Fear … the Fall of a Dark Empire

So, how do I feel about the focus of my work on the eradication of fear in my writing and teachings? The answer is that I actually feel just ever so slightly daunted by such a huge task because of what it might entail first to shed my own fears and then extract from the experience the essence to be translated into simple yet powerful tools for others to do the same.

However, such trepidation is far outweighed by the excitement of the prospect of a life free, or virtually free, of fear in which all dark energies are transformed in their deep-rooted caverns within our body and soul, converted from darkness to light, leaving us fundamentally revitalised and rejuvenated, a long, healthy and fulfilled life almost guaranteed compared with the feasibility of such a life when our fears lurk insidiously clouding many a good heart.

How do I feel? Not only excited, privileged and…peaceful, as if the very prospect of shedding fear has, of itself, already brought some healing, some inner peace. Yes, above all, since this latest opportunity was offered to me, I have felt peaceful, hopeful, humbly powerful, knowing I can do anything when fear’s shackles are removed, no longer able to hold me back, leaving the dark forces that use fear to control us are but powerless blasts of hot air that play a futile game in the face of such pure power, the one true power: love.

In fact, on further reflection, what is most exciting is the recollection that fear is love’s antithesis and that, if there was ever to be a ‘cure’ for life’s ills, it is through the free authentic expression of that one truth, love, made possible when its light shines brightly on the dark fears that then simply vanish in its path. This is so universal, so simple yet, in such profound darkness, also a challenge at first.

What moves me as I sit here in a coffee house on a busy Sunday afternoon, scribbling these almost incredible thoughts and looking at all the faces from around the world in search of pleasure, is what may then be possible for the souls whose faces bear the scars of the agony of fear that sometimes cause such ugly distortions of their natural beauty. Can I see a single face that truly bears the peaceful, loving beauty of their true nature? I suspect not. My, this world is so ripe for dramatic transformation and awakening!

Oh God, free me of my fears that I may then do everything in my power to bring it to others, to set them free to find and follow you, you who surround and protect them always yet are denied by most, and to use their unique gifts from you to expand the light still further.

Thank you for this privileged role which you now offer me and which I take on regardless of the changes to the path I follow and without condition, though I ask that if possible I do not suffer with torture, imprisonment or death and that I may stay to witness what, in your name, I help to create, the land of Pan restored, a place where love, hope and trust are the norm and fear but a distant memory, cast to the annals of human history once and for all.

Fast Intoxication

As I get closer to the end of my 14-day detox diet, a form of fasting with both physical and spiritual benefits it seems, I can only describe how I feel as proud, immensely confident in who I am, what I stand for, what I can do and what I will write about in the book I am preparing. It is another world from shortly before I started, that world being one of despondency and impotence in the face of almost total inactivity during which time I struggled day by day to see any point in anything. Now, revitalised by first gaining clarity of my goals for the next six months and then the mental challenge of a total fast (except for water with some lime and sugar cane juice), my ego somewhat chastened by the experience yet still free to do what it does best (facilitate actions to produce what my heart has chosen for itself), I am blissful, almost incredulous when I look back at how I felt some two weeks ago.

The experience of the detox can be likened to running a marathon for the first time: it took commitment and dedication at all times, even in the face of extreme discomfort, and at times I felt like giving up. It was my commitment to myself to be slim, fit and healthy that saw me through. In this way it also mirrors what it takes to fulfil my promise to myself to have the best life possible through a never ending journey of self discovery and growth.

Without the commitment, I might well have given up before even reaching the halfway point. I still have 4 more days to complete and I have no idea what else this interesting test of my commitment may reveal, but all I can say now is that I haven’t felt so happy and confident about myself and my future for a very long time, if ever. In fact, if I felt any happier I think I would fly! Such is the power of commitment to oneself and the fulfilment of one’s potential.

Lessons in the Park 2

(about patience, gratitude and loving kindness)

You could have knocked me over with a feather! A day later and I am finding the detox diet a bit hard: it was not too bad when I first got up, though disappointment at how I looked in the mirror (not as slim as I had hoped) soon set me back. Later, when my partner and I decided to go to our favourite coffee house, all I could drink was plain water while he indulged himself in iced cappuccino and cake, and I found myself slowly dipping into a dark mood and it rapidly escalated on the way home until I was feeling very negative about more than just the diet, feeling almost angry at not being able to have what I wanted and at life and other equally intangible and ridiculous things.

Once home, I did not feel like going to the park for peace and inspiration. Instead, I just stripped off and watched TV but it was boring and my mind wondered. I focused on how I felt – it felt ghastly. Then it struck me that the feeling was very familiar. It was how I felt only last month when I was still enduring a three-month period of almost no work and nothing much else to do other than eat (hence the detox diet). The pain of the frustration was intense, stripping life of a sense of hope and promise but I had learnt that the ego props itself up with activity to establish a semblance of usefulness and worthiness. The feeling today was identical, even though the subject matter appeared to be different. I concluded that my bad mood was simply a recurrence of the thrashings of a frustrated ego, unable to assert its control and have the delights it wants. You might think that it would be content with the plan to look and feel better by means of the detox but, alas, no. This longer term prospect was a little remote compared with the immediate satisfaction of giving in to my cravings.

What astounded me was that the mere recognition of what was really going on, the ego’s refusal to play second fiddle to a heart-felt, soul-driven desire to be fit and healthy, was enough to have its ‘whole pack of cards’ collapse and the bad mood vanished in an instant. It was extraordinary: truly this dramatic change in mood shocked me and lifted me back into a positive frame of mind that had me decide to go to the park after all. The icing on the cake was when my partner looked at me as I was about to get dressed again and asked me “Are you holding your stomach in?”, when in fact I wasn’t and he told me it looked much better. So, I was almost walking on air not two minutes after awakening to the real cause of my mood that so effortlessly vanished, leaving hope and patience in its wake, a sort of blissful state of self achievement.

Lessons in the Park 1

(about patience, gratitude and loving kindness)

I sat in the middle of the park whilst in the middle of a 14-day detox diet, asking myself as I sat there what useful lessons I might take from the sometimes difficult experience involving no solid food at all and only water to which lime juice and either maple syrup or fresh sugar cane juice have been added with a dash of chilli! Now several days into the diet, as I sat pondering in the scorching summer heat in Chiang Mai, I allowed myself to get calm with the positive energy of surrounding nature to help me maximise my quest for the silver lining in the challenging experience, the silver lining beyond the cleansing of my body for health and the considerable weight loss.

What I saw first was that what kept me going in the face of the stringent fasting was first the effect on my health and fitness as I shed accumulated toxins and fat from my now overweight body and the image of me looking slim and fit once more, something that would extend far beyond the detox diet period into a healthy ongoing eating regime. These benefits powerfully supported me, especially when, as an ardent lover of food, saw food everywhere, at home with my partner and out on the streets with the numerous cafes and restaurants here with intoxicatingly tempting smells from exotic foods and fruits.

Secondly, the realisation that I could choose how to feel often helped. If I focused on the food, my inability to have it, the hunger, the absence of regular treats that often provide the main preoccupation of my waking day, I would suffer much more with hunger pangs and, perhaps, the temptation to cheat or even give up on the diet altogether. Sometimes I was tempted, but really it makes little sense and, therefore, my strategy for coping was either to focus on the progress with the diet so far and project it forward, imagining how I would feel once I had regained my ideal weight and fitness, able once again to fit into clothes I miss and feel good in the loyal and hardy vehicle for my soul that I had too often taken for granted.

Further challenge came at night when my regular in-take of alcohol were no longer open to me. That, together with the whole palaver of planning food, buying fresh food from the market, preparing and cooking food and finally eating food made the evenings particularly difficult. Distracting the mind helped (e.g. watching TV, playing computer games, researching this book, etc) but I often found the best way was to stop thinking about it and simply focusing on how I felt and what was around me in the moment, aside from the hunger, of course. The reality was that I felt great – no real pain at all and somewhat slimmer and healthier already. The suffering was largely in my head, born of the ego’s addiction to indulgences of food and drink. After three days, even the minor headaches one often gets with detox diets ended, so I tried to let go and be as patient as possible rather than focusing on how many days of abstinence remain.

Then my quest for insights led to other, more tangential ideas: I wondered what lessons came from this short-term act of self denial born of my commitment to a long, healthy and fulfilled life. Well, the realisation that my sacrifices would bring me very desirable results allowed me to feel grateful for the experience and for the friend who had recommended it to me out of the blue. This gratitude itself engenders positive energy which further reinforces the likelihood of success in achieving the desired outcome and helping avoid the negative energy associated with thinking about the suffering and sacrifice. It also made the whole experience itself more pleasant. Understanding this, I was reminded how important it is to be grateful for whatever stage we are at and whatever we have.

Such gratitude is not about being “good”, it simply rewards you instantly by making you feel happier with your current circumstances, whatever they are, and, though the positive energetic impact, speeding up the process of creating what you desire for yourself. In fact, whether to adopt this approach seems a bit of a “no-brainer”, yet I often allow myself to forget this. Therefore, a regular reminder is useful.

I also wondered whether the extreme complete absence of food could in any way cast useful light on the overcoming poverty. The situation was clearly distinct in that, first, I could choose to end it at any time and in any event the diet is for a limited period and I could resume pretty much whatever level of nutritional abundance I happened to choose. This said, the focus on something to be grateful for, no matter how small or remote, still has the twin benefit of increasing happiness in the moment and in empowering us to transcend our current circumstances through a commitment to do so, a willingness to be open to opportunities and positive energy generated by the gratitude.

As I left the park, I passed someone who looked in my direction to I acknowledged him politely and walked on but received no response. It brought o mind how I tend to react to such situations. I was brought up by my mother to be friendly, even with strangers – she would frequently engage with people when out, whether on the street or in shops. I am like that myself to a large extent, when the mood takes me and I always respond if someone acknowledges me first, even if I wasn’t plan on doing so originally.

When someone doesn’t respond I feel disappointed, even a little annoyed. Yet to do that brings negative energy to me and may even make me feel bad. So it occurred to me that we often do things pout of a misplaced desire to “be good” or “be seen to be good” but if we do it genuinely and unconditionally, then it doesn’t matter if they respond. So, if I find myself feeling that disappointment or annoyance, I have two choices: let my own energy down by my reaction or let it go.

I find the latter helps enormously as I am left with self respect and if I struggle with it, I simply remind myself that that person is in a different space from me and I have no idea what is going on in his or her life and what life experiences have allowed him or her to be that way. I apply this to more than me passing acknowledgements of course, especially to people who have done something positively to annoy me like being rude, driving dangerously or whatever. I find that doing this calms me and often even makes me feel quite splendid.

I also feel that we often feel that the “right behaviour” subconsciously reminds us of childhood feelings we felt “good” or in favour with our parents or carers and “bad” or “naughty” if we realise we have been less than “good” in our response or attitude. The thing is, there is no-one to do this for, no parent to please. It is simply better for ourselves and makes us feel better, so why not do it? We are all human and most of us are prone to less than loving kindness” as an attitude and that’s OK – I forgive myself as should we all. However, when we become aware of it, we are far better of, far happier, getting back to that way of looking at things. It is less stressful and can bring inner peace and happiness.