing that I am more than my mind is a difficult concept for me to grasp hold of, this article helps clarify the understanding of it. The lightbulb flickers!
Hi Sen,
Thanks so much for your revealing and insightful articles which have helped my husband and I navigate our way through a rather difficult phase in our lives. Your insights have given us much guidance and we are most grateful to you for the illumination you’ve provided.
I have a question about fear Sen – is fear contagious? In other words, can other people’s fear ‘attach’ itself to you and begin to take seed in your own mind?
As I have begun to reduce the momentum of my mind and it’s attachment to fear I’ve noticed a huge difference in the way I react to my thoughts. However, sometimes when I am around a particularly negative or fearful person (and these are people I also find a little frightening – they tend to be mainly narcissistic people) I get fearful about things that I have previously ‘dealt’ with and no longer fear. It’s almost as if fear attaches itself to the shadow of a fear and begins to take form again. So I wonder if it is a kind of fear transference, or is it just that my fear of that person manifests as a random fear? I would very much appreciate your thoughts on this.
Thank you Sen.
Prema, it’s not possible for someone to trigger a fear in you that you are not already susceptible to. So basically the outside is just being a mirror showing you your own vulnerability towards certain fears – this is part of the journey towards inner freedom/wholeness. Ultimately, it’s an opportunity for you to bring awareness to this fear and thus transcend it, allowing for more freedom and thus evolving towards inner wholeness. Use all experiences of negativity as an opportunity for growth in your awareness, an opportunity to deepen in your being and thus in your freedom from negativity as a whole. When you are truly free you will not be influenced by the outside, you don’t need to safe-guard yourself from the negativity of others.
Thanks for that Sen.
I hate the part of me that is fearful. I mean I know that is just more fear (wishing I didn’t have fear = fear of fear) – but UGH I just wish it was easier!! I guess that is the little baby/child in me pouting….that little child always comes up with things like “it’s so much easier for other people”. That’s a silly assumption I know!! And it’s funny because I get really aggravated when people make those assumptions about me….maybe this is an AHA moment. I guess I just need to sit with my fear, see it for what it is and stop hating it? Or do I just allow the hatred? The hatred for the part of me that is so fearful……
Hmmm..
Sen
This is amazing how you make this so accessible for the untrained to grasp this pointers and improve ones live tremendously
Now, a mundane situation. I am on a job I dislike. What is keeping me there is pure fear. To pay bills and fear of trying something new. But, isn’t irresponsible to quit a job while you have people counting on you to make payments ?
You don’t have to force yourself into an action like quitting your job. The “timing” is always important, a hasty action always comes from a place of lack or desperation. Your job is to work on your inner alignment first, resolve your inner imbalances first, so that you can be free of resistance and thus be a channel that allows an uninhibited movement of intelligence orchestrated by your life-stream. If you focus on bringing an inner alignment, events will be orchestrated in a way that ensures that you can transition into a congruent reality without requiring any uncomfortable struggle on your part. Presently just focus on bring an inner stability where you don’t feel like a prisoner to your mind’s pull of fear.
I agree fully,
While I know I dont belong here, I am not ready, it is not the right time to just quit this specific employment and source of income.
I keep on going forward with the intention of allowing
Hi Sen,
It was perfect timing for me that you wrote this post- and this seems the same for a bunch of other people!
Like others, I think I have been reading and learning as much as I can about fear/anxiety as a way to somehow “get rid” of it, rather than fully giving in and just allowing it to be there..
My minds biggest fear is that if I allow it, the thought will somehow come true and I am giving it permission to take control of me.
Your quote “We don’t trust the well-being inherent to our life-stream” particulary resonates with me… I feel that when Im in a state of fear, I am no longer connected to my ‘wellbeing’, values, meaning and therefore feel empty and the fear grows stronger. When I feel calm/relaxed, my fear feels silly and Im very connected to my ‘wellbeing’ and live a meaningful life…
When you talk about allowing, would this to mean to: notice a thought coming in, and your mind/bodys urge to react, be curious of the thought and slowly watch it grow and then fade? I think I have been using this attitude as a ‘technique’ and a band aid, but im slowly realising this is someting to do as a way of life- to live in a constant mindful state… I think im writing this reply, as my mind is requesting some reassurance… and I can already guess what you will say…
thanks.
Jess, it’s about coming to a place where you feel “fearless” towards the mind – this is the only true indication that you’ve come to a place of total allowing. It doesn’t matter how you practice this allowing initially, as a technique or as an understanding, ultimately it’s about gaining enough awareness of the mind that you no longer fear it.
This essay struck such a chord with me. I am struggling with anxiety and ruminating thoughts, after a breakup. I so fear seeing the Ex happy with new girlfriend, I am a prisoner to the anxiety and thoughts. I have not been willing to fully experience the pain. I am afraid that I cannot get past it. Your description of relaxed awareness is exactly what the sensible part of my brain keeps saying I need to yield to. The physical anxiety is so strong and keeps me from allowing myself to go there.
Carol, the pain of a break up is usually a strong wake up call towards the momentum our brain has a gathered and the strong accumulation of emotional energy in our body. Feelings of loss, jealousy, fear of the future, feelings of lack etc are just some thoughts/emotions that come up in the brain and its momentum ensures that there is no break in the injection of these negative thoughts, thus producing a constant feeling of suffocation or suffering, a strong low state of being. The feeling of helplessness towards this intensity in the brain is just the start of the “panic” we start feeling towards the situation, it’s almost a claustrophobic situation where you feel trapped inside a suffering body/brain with no escape. This is usually the time when people start looking for an escape or solution, people looking for an escape usually end up in some hasty action to get some temporary relief – the actions could hail from doing chemicals to finding another relationship as a rebound. Instead if you look for a solution to this whole deal of feeling negative about this aspect of human relationships, you realize that the limiting/lack-based thoughts of the mind are the cause of your suffering and that you have the choice to not buy into them consciously – developing this power/ability to not be influenced by the thinking of the brain is what allows for inner stability. It takes time to grow in this awareness/consciousness to the point where you don’t feel influenced by the mind’s pattern of thinking, and have a space outside it, but the step of relaxed awareness is the start towards this journey.
It’s obviously not easy initially, especially to feel the brunt of the emotions and intensity of the mind. So it’s important to be easy on yourself and bring in awareness gradually. What’s important is to not suppress the mind or the emotional body, and be open in your being towards this energy movement, even if it feel unpleasant – if you resist this movement you just end up creating more suppressed energy. Your capacity to be “allowing” will keep increasing with time until you feel spacious enough to be free of the mind’s influence and thus of its limiting thoughts – I call this the movement towards inner wholeness. This stability allows you to navigate your reality in a balanced and stable manner.
Sen,
Your thoughts on this please,
Yes I had a traumatic childhood …. , possibly sexualy abused, and an abusive school teacher who I think locked me in a storage room, and would not let me go to the toilet so I messed on the floor in front of everyone, I started to stutter beome very fearful and have migraine headaches, An alcoholic father who was not there …no friends or family who understand basically Im alone..
20 years later after what was an ok life yet I always knew something was wrong and it hit me
” EVERY ONE WILL KNOW in the future”
The fear came over me of “everyone will judge me, hate me “, so I had to think of everything to confess that I would be judged for and isolated for.
Shortly after this I noticed my mind looking for innapropriate thoughts so I would be judged, hated and isolated if they knew what I was thinking.
This confused me and isolated me within myself and soon these thoughts became self intrusive and had to be thoughts that I would be hated for and I need to protect myself from.
The thoughts create a “safe” shutdown where no one can touch me , yet this shut down of everyone hating me is killing my enjoyment of life and my relationships
I know these thoughts are not real but the feeling to isolate and shut me down is.
I have read about intrusive thoughts, yet I know why I am having them and that a part of me wants them to complete this shutdown process.
I want to live and be free, I want to be free, but yet Im shamed and isolated within myself by my own created accusations .. everyone will know.
Any suggestions?
Sed, when you say “I want to live and be free” and “I am creating my own accusations and I feel helpless to it” – it’s obvious that there are two forces at work, one wants to be free and the other wants to be identified with negativity. The part of you that wants to stay identified with negativity is the force that needs to dwindle in momentum so that the other part that wants to be free can come to the foreground. In fact, the very nature of your being is to be free, resistance is opposed to this natural vibration of your being. Resistance is created by negativity. To say that you are “helpless” towards these thoughts is just an admittance of the truth that you feel like a slave to your mind’s thinking (that’s producing the accusations) with no real independence to think the way you desire, or rather feel free of the influence of the mind. This independence, or inner stability, is what needs to be developed. A few posts that can give you insights towards developing this inner stability are below
http://www.calmdownmind.com/a-question-of-attitude/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/freedom-from-the-grip-of-negativity/ (which also contains a list of articles related to releasing negativity)
This is wonderful insight. Thank you.
Sen hello,
I’ve only just come across this site and already it is a great relief to me to read and understand that there is an answer to why I feel so disconnected from the every day world and I am not going mad.
Since I lost a daughter at Christmas 2004 from cancer I have steadily been getting worse mentally and now cannot move in daily life with out fear of what’s around the corner or how long have I got or how will I die.
In fact rational thinking has gone out of the window and sleep is my only saviour, but at 64 I still have so much to acheive and enjoy but my mind is constantly churning over facts and concerns over coping with becoming ill or terminal illness.
I cannot enjoy life anymore but do not wish to take drugs, so reading your articles is a breath of fresh air and all I have to do is learn the art of mind control.
Your words make so much sense to me, fear is in the mind and mastering it without drugs is my goal.
Andy, it’s true that it’s essentially an art of gaining full control of the mind (not feeling helpless to it), but it starts with letting go of the trying to control the mind (its fears) – that’s what the state of total allowing is, this is what allows a release and a reduction in mind momentum.
Hi all, the way I learnt to be free of fear, rather in the process of becoming free of fear is as below:
‘Fear’ is a label given to a particular physical sensation or few sensations such as heart wrenching, feeling heavy in the heart, stomach churning, stiff shoulder etc. So when we imagine ourselves to be a two year old baby, before you learnt the word FEAR we would have cried of the uncomfortable physical sensation. Take yourself to that time and just feel the discomfort without the label FEAR. Very soon the fear and the fear of fear dissolves.
Hope this helps someone. Bless you!
Dear Sen,
First of, thanks for helping me so much. My life today is so much better than what it was before I started reading your posts.
This post of dissolving fear is wonerful, and the section which resonates with me the most is mind needing stability in good health to feel secure. Lately, I have been having health issues and naturally my brain is quite frightened and anxious.
It feels like life is orchestrating events to generate suffering so I can “grow in awareness”.
I do not think I can become allowing by opening my being. It has not worked for me. It becomes a ‘technique’ for me.
The approach I am going to take is to trust my life stream to allow me to open up and be allowing in my being. I will let it happen rather than try to make it happen because the moment I try to make it happen, it becomes a technique and more mind gets involved.
I am just going to trust my understanding and intelligence of my life stream.
Please let me know your thoughts …..
thanks,
Anu, that’s right, you can simply follow your inner inspiration on this, it’s all about becoming allowing of the intelligence of your life-stream. None of what I write is meant to be used as a practice rather it’s supposed to give you a pointer towards a resistance-free mindset.
Hello Sen! Im so glad that I have come across your site. Ironically I stumbled upon it while having one of the worst weeks Ive had in a while. Ive been struggling with these worries and fears (my whole life basically) but none so bad as when I finally got the job Ive always wanted. Its been the best thing thats happened to me as well as the worst. Im living and suffering everyday in worry and fear of losing my job that I cant even enjoy it. Im never secure, even though Ive been doing so well, my boss thinks Im great, ect. Theres always a lingering “possibility” that Ill lose it all. No matter what I do I cant make the feelings go away and it really sucks. But your articles have been so helpful. If you have any further advice, or if anyone can relate, Id love to read some feedback. Thanks again!
Yvette, you can’t be free of a fear that you fear, if you want to be free of a fear you have to stop fearing its possibility of occurrence. You can’t “fake” this fearlessness, you have to come to this place through allowing the fear in. So in your case, allow the fear of losing your job and may be being unemployed for a while, as long as you fear this situation your mind will keep blackmailing you with this thought. The moment you accept this situation the mind loses it “hold”, you are no longer held hostage by this thought. When you allow this fear in (the fear of losing your job) you will sense the thinking patterns in you that makes you fear this situation, the thinking pattern in you is – “I don’t trust that life will bring me a solution if there is a problem”, so basically you don’t trust that if you lose your job another opportunity will make itself available to you. This lack of trust is a serious handicap in physical life, and this causes you to be “lack based”, fearful and needy all the time. If you trusted in the abundance of life to bring you solutions everytime you had a challenge/problem, you would rest easy and have a mindset of abundance. In fact, all your “worries” stem from this basic lack of trust in you towards life. You can build this truth by understanding life more scientifically, understanding that you are not “alone” but are supported by the intelligence of your life-stream all the time, it’s just that you end up blocking it when you hold onto the negativity/fear in your mind. The more relaxed you are the more open you are to allowing the well-being and intelligence inherent to your life-stream.
You can read the below posts to gain some understanding of how life really works
http://www.calmdownmind.com/problem-manifests-a-solution/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/life-does-not-join-you-in-negative-thinking/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/why-do-positive-thoughts-feel-good/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/developing-the-attitude-of-learning/
The more understanding you have of life the less fearful you are, and the less fearful you become the more evidence you see of your life-stream capacity to bring well-being and thus you grow in trust/knowing, creating a positive cycle in your mind.
Hello Sen,
I want to thank you for your insightful posts and for helping me.
I have been reading a lot on your website. I did not even know what awareness was until i read Eckhart Tolle’s book “The power of now”. Then i developed my awareness through concentration practices as watching one’s thoughts or feeling the inner body or focusing on visual or auditory senses. I can say that i now fully understand the mechanics of the mind and the patterns of negativity which you talk about in your post describing the heart and the brain connection. All of this was required for me by life, as i now understand, because i was rooted in negativity and anxiety all my life, having different kind of fears depending on my age and interests. As i always identified with my thoughts there was no space at all and the negativity has increased through the years of unconscious living. My main negative pattern with fluctuations in intensity is now a fear which i have had for some years now and i understand is more common nowadays and it could be described as a fear of being gay. The fear is reinforced by the repetitive pattern of this word combined with the “I” thought which is constantly replaying in my mind. I now fully understand the pattern and i see through it’s ludicrous repetitive nature. But the reaction of negativity in the body still exists. I also understand that all fears or phobias are not very different in nature and are based on conditioning of an unconscious mind. Although this fear has diminished in the last 6 months because of the wisdom acquired through different means i think the reason for this is that i have been concentrating on practices instead of being in the state of total openness. But as you stated in a previous post, before discovering Tolle’s book i thought i could get rid of my insecurities and anxieties through affirmations which gave me a sense of relief but eventually did not work because the negative thought would still be there and would counter the positive one. I also became paranoid of creating a negative reality when i found out about the law of attraction. I now know that life cannot sustain negative energy and you cannot create something that is not congruent with what feels good to you if you live in consciousness. I think i am in the detox phase in which i have to just let go of any form of control but i wanted to ask you: In this state of total allowance one just rests in relaxed awareness but is not trying to be aware? one lets all thoughts come and go and embraces the sensation of fear? i mean if i don’t concentrate on being aware of my thoughts to acknowledge them as a kind of a radio station that is broadcasting will i not get pulled in the thoughts and start ruminating on them again…will not the sensation of fear cause more thoughts to be created and fuel the sensation once again? Thank you for everything and may there be more people like you in the world.
Valdemart, let me use the example of the fear you’ve mentioned to clarify what I mean by a state of allowing. I use terms like “relaxed awareness”, staying as a space of being, “letting be”, staying open to what arises, staying surrendered to what is, staying dis-identified with the negativity etc and all these pointers are just different ways of driving home the point that you have a freedom to not buy into the mind. We make too big a deal out of our mind, and usually it’s this attitude of being afraid of the mind that’s the problem. As long as you are fearless towards your mind, you are automatically in a place of relaxed awareness, and after that it doesn’t matter what you do – you can analyse the thoughts, you can let go of thoughts, you can introspect the thoughts, you can ignore some thoughts, you can dis-identify with some thoughts – you can basically “work” with the mind. It’s not about implementing some “technique” of staying aware of the mind all the time, of just watching the mind like a strict practice – that just becomes a “routine” or practice and it’s not in sync with following the inspiration of the moment. I do give out the practice of watching the mind to people who are just starting out towards understanding awareness, but as soon as you gain some awareness of how negativity works, when you see the momentum in your mind, when you understand your mind’s daily patterns, you are in a position to then start working with the mind instead of just standing as a bystander watching it.
To take an example of the fear you mentioned about being gay, the thought that your mind is repeating now and again is – “I am gay” or “I may be gay” or “what if I am gay” etc and these thoughts produces a lot of fear in your being. So initially you watch these thoughts, understand their repetitive/cyclic nature in your mind, thus bring a deep awareness to this pattern in your mind. After that you start understanding that it’s your “fear” towards these thoughts that’s actually keeping them in place – your fear gives “attention”/interest to these thoughts, if you were not afraid of this thought you would not give it interest either, you could care less, and these thoughts would lose their hold. Once you have this understanding, you start observing your fear towards these thoughts and you will see that your fear stems from a certain thinking patterns in you towards being gay – you may consider being gay as “wrong”, as something inappropriate, as something unaccepted, as a dent to your manhood/ego etc these thinking patterns obviously got developed by observing the attitude of society at large towards gay people. So you bring awareness to these thinking patterns within you and identify the reasons why you fear being gay – just be brutally honest with yourself, it’s not a judgment, it’s just an investigation. Once your awareness has reached this point of clarity, you need to go to the “allowing” stage, this is basically the crux of dissolving the conflict, you need to allow this thought in totally which means that you stop fighting the thought and just embrace it – to do so you have to allow all the fears that you have about being gay, and allow the fact that you may be gay, this can be challenging if you don’t have some inner stability in you, but rest-assured that just allowing the thought of being gay does not make you gay (if you are not biologically gay you don’t “become” gay by thinking about it). Once you allow the thought in, without fearing it you are not fighting the mind and the mind does not have something to blackmail you with, because you’ve accepted its thought fearlessly – it’s like “fine may be I am gay”, and now investigate if this is true from this place of acceptance. Allowing comes first, seeing the truth comes next. Most people are not “allowing” a certain fearful thought, and hence the can’t move the phase of seeing the truth. You will see that in this place of allowing, you are now open to see the truth as it is – the truth could be anything, it could be that you are gay, it could be that you are not gay, or it could be that you are bi-sexual. But in this place of allowing you are open to sense the truth, and it’s the truth that really sets you free. So if the truth is that you are gay, what’s the use of fighting it? you may as well enjoy it And if the truth comes out that you are not gay, you are clear now and hence no longer confused.
The question you may now have is “how do i see the truth of if I am gay or not”. Like I said before, the first step is to be openly allowing of the fact that you may be gay, if you fear being gay you will never be able to see the truth in you about it. First it’s about being totally okay with the fact that you may be gay. After that, you can see if that’s really true for you “objectively” – look at the characteristics of being gay and sense it it’s present in you, a gay man would not be sexually attracted to a woman’s body, so you need to see if you are sexually attracted to a woman’s body, if so – you are not gay, but you could still be bi-sexual. The next step is to clarify if you are straight or bi, a bi male would want to have sex with another male, so ask yourself if you were in a situation where you have to have actual sex with another man, would it be an enticing prospect, just allow yourself to imagine this fearlessly (the imagination will not “make” you gay), imagine it in as much detail as you can conjure up the act of having sex with another male in “real life”, don’t just imagine it as a “fantasy”, and see if it really is something you want for yourself in practicality of real life (you may need to allow this imagination a few times before you can be clear) – in order to be open to this imagination you have to be fearless towards the truth that can come up. There are two results that can come up – you will sense that you really have no interest having sex with another male, in which case you are straight, or you will sense that the prospect of having sex with another male in real life is enticing in which case you are a bi. To find out the truth is what liberates you, unlike what you feared. When you find the truth, it allows you to move forward.
You can keep trying all kinds of practices of awareness, but if you are not fearless enough within to want to find the truth, you can’t be free of a certain negativity like this. That’s why I always mention, this state of allowing is not a “practice”, it’s an attitude, a way of life, where truth is more important to you than “avoidance” or distraction, where being authentic is more important to you than being in the hiding – awareness in its true sense is “honest observation”, a truthful observation, it’s not just a technique you employ without any involvement on your part. Most people just want a technique to get rid of the mind without ever being “involved” in the process, because being involved causes them to face the fear rather than just sit hoping that it will go away on its own.
Sen, could you please explain the difference between acceptance and allowance. If a feeling is accepted for what it is, and you keep having to re-affirm your acceptance.. It feels a bit exhausting. Does allowing lead to acceptance or must you accept first to allow?
Dave, it’s not about “affirming” your acceptance, because affirming is just a mind game. It’s about becoming allowing in your being to “what is”, it’s not about repeating in your “I am fine with this”, “I am accepting this”, “I don’t fear this” or some other rote, because the only time you will do these affirmations is when you are trying to “convince” yourself. The truth doesn’t need to be affirmed. So if you are truly allowing, you don’t need to affirm it. Allowing and acceptance are one and same, you can read this post – An example of dissolving fear – for some insight on how allowing can dissolve a specific fear by bringing an understanding to it. Allowing is also what allows a release of your suppressed emotional energy, what’s called emotional clearing.
Sen,
Thank you for your complex answer and for revealing important information to me. First of all, i am definitely sexually attracted to women. I may be too much attracted to them :)) … And i have never been sexually attracted to men. Hence the confusion why the fear appeared in the first place. I think that being so identified with the mind made me absorb some information and take it for granted, as in listening to someone say “i am gay” combined with the general view of society over gay men created a reaction of anxiety in me that developed into a pattern. And i think the fear grew when i foolishly believed that one can “become” gay by thinking about it or by interacting with gay men. It’s stupid, i know. But so many self-help books talk about the influence of the mind over one’s life like in what you believe you become that i got paranoid about every though in my mind. I now believe that being gay is a matter of genetics and biology much the same as being white or black. None of it is wrong, none of it is right. One cannot change the color of his/her skin merely by thinking about it. But there are many people out there that don’t have a clue about the biological aspect of sexuality and they can feed an unconscious mind with a lot of poison. So you are basically saying that i must allow every thought and even imagine some scenarios where i would be gay in a place of acceptance to see how my body would react. You say that the fear itself will dissolve once it is merged with a state of acceptance and thus reveal itself as being an illusion. But i already know that i feel good when imagining a scenario with me and a woman and i feel discomfort even thinking that i could do the same thing with a man. The main thing you say is to imagine that scenario in total acceptance and a lack of fear. One more thing…once you don’t resort to focusing on different aspects of reality just for escaping from the mind i think it is essential to focus but from a place of acceptance and for intensifying the experience. Don’t you agree?
Thanks alot
And i wanted to talk to you about something else. From what i have read in your posts, i concluded that you are not entirely accepting the bulk of spiritual teachings that refer to the thinking mind as the main creator of suffering through it’s thoughts. Let me explain: from what i have read until now from two of Eckhart Tolle’s books and another book writen by a buddhist monk in colaboration with an important scientist i drew the conclusion that the mind momentum would automaticaly decrease if one would see himself as awareness and just observe the thoughts but not focus on them because every though is actually an illusion. That no though can ever describe you, be it interpreted good or bad by you. So their teaching is basically saying that when you see this truth completely all thoughts lose their power because the thought itself is now seen in a different manner than before. So one should keep a sense of presence, or awareness, at all times so that a larger part of consciousness could remain there and not be turned towards though. So you focus your awareness into what you really are, as life, and then everything that is experienced, be it sense perception or thought, is just content and you don’t get lost in it. So what they are stating is that in every moment there should be a sense of focus on the awareness that you are. At least that is what i understood. On the other hand, you say that watching your thoughts and experiencing with focusing on the senses is a good practice but only for reaching a certain level of awareness and then all effort of maintaining that awareness should be discarded to favor the total allowing that you so often mention. But then most of the awareness gets lost in though again because it is no longer concentrated to remain in it’s source. I know you say this total allowing is about not imposing anything on anything but the though patterns lost a big part of their grip by intentionally removing my focus on them, all of them. Let me give you another example: in an unconscious mind say you are driving your car and on you can’t even remember how you got home because all your awareness was lost in random though, even if it wasn’t negative thought. But when you focus on your awareness and make the journey home in a conscious manner you observe everything from removing your awareness from your thinking mind. You feel your awareness and you see, you hear and you occasionally hear some “noise” from your mind but it’s just a tape that plays in the background. When you say remove all focus on awareness and just let everything be, a big part of awareness goes back into random thought. It doesn’t have to be negative thought at all. Just a blabber in your head. Of course now you can sense it and you aren’t so identified with it but still you lose very much of what is really happening in the world and you invest awareness in a computer that has no idea what life is all about and that thinks it is intelligent. That’s why i wonder, isn’t a small degree of control needed to not invest in some unproductive, not really important, mind chatter that doesn’t really need to cause a negative emotion in you. I would very much like to know your opinion on this matter and on my perceived differences on your approach and that of Eckhart Tolle. Maybe i am mistaken. And that’s why i am interested in your view in this matter. Thanks again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjelIPg3ys what do you think about this…what’s your view?
The practice of “staying present” by the means of being alert to your surroundings, including your mind noise and emotions, is a very useful practice for gaining understanding of your power to detach from the mind and emotions, and enable you to observe life without being constantly blurred by thinking. In fact, “The power of Now” by Eckhart was the book that gave me a realization on how deeply my awareness was lost in the mind and through the practice of staying present I was able to grow in the power of “being aware”. However, there always comes a point where you need to “grow” towards the next level, else you just end up making “staying present” as another technique of fighting the mind and in face the mind can make the practice of “staying present” into a mind-game where it becomes about “how long can I stay aware”, “how long can I be alert”, “how good am I at being detached” etc, almost a competition within yourself. The truth is that “staying present”, in a rigid manner of force, is still a form of suppression – you will sense that you are exerting some force on yourself to be detached from the mind and emotions, in order to stay present (of the surroundings). Of course, if your awareness is not involved in thinking you can be more keenly aware of the surroundings, isn’t that also just another form of entertainment? It’s not something more elevated. And thinking is the most enjoyable activity for a human being because thinking what connects you with your potential to be a creator, and a lot of your potential expression lies in your thoughts – so why would want to avoid thinking in any way. I’d rather enjoy my mind, my imagination, inner insights, ideas, inspiration, than try to focus on the surroundings all the time – I can enjoy the surroundings when I want to, but I can be alert when I engaged in an activity that needs alertness (like driving the car) without being engaged in thinking, I can just stay alert to the moment, but that’s not a state I constantly impose on myself – when alertness is not needed, I consciously allow my awareness to be engaged in thinking (as a choice) – thinking is the foundation for expression/creation and in the state of allowing you merge your brain’s thinking with the thinking in your life-stream (inner being) allowing for deeper insights, visualization/imagination and connecting with your heart’s desire.
I think the misunderstanding for you is to imagine that the state of “allowing” leads to be “unconsciously” lost in the mind. This is not true, it takes a lot of inner freedom, and fearlessness, to truly be allowing of the mind and emotions, without holding a protective stance of being alert/detached – to be truly allowing you need to be “consciously” fearless. To be detached, through the practice of alert awareness, is still an act of fear. Anyone who is truly free is not bothered with trying to be detached with the mind, rather is fully allowing of the mind knowing that one is not a prisoner to it. The state of total allowing is the highest form of freedom, because you are no longer “trying” to use any tactics against the mind, rather you are allowing it full freedom of expression while ensuring that you bring the space of openness to it thus connecting it with the wisdom of your inner being – it’s like letting the mind operate in the space of being, thus bringing the best of the physical and non-physical aspect of you together. It’s really about letting go into your life-stream, to connect with your inner-being, and let your actions/expressions by imbued with this guidance and intelligence and inspiration – this how your natural expression exudes into your reality and this is how you live your potential as this present human form for creation, expression and experience.
The meditation video you sent, by Mingyur Ripoche, is quite a good description of the state of allowing, where you are not fighting the mind – however he talks about giving mind a “job”, what I’ve realized is that you don’t have to train the mind, the mind gets trained on its own when you stay in a state of allowing, the mind gets in touch with the intelligence of your inner being and get “aligned” towards living your desired reality, towards your expression – in fact there is some scientific study in a book called the Brain lock which talks about how the brain starts getting reprogrammed/re-mapped when one stays relaxed (the state of allowing). This reprogramming happens through the intelligence of your life-stream and this is what the state of allowing brings to the table, and effortless alignment, without requiring any forced discipline.
Sen,
Thank you for your answer and for the time you devote to writing these responses.
I was under the impression that creative energy lies not in thinking but in following one’s instinct and talent. For example in art one cannot create something like a painting or a sculpture or a music piece by thinking about it and then writing or doing it. The inspiration just comes naturally if there is any. You can’t force yourself into writing a symphony even if you have appropriate musical knowledge and expertise. That isn’t how it works. Or it would be a very bad symphony indeed. And instinct and talent are not part of the thinking brain. In order to do something one must prepare and learn all the necessary aspects of what one is doing and that is done through the thinking brain and it acts like a information storage, but then when all aspects of what your job would be are integrated through the thinking brain (used here for practical purposes) you create something in your line of work using the accumulated knowledge but by just going with the flow. You don’t think of it. The creation just seams to manifest out of your insight. So i don’t deny the importance of the thinking brain as a computing mechanism for learning and a memory device but you can’t really say that thoughts like “this pencil is too small” or “what a stupid redneck” or “i think i will go home and eat what i cooked last evening” stimulate your creativity in any way :)). They are just idle chatter and they are a large part of what your thinking brain is doing, constantly trying to judge or perceive reality. They have nothing to do with inspiration or imagination.
Also, about what you told me in the previous post about my pattern of fear, i recognized that deep down, one always knows and knew the truth because the repetitive negative thought creates fear because it is in opposition to the life-stream, it creates a vibration of resistance and discomfort in the body, hence it is incongruent to what life wants for me, thus it is false. I know that. But the reaction of fear is still there because of the mechanism formed between the heart and the mind. So i reckon that a reaction of fear to this thought in the body would always be there in a degree because it is life saying that you are doing something that it is incongruent to itself. It is life’s way of saying that this is not the right direction. If there would be no resistance in the body to this thought it would probably be in congruence with the life stream and thus be real.I think that you say that by accepting this incongruence and not fighting it the mind will come to an understanding that is not rooted in fear and the reaction will dissolve on its own, like you say the life stream will align with the mind. Also you state that for this to happen one must stay in this state of allowing for a long time if the mind momentum is high and there is a lot of stored up negative energy. And i get it that i must not treat it as a technique but rather as a way of life because as a technique it would be rooted in a desire to get rid of the fear.
Also, in his explanation of meditation, Mingyur Ripoche says that one usually either says “yes sir” or fights the mind. But by allowing everything am i not basically saying yes sir to everything? Or is it that i am allowing of the thoughts and of the feelings and not necessary do what they tell me to do.
Thanks Sen for all your help. I am very much enjoying this exchange of comments. 🙂
Instinct, creativity imagination, inspired ideas/solutions, all come in the form of thoughts and they have to be translated in the mind before it’s physical expression is possible and all this is part of “thinking aligned with your life-stream”. The very point of being conscious is to have the freedom to be free of the negativity, clutter, fear-based, lack-based and limiting thought patterns that may be present in the mind, so being conscious takes care of that. The state of “allowing” is simply to connect your mind/body with the intelligence of your life-stream so that you become a channel through which this intelligence can operate – the example you gave of sculptor letting go of “efforted thinking” is just an example of how the state of allowing lets creative imagination/thinking come through effortlessly. Even when I write posts I don’t write through “efforted thinking”, I only write when there is a surge of inner inspiration to write something and the words come through effortlessly (I mentioned this in the post – to think or not to think). The same when I answer comments, I only answer when there is a inspiration to do so. But the state of “trying to stay present” can hinder this effortless inspiration to flow through, because now you are efforting to stay present instead of being in a state of relaxed allowing – allowing is also conscious movement it’s just that it’s not “strained” awareness it’s relaxed awareness, it’s just this subtle understanding that makes the difference.
When you are allowing you are not saying “yes” to everything the mind says, you are just not fighting it because you only need to fight what you are not convinced of yourself, if you are certain in your inner freedom you will not feel the need to fight the negativity of the mind and in this allowing the momentum of negativity ebbs away in the mind. You are not saying yes to the negativity, you are just letting the mind be, just like you let a crying baby be until it learns to not use crying as a mechanism to emotionally blackmail you. The mind when free of negativity is a highly creative tool and can work in conjunction with the intelligence of your life-stream to create expressions and experiences that you can savor and thus enjoy your journey of physicality.