Today, A Reader asks Jeanne for guidance.
Dear Jeanne,
I wrestle with a very deep-seated feeling of fear every day, or more accurately, every hour of every day and night, and although I can push through the days, it has made sleep nearly impossible for most of my life. I never recognized it as “fear” until recently and have struggled with recapitulation as I encounter it at every turn. I had thought it was active as the result of sexual abuse that happened when I was a child, but I am beginning to feel that it goes much deeper than that, as it seems to permeate every cell of my body. You have said that fear can be one of our greatest teachers, but sometimes I just don’t understand how to face it when I am not really sure what it is I am afraid of. How do I detach from it? Could you please talk some more about this? Thank you very much for your continued guidance and love.
Thank you, Jan and Chuck for your continued guidance and love too.
Love,
Debbie
My Dearest Debbie, it is not simply a matter of detaching from fear that you must contend with, but you must truly discover why it covers you so heavily. Why do you carry this burden of fear? Why do you feel that it permeates every cell of your body? Is this a true perspective? Or have you elected to settle for that perspective and accept your cloak of fear, rather than reject the notion that it is yours to take on?
Does your fear permeate you because you allow it to seep in? Are you inviting it in daily and nightly? Do you open the door to it because you prefer that door over any others? Is fear safer than the absence of fear? Do you wish to remain in a place of fear out of fear of the unknown? Fears of the truth of the self? Fear of discovering your true potential because it may point out to you that you may not have things right yet? Does fear point out to you that your struggles may not be over, yet you elect to declare that they are done? Have you forgotten to look under your bed for the dust balls that need to be cleaned out?
Where are you headed in your life now? Who will accompany you if you drag with you still that heavy dark cloak of fear? Is it possible that it has long been your old teddy bear that is now no longer quite the comfort it once was because you are no longer the child who needed it as protection and safety?
Fear at one time guided you, kept watch with you, and kept you alert so you could be ready for the inevitable beast knocking at your door. Fear was your companion as you sat watchfully waiting. Fear was your friend. Do you not see how fear has been your partner through life, keeping you on your toes, alert to danger, offering you protection so that you were ever wakeful and prepared?
Now have you determined that the cloak of fear does not sit comfortably upon your adult shoulders. You have outgrown it, and your body is telling you that fresh air and new ideas are ridding you of the old deep-seated and permeated fear. This new air is seeking to push out the old fear. New thoughts about the self, new ideas of life, of relationship, and of your place in the universe are pushing at and disrupting the very cell structures that you have lived with all these years.
This is your discomfort, My Dear; the restructuring of every aspect of self that comes as you do your recapitulation. Your fear is being routed out of you by your progress during recapitulation. But you still have much work to do, for fear sits deeply planted, just as old ideas of the self do, and the old habits do. It is possible to replace those old ideas of self, as you have now experienced during your inner work. But you must realize that the process is not a swift and painless one, for it involves not only your mental self and your spiritual self, but your body self as well.
Your entire physical and psychic self is being forced to change. Your physical body, once so cowering in fear, is standing up straighter now. It wants to walk freely, unburdened of that heavy cloak. It seeks to remove it, literally, from your body by pushing out and off the old energy of fear that has so weighed you down. You have not needed it for many years, yet have you continued to wear it, out of habit of comfort.
To truly change now, must you continue to understand energy, for this is a question of replacing your old energy with your new energy. As you recapitulate, so are you inviting a change in inner atmosphere. You are replacing stale old air with fresh new air. You are pushing out old energy that is worn and used, and replacing it with new energy generated by your inner self as you do your work.
You have been unearthing a lot of memories, a lot of old ideas of the self, as well as discovering your child self as an innocent being. This is what recapitulation offers you, the opportunity to re-experience the self differently, with the caveat that as you do, so do you move out of you the old stagnant energy that has sat resident for so long.
So yes, my Dear Debbie, your cells are bursting with the new fresh energy pushing in to your physical energetic self. Of course you will feel uncomfortable once again, even as you did in the past because as that new energy pushes in, so does the old energy of fear get pushed out, activated against its will, but present in its protecting of being shoved out of its habitual hideout.
Your body does not want or need that fear any longer. Your spirit self is protesting against its rallying push to stay resident. But you must remember that you are constantly recapitulating. And that process is not just one of going back, but it is one of constantly going forward too, pushing out the old energy and replacing it with new energy.
So yes, your physical self, your mental self, and your spirit self all must learn what it feels like as this process unfolds. As old habits and ideas of the self are forced to be re-examined, dissected, and removed particle by particle, so will you actually have to feel the changes taking place inside you. And these changes, positive as they are, can be as equally disruptive as the clearing out process and the shift in perspective that you are offering your self.
This process of recapitulation that I speak of so often is allowing you to change. And change at this time in your life is being presented in all aspects of life, inner and outer, spirit and body, mental and practical. Your old habits of self are being asked to shift now, as you interact in the outer world with your changed self in charge.
And you are protesting all these changes. Yet does your spirit push at your reluctant ego self, asking you to allow the energy of change to push through your open doors and windows and show you that fear is but an illusion now, no longer needed, but also no longer wanted either. And that is what you must ultimately realize. Your child self and your adult self no longer want the companionship of fear, but your body self has not kept up with the process. The body holds the last vestiges of your inner work still captive. Let your body release and you will free your energy to really grow now.
Place your self in the hands of the energy of the universe now. You are safe. You are an adult deciding to take the journey of truth and recapitulation. You are innocence and knowledge combined. You are strength and weakness, purity and darkness, anger and happiness, sadness and bitterness combined. These things and much more are in you, and they need reconciliation, and they need release as new energy moves in.
Your challenges in life will return often to test you. That is why you have them. That is why fear has been your constant companion because yes, it is offering you the opportunity to discover something else about your self that you have not quite fathomed. As you pretend to accept it as your burden and teacher, yet do you not hear what it is saying to you. So used to its presence are you that you have not listened to the fact that it is constantly telling you new things, and not the same thing over and over again, as you perceive. It is and has actually been telling you many different things, but you have kept your hands over your ears so you couldn’t hear what it said. It constantly asks you to change, to think differently, to act differently, and to become a different Debbie.
That is your challenge now, to truly dare to become a different Debbie. A Debbie who is unafraid, doors and windows wide open now, with the energy of the universe shifting you and pushing you along on your journey of truth, but also on your true journey.
Find your new inner resonance, and even as it keeps shifting and changing on you, keep up with it. It asks you to speed up now, don’t get lost by being too slow. Keep up. Even if you can’t quite grasp the meaning it offers, move on with it, trusting it and the journey you are on. You haven’t quite decided to trust your own journey. But you really should. It’s meant for you to grow and evolve with. It is your reluctance that stands in your way. As much as you want to grow, you allow your reluctance to clothe you in your old cloak of fear, rather than swiftly throwing it off and barging ahead, which is what your spirit is pushing for, your spirit is insisting that you push ahead.
Find your way to trusting your journey, My Dear One, and you will find that the questions will all be made clear, answered and resolved. Good Luck. Reluctance begone!