Breakthrough is in the air, thanks to the Mother’s flood of uplifting energy. And I’d therefore like to spend a moment on the process of breakthrough and its chief impediment, fear.
I could have said “vasanas and fear” but vasanas (reaction patterns) are fear-based and so it really all boils down to fear.
Few of us know that fear is something that we can overcome by will, which is probably why Franklin Roosevelt said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. We fear fear and we become liquified or stone-cold, depending, in the face of it.
But it’s fear itself that paralyzes and immobilizes us, we find in the end, and not the object of our fear.
But I’ve found that we can stamp our feet, so to speak, in the face of fear and fear leaves. And perhaps setting our faces against fear is the first means of breakthrough – and the most effective, I think.
Breakthrough is a process of using our wits, our will and whatever other resources we have to break through the envelope of fear that contains us and get to the other side of it.
Werner Erhard described many means of breaking through fear. The circuit riders of the growth movement provided others. And I’ve summarized them below. (1)
But what I want to do here is to look at the issue of fear and breakthrough and leave it to you to look at the techniques separately.
Given that we are at base consciousness, certain things in consciousness can corral us and erect a kind of impervious envelope through which we cannot break through, express ourselves, take action, etc.
Dismay, grief, disappointment … and fear … are some of these barriers in consciousness. While we can operate our bodies while in fear, we generally believe ourselves to be incapacitated and so we condemn ourselves to not breaking through. We overlook the processes of beakthrough and rest immobilized in our fear.
But the mechanisms in consciousness available to us are capable of breaking through that fear, dissolving it, causing it to lift, etc.
One mechanism is will. When we stamp our foot, so to speak, in the face of fear or say “no” to fear and mean it, we’re invoking or exerting our will, which is an expression of the soul. Our will is stronger than fear.
In fact the setting of our will against fear causes it to vanish or leave us, I’ve discovered. I was surprised the first time I successfully did it. And, as you’d expect, after that, it got easier.
When we sit with our fear and experience it through to completion, that’s another mechanism: we dissolve fear. Awareness is a divine solvent and has the power to dissolve fear. (2)
Fear must be in the forefront of our consciousness to affect us. And so we can put our attention elsewhere and this will shunt fear from the forefront of our consciousness and restore to us to our condition prior to our fear. Again this may take an effort of will in many cases.
There are certain ways of speaking that invoke the soul, cause it to come forward through the surface layers of consciousness and sweep fear away. Some of these ways are to take a stand, make a promise, and declare ourselves (all of these also invoke will). One can speak in these ways and watch the impact it has on us.
Certain things are inimical to fear. The truth is inimical to fear. If we tell the truth at a very deep place, it causes fear to vanish: the truth has set us free.
A version of telling the truth is to share a withhold. A withhold, as the name implies, is a communication we’re holding back on delivering, usually because of fear.
So if we share a withhold (I stole $20 from your purse, I had a drink today, etc.), we eliminate the cause of fear. Of course, we may pay the price for sharing, but the price of withholding is usually much greater.
The power of God, someone used to say, is tied up in our withholds, in what we refuse to share. I’m a little more mellow these days and don’t suggest any longer that we risk our relationships by sharing things inappropriately. Or that we rip one another’s face off, which is how many can experience the truth inappropriately delivered. The way we say things does make a difference. (3)
These are some of the mechanisms behind ridding ourselves of the impediment of fear. A life lived without fear is a life lived as an open space. And in an open space, love rushes in.
If we want to stand forth as the Self, if we want to emerge, then the chief impediment is fear and the chief tool in our toolboxes is to take ourselves in hand and do what needs to be done to break the bonds of fear.
It can be done and this is the time to do it because our assignments will only get bigger and bigger from this point on.
We’ve agreed to be leaders in the New Age unfolding. We’re the wayshowers, brush-clearers, and pattern-setters. And, often, all that stands in our way of completing our missions in the expanded and comfortable way we wish to is fear.
Footnotes
(1) From “Transformational Moments” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/enlightenment/transformational-moments/:
- Telling the truth. The truth sets us free; a lie binds us. The truth releases us from tension and stress and it’s this sudden release from tension or stress that we may experience as a heightening of consciousness.
- Sharing a withhold. Holding onto something produces stress and stress retards consciousness. Awareness varies inversely with tension in the body. The more we withhold, the more we stress ourselves, the lower our state of awareness. The more we share, the less stress we hold, the higher our awareness.
- Observing a barrier, resistance, or upset. Werner Erhard used to speak about holding an upset like a brick in our lap. Observing the upset will bring release from it. Projecting it simply energizes it and causes it to persist. Resisting it will also cause it to persist. If we observe the upset until it lifts, chances are we’ve taken a step towards completing it. Observing it implies being with it, being present to it, breathing through it.
- Restoring integrity, apologizing, forgiving. Forgiving someone or asking for forgiveness releases tension, which liberates awareness.
- Being responsible for something, owning it. Representing ourselves as victims produces drama. If the drama itself is not a lie, the exaggeration of emotion probably is. Either way, drama increases tension and tension lowers awareness. Owning something, taking responsibility for it reduces drama, increases relaxation, and increases awareness. Related to being responsible is facing something in ourselves that we’ve been unwilling to acknowledge.
- Taking a stand, committing ourselves, making a promise. Taking a stand is an act of emergence. It calls up strength and courage, which invite a breakthrough in consciousness of oneself. Anything that requires one to stand forth – whether committing oneself or making a promise – will reinforce the sense of who one is. Taking a stand is a way of breaking through something, which liberates consciousness.
- Making a difference. Doing something that changes the balance of things for the better in the world or sees significantly to the wellbeing of another will enhance consciousness. The bigger the difference made, it seems, the bigger the impact on consciousness.
- Allowing something, granting it beingness. To move from resistance to acceptance liberates awareness. Resistance requires tension and tension lowers awareness. To grant something the right to be which we’ve previously resisted or rejected releases our fixated attention and allows awareness to expand. Werner used to define love as allowing someone to be just the way they are and just the way they’re not.
- Getting off it, letting it go. If all else fails, simply get off it. Drop the issue. Let it go. Let it go because your state of consciousness depends on it. Nothing is worth staying “on about it” forever.
See also “Just When We Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water: Weathering the Emotional Storm” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/08/just-when-we-thought-it-was-safe-to-go-back-in-the-water-weathering-the-emotional-storm/.
(2) “Awareness – or love or generosity – is decidedy not neutral. It may be invisible but it’s not a non-factor in things. Rather than being neutral and invisible like the air, it’s rather more like a solvent on paint.
“Paint some knot in our character with awareness, and the knot will lift just as paint doused with solvent will lift from a board. …
“The divine qualities are not at all neutral. Their valence, their impact, their momentum is decidedly towards the uplifting, empowering, and ennobling.” (“Insights Coming Fast and Furious in These Fertile Times” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/01/insights-coming-fast-and-furious-in-these-fertile-times/. See also “Standing Forth as the Self” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/the-path-of-awareness/standing-forth-as-the-self/; “Another Chaotic Node: What Are We Processing?” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/on-processing-vasanas/another-chaotic-node-what-are-we-processing/.
(3) Archangel Michael recommends Perro, which is a name for a way of speaking among diplomats devised during the intergalactic wars, which involved the use of neutral, barely-descriptive, undramatic language.