This article is based on our podcast episode, Make Magic: Letting Go of Fear. Listen to the full episode here.
When we decide to walk down a spiritual path, fear and doubt naturally arise for most of us. Spirituality, and the process of getting in touch with our spiritual selves, isn't quantifiable, linear or thinking-based. In a world that thrives on intellect, connecting deeply with this part of ourselves requires we let go of understanding primarily from our left-brain perspective. This can result in feeling ungrounded, vulnerable and unsure of ourselves.
In 2021, both fear and safety are big players in our everyday lives. We are all navigating a new way of living, within a collective society that has an increasingly heightened awareness of energy, spirituality and the possibility that we are more than just a brain and body.
The unknown can be scary - not only in society, but also in our own inner world. What’s next? How do I connect with this emerging part of myself? How do I know what's real?
Your Spiritual vs. Physical Mind
Fear can be intertwined with so many of our emotions, including judgment, doubt, and even joy. When you’re afraid to make decisions, you aren’t trusting yourself and your inner knowing. Sometimes there is so much pressure to do the "right thing", that we don't give ourselves permission to learn or grow through our own experience.
Our access to social media doesn’t help our self-view. Online, it seems everyone else has made sense of their lives and is confident with where they are right now. This may magnify our doubt and hesitation to move forward.
Our physical mind, our brain, is a beautiful tool. It helps us calculate, make decisions, and understand the world around us in a linear way. But if we focus only on this method of knowing and understanding, we cut ourselves off from our deeper connection to our intrinsic essence energy. When you begin walking down a spiritual path, you start to realize that you are more than just your physical mind. You begin to feel differently about your life and your purpose. In this way, you become more conscious that you are part of something greater. This is what Native American people have always called The Great Mystery. In our modern times, a lot of people awakening on their spiritual path are beginning to use terms such as "greater consciousness" and "the universe."
When we are fearful of intertwining and valuing our physical mind with our spiritual mind, we cut ourselves off from a greater level of perception, understanding, and ultimately, the bigger web of self-love available to guide and support us.
Your Spiritual Journey
There is no formula to figure out spirit. It exists on a high frequency that humans haven't always been able to understand. Yet, we get messages from this spiritual place within us, and around us, all the time. In Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), they call this spiritual place your "Higher Power." In religions across the world, spiritual energy is related to a God, Goddess, mother-nature, or saints. In earth-centered traditions, everything is made of spiritual energy, and it is believed that consciousness, or our ability to recognize the multi-faceted layers of ourselves, relates to our soul.
When we've tried to understand spirit, we haven't understood it from a heart-centered, somatic perspective. We don't focus on the possibility that our body is the vessel that allows this intrinsic energy to come alive. Our body allows our spiritual essence to live purpose fully through a heart of love. In the movie, Dune, one of the main female characters often recites, "Fear is the mind killer," as a way for her to recognize when she falls into this emotional thinking pattern (source). I agree with this sentiment. But to take it even further, fear is also the spiritual awareness killer. It isolates us from our true connection to everything and shuts down higher frequency thinking.
Everyone committed to their spiritual journey experiences fears, doubt, and distrust. These are the main three hurdles that people have a hard time overcoming when they begin opening to greater awareness. When I am guiding others into this work, a question I hear over and over is, "What if I trust myself and I'm wrong?"
Our society tends to discredit intuitive speak and focuses more on basic levels of science. When we do this, we discount happenstance or serendipitous experiences. We pull ourselves away from our "gut feelings," and push down the expansive wonder that arises when we tap into our creative energy that can feel like "magic." Spirit often speaks through our right brain - through pictures, music, art, beauty, and deep feelings. And also through dreams. Children are often able to tap into spiritual energy more readily than adults because of their ability to play and remain open to the possibility that things exist that they don't understand. Spiritual energy can feel ungrounding because we don't always have a why, or an ability to make sense of it. There are higher levels of spiritual energy that intertwine with math and science, but these are fields we also struggle to understand and repeat, such as Quantum Physics.
Read my Using Play To Find Answers article to understand how investing more time in playing can bring you closer to your spiritual goals.
Viewing Fear Differently
When fear comes up, how can you see it for what it is? How can it be a messenger for emotions that need healing for you trust continuing down your spiritual path? If we experience fear, it is also important to recognize that with trust, fear can shift into very positive emotions, such as love and joy. Take anxiety for instance - anxiety is "enthusiasm without breath" (source). And when we are enthusiastic without breath, we create a withholding, a mistrust, a fear of being in the moment with our true experience and potential. If we view fear in the same way, could we perhaps see it as full of spiritual potential? What if fear is simply just the constriction of an energy that could take us much deeper into our connection to something?
Everything that rises in the body is a message. Sometimes there are so many, we must decide what to listen to first. Some can feel more aligned, while others may be difficult messages to hear. From a left-brain perspective, fear is something to push down, overcome and ignore. From a right-brain perspective, fear is an opportunity to dance with something bigger and deeper in ourselves.
One of the most weighted and common questions that arises in us when we step on a spiritual path is, "Is this real? What if it's not real? What if I'm crazy?"
Trust Your Feelings
In short, I was thrown onto my spiritual path at 15 years old when I saw and felt an abrasive ghost for the first time. Generally, I’m very sensitive to energy, and this experience caused a heavy belief that I couldn't be empowered in my sensitivities, and I was full of doubt and victim energy. Sometimes stepping on a spiritual path is a conscience choice, and other times we unknowingly walk into a highly complex experience that causes spiritual questions to emerge that do not have answers immediately. This can cause more doubt and fear.
I often see these experiences happen for people I work with in childhood. Unfortunately, many intuitive children do not have a parent that listens to them or emotionally supports their spiritual experiences. In turn, this can cause children to grow into adults that don't fully trust their own experiences, feelings, and spiritual paths. Hence, when people with these experiences explore a spiritual path, doubt and fear naturally arise because of old wounding.
Again, fear will come up because our mind typically wants a map about what is happening so we can be in control. When we don't feel in control, fear arises because we experience vulnerability. And yet, vulnerability doesn't have to be a bad thing. Vulnerability is the opportunity to open to new learning, perspectives, and healing. As we tend to the fear in ourselves, taking care of our feelings in an authentic and caring way allows us to transform the restriction of them into possibility. If we give breath, space, and compassion to our feelings, they can easily transform. If you experience fear while walking down a spiritual path, listen to that feeling and ask what it needs. Does the feeling need reassurance that you will be okay? Do you need to dance out the uncertainty? Grab a blanket and a warm beverage. What can you do to soothe the left-brain response to trying something new that's unknown?
How Stuck Energy Can Come Through Doubt
During and after graduate school, I worked with elders struggling with Alzheimer's disease and Dementia. It was profound to see that the energy and pain we push down and don't acknowledge in our lives as children and adults, comes through when we're much older.
When we're children, we can't always work with stagnant energy or big emotions, especially when they are linked to trauma. We bury our experiences deep within ourselves, which often gets stuck, and manifests as specific emotional patterns in our lives. As we get older and closer to leaving the planet, the body, in all its intelligence, tries to release these residual energies before going back to source.
If you're in a place where there is a lot of emotion that’s wanting to come through, please embrace it. In fact, your spiritual path will bring up old energies, which also might kick up the fear in your system even higher. There might be days where you experience a cascade of emotions or feel angry and sad without a specific reason. The mind can become upset by this because it needs an answer to feel like it’s' in control. Walking a spiritual path means connecting more deeply with our intrinsic selves, our soul essence, which requires your willingness to release the energies or stories that get in the way of you seeing your true, authentic self and living from this empowered place.
To get to the brilliant moments of spiritual work, we must release "stuck" energy and trust the process. It is important to let yourself push through so you can move from fear to a place of love and acceptance.
Conclusion
As you step on a spiritual path and fear arises, it is important to deeply honor the emotional process and healing you need to release the fear and trust your body's wisdom. When you can let go of overthinking and being driven by fear, you are rewarded by connecting deeply and authentically with your spiritual essence. This is your unique energy that connects you to a renewed place of freedom, love, and inner peace.
Looking for extra support as you work through fear on your spiritual journey? Please connect with me for private coaching, energy healings, or psychic readings.