Is Fear Driving Your Life?

In our modern world, it’s easy to allow the forces of commercialism and materialism to control our lives and create fear within us. We worry about our ability to pay our bills, and that fear keeps us in jobs we don’t like and don’t find fulfilling. We fear our ability to change and take care of ourselves, leading us to stay trapped in relationships and situations that aren’t healthy or productive.

But why?  Why do we allow fear to dictate the decisions we make?  Sadhguru says:

“Fear is simply because you are not living with life, you are living in your mind. Your fear is always about what is going to happen next. That means your fear is always about that which does not exist. If your fear is about the non-existent, it is hundred percent imaginary.”

When we allow fear about what the future may bring to color our current decisions, we compromise our ability to live fully in the present moment.  We trade what enjoyment we could have for needless stress over situations that may never come to be – ultimately diminishing our personal growth and satisfaction, as well as our overall quality of life.

Explore your fears

If you’re feeling “stuck” in any part of your life, there’s a good chance that this sensation represents the manifestation of your fears – even if you aren’t aware of feeling fearful.

But why are you creating this fear in the first place and how would you stop creating that? The fundamental reason why fear – whether it is those fears you are conscious of or the fear you are not even aware you carry – have arisen within you is because you do not know the beginning and the end. You think you are a small little human being. You believe yourself to be a limited entity that you are right now and that sense of limitation naturally creates overwhelming fear.

So how you would you drop these fears and insecurities? How would you get rid of them? Well, the good news is that you don’t have to leave your fears and insecurities, simply because they don’t exist. Yes, that’s right. They don’t exist; YOU just keep creating them unconsciously.

To minimize the impact of these fears, it is important to first understand what they are and where they’re coming from.  Start by compiling a list of all the things you fear – no matter how large or small they may seem.  Then, try to identify both your reasons for experiencing these fears and where exactly you feel they may lead you.

For example, suppose you’re afraid of losing your job.  Certainly, this is a common fear, as the loss of income would likely inhibit your ability to pay your bills – leading to the immediate stress of dealing with creditors and making lifestyle accommodations.  In the long run, losing your job could lead to anything from long-term unemployment to homelessness and more.

Remind yourself that you can’t control the future

As long as you identify yourself as a physical body – if the very experience of life is limited to your physical and mental faculties – fear and insecurity are inevitable. Of course, different people may be in different levels of fear and insecurity. If life is going well for you today and everything is smooth and easy, you might forget your insecurity. If tomorrow life gets harder and you face a challenging situation, you are reminded; but the fear is always there with you. Only when an individual begins experiencing life beyond the boundaries of the physical, only then can one be truly free of any sense of insecurity or fear.

Now that you’ve traced the edges of your fear, recognize how little control you have over external situations.  Following the example above; while you can change your on-the-job performance, you cannot control market fluctuations that could put your company out of business, a bad boss who dislikes you for no apparent reason or any of the hundreds of other scenarios that could bring about the end result you fear.

What’s more, you have no way of knowing whether or not any of the situations you envision will ever actually come to pass!

As Sadhguru says, you are worrying about things that do not exist. And what’s worse, is you compromising your enjoyment of the time you do have right now out of the fear of future situations that are not likely to ever occur!

Remind yourself of this whenever you feel stressed over the fears that we all inevitably allow into our minds.

Tune in to the present moment

The real cure for this, the solution to stop allowing your fear of the future to consume your current enjoyment of life is to tune into the present moment.  There are dozens of different mechanisms for doing so, from adopting a meditative mindset to the daily practice of yoga.  Truly, the way in which you train your mind to dismiss your fears in order to enjoy the present moment doesn’t matter – what matters is that you find some way to prevent these fears from eventually ruling your life.

Ask yourself: is it fear that dictates the decisions you take for your life, or is it your enjoyment of the current moment that helps guide your future? And if you lean more towards the former description, what measures can you implement to ensure that these baseless fears don’t control you?

In reality, being joyous takes absolutely no effort! In fact it is quite the opposite: creating worry is effortful. If you would stop doing that, you would naturally be joyous. Just look at the way young children are; joy is natural to them. And it is so for every human being, because joy is not something that you do – it is a natural state of being.

However, what could have been a ladder to a most pleasant state are the very same aspects spinning out of your control. Your own mind, your thoughts, your emotions and other aspects of you, could have all been sources of limitless joy – except they are not being driven by YOU. Do you even need to ask yourself: if I had the choice, would I be joyous or insecure? Joy would be the natural state you seek, no doubt, but how do you allow that to find expression?

There are many ways to come out of the fear manufacturing factory.

When misery, insecurity and fear gets the best of us for too long, and it starts affecting our lives in tangible ways, many of us realize it might be time to visit the doctor. A doctor may give you a pill to take regularly. This pill is made up of chemicals that will make your body and mind peaceful for a while.

One way of understanding this is that what you call as peace has a certain kind of chemical background to it. Similarly, what you call tension, irritation, anxiety, fear, anger, and stress, all have a chemical basis. Pleasantness, happiness, love, joy, delight, bliss – also all stem from a specific chemical arrangement within your body.

How to create the state YOU want? It’s simple; as there is a science for external well-being, there is a whole science as to how to create your inner chemistry the way you would want it to be. Yoga has many methods through which you can create the right kind of chemistry, where being peaceful and joyous comes naturally to you. It is within your reach – are you ready for the next “I” model?