Very few people live a fearless life.
In fact, I only know of a tiny number of people who live truly fearlessly.
Byron Katie is one of them.
I’ve never met her personally, but I have read her books and been to see her speak in London.
At one time she suffered from depression, agoraphobia, overeating, and addiction.
Then she experienced an awakening at the age of 43. She said:
“I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment.”
Just recently I’ve been reading a book by Melissa Ford called ‘Living Service – the journey of a prosperous coach.
She had an awakening too when her coach asked her:
When are you going to stop living like you’re never going to die?
Isn’t this a powerful question to ask yourself?
When am I going to stop living like I’m never going to die?
As we come to the close of a year and the beginning of a fresh new one, what are you going to do?
Repeat the year you’ve just had or evolve?
Most people are sleepwalking through life with the same beliefs, habits, and insecurities they have always had.
They never question them.
They just accept them as though “This is just who I am?”
But is this true?
Are we the thoughts we have about ourselves? Or are we something else?
After all, we didn’t arrive with a self-image. New-born babies don’t arrive with a mind full of insecure thoughts.
We arrive as pure love.
The self-image comes later and it’s the source of virtually all our fears.
Taking on the feeling
When I go into my ego-based, fearful thinking (which still happens often) my coach showed me how to ‘take on the feeling’.
Byron Katie does the same thing with ‘The work’ (I highly recommend her book ‘Loving what is’).
When you feel discouraged, down, worried, anxious, not enough (or whatever ways you have of taking yourself down), take it on…
Make the enquiry:
Am I feeling what is real?
Or am I feeling my thought in the moment?
There can only be one answer.
We feel our thinking in the moment. And it’s not real. We don’t have to believe what we think.
“A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It is not our thoughts, but the attachment to thoughts, that causes suffering.” Byron Katie