What is fear?

[mandyjw]

Fear has become an obsession of mine. From the very start of trying to listen to my intuition I've found that fear is the thing that appears to block me from Knowing. But, it also can be an indicator that I'm on to something really good. 

Due to a strange family dynamic, my parents started their life together in fear for their lives and I have always had a lot of anxiety that was reinforced by my parents. On top of that I had obsessive compulsive disorder which for me resulted in random out of the blue impulses to do and say things that inconvenienced me, embarrassed me or terrified me. Mindfulness and maturity simmered them down but before a recent awakening they came back. They often pick my most vulnerable fear and play it over and over in my head until I realize that following through with action and facing the fear is nothing compared with resisting it. Trusting in them is difficult. Today they lead me to a hiking trail I that never knew existed. I ended up at this secluded cove, and had an impulse to strip off and swim in the freezing cold ocean. My heart started pounding. "For real? Do I really have to actually do this?" I thought about what would happen if I drowned somehow, or what if someone showed up and saw me, and I realized that the possibility of shame was WAY more powerful manifestation of fear than death or discomfort. So I did it, and I never even felt how cold the water was or how sharp the rocks were under my feet.  The whole actual experience was nothing. 

Examining my fear I realize that I think I have these really big fears but they are imaginary. Everything is fear, annoyance is a form of fear and maybe it all can go in the "resistance" category. In fact my biggest fears are a projection of a future that is just mildly torturing. The thought of time always needs to be included with fear, I'm not afraid of losing a limb because it would hurt really bad, but mostly because life without it would be really hard for a really long time after. Mosquitoes and biting flies are annoying, but they can in the right situations get so thick that they can actually kill you. It's all fear.

I realize that everything good is on the other side of fear. Courage is love that overpowers fear. Is fear a form of love? If so how does it appear to block us from love? 

Every practice we do to realize oneness involves working through fear. Psychedelics are terrifying, my OCD impulses are terrifying, meditation is terrifying when you think about it, you're locking your mind, your self in a dark cave of nothingness. Shadow work is working with our shame and it's terrifying. Everytime you give in you realize that there was nothing there all along.

What is the purpose of shame? We have to live by rules as a society so those that act outside those rules and agreements are subject to feeling shame. In fact shame keeps people from doing things that society would have to punish in the first place. Shame is protective in a way then, right? Just like fear of death, it keeps you from walking up to a bear in the woods and patting it. When my sister was a little kid, a black bear cub came in our yard and she went up and patted it thinking it was a dog. It's one of the reason that kids are absolutely exhausting to parent, because you have to keep them safe from themselves all the time. Yet to be enlightened you must become like a child again.

Is it possible, or even desirable to dissolve all fear? 

[Inliytened1]

@mandyjw of course.  Fear is deeply rooted in uncertainty, which ultimately is the fear of death of the self.  It's perfectly normal.  One can overcome it though spiritual practice which will ultimately lead to the discovery that you are God.  This, as has been stated before, comes with a slow increase in consciousness after multiple awakening experiences.  When you have the ultimate highest realization of Oneness.  Where the form and the formless become identical to you.  You will be fully conscious that you cannot die.  That you have complete certainty because it is you that created this whole thing.  You are infinity itself.  You are the dreamer dreaming this dream.  You are the creator and there is nothing left to fear.  Fear is a duality and it will collapse when you become conscious of this.  It will take time.  Take time to meditate and this will come to pass.  You already have the gift.  I can intuit that.

[DrewNows]

I love the illusion of fear. 

“There’s nothing to fear but fear it(self)” 

[Shin]

[Inliytened1]

@DrewNows i immediately thought the same.  Roosevelt.  A great quote.

[Brenzo2]

Fear is always based in the future. In an imagined image of the future made in the present. An imagination of you in the future experiencing something unpleasant or negative, maybe a feeling, maybe a situation, and being rejecting towards it. Not embracing the imagined reality or actively avoiding it. 

Thoughts ?