I haven’t addressed this yet, but I think I need to. Something in the news last week has put us all in the hands of fear again.
British police managed to catch a group of terrorists before they could complete their task. This has made us all afraid again. Five years ago, when terrorists struck the world trade center, we were paralyzed as a nation, a people, and individuals. They even emptied the tall buildings in downtown Jacksonville (like a terrorist organization would strike here). But we stopped doing things. We stopped flying. We stopped going to the mall. We stopped living.
Since then we have gone back to our ‘normal’ lives, but been wary about a lot of things. We have increased security everywhere, and we live under the shadow of fear that something could happen again. That almost came true recently when a plot to destroy planes in the air with chemical explosives was discovered and stopped before it could happen. But it had one desired effect… we are now afraid again.
By living in fear, we stop doing what we normally do. We become afraid to go out our front door. We’re afraid that following our normal routine will lead to us getting hurt or killed. So we stop going out to eat, going to the grocery, taking care of our health (getting massage). We stop doing things that we need to do, and things that are good for us, that help us stay healthy. In this way, we do what the terrorists want us to do, which is ignore our needs making us ill or not as healthy as we could be.
The problem with fear is that it spreads. It is an energy just like Reiki, or love, or any other emotion that we can create. But unlike the former, it is a negative energy that causes panic, anger, hate, and other dark emotions. And fear is easy to spread.
I used to get a lot of e-mails as part of a professional group I belong to. The person sending would receive this e-mail from someone else telling about new schemes that vandals have come up with to trap unwitting victims. All too often these messages are rumors or urban legends, none of which were true. I kept telling him that he should check these out before blindly forwarding them (and I listed several sources), but he continued on sending. He told me that he couldn’t see why he should stop. After all even if the story was bogus, it would make people think in certain situations. Maybe. But what it does more of is spread fear. Maybe there was a story about someone that got carjacked by falling for some prank. Someone reads this and they might panic if someone approaches their car. In their panic, they might crash, and injure themselves or hurt someone else.
We have to remember, that when we fear, we tend to bring to us what we fear instead of keep it away. Ever been confronted with a barking, growling dog? You get afraid as you fear for your safety (certainly not an unreasonable thing). Even if you back off the dog stays with you. Animals are very good at sensing fear and other emotions. If they sense fear, they feel that you are up to no good and will capitalize on your fear. They sense and take advantage of your fear which makes the fear spread more. So in that case, you are truly making the situation worse.
The key is not to fear, but not be stupid either. Some feel that to not fear, we need to go blindly and naively through our lives. That is almost as bad as being afraid to move. What we need to do is continue our lives, but be wary, and be vigilant. Don’t fear. But be smart. Look at your surroundings in areas and situations. Be cautious, but don’t stop what you do. Take care of your health. Perform your regular functions. If you want to spread positive energy, spread love, happiness, and calmness. That will counter energy based on fear. The choice on how you approach things is up to you.
The key is, don’t stop living.