The Ways of Fear and How to Rid Yourself of It

This is a tricky post, I’m not going to lie, because fear itself is so sly and cunning it can even hide in our loving. What’s more, I’m not really sure that what works here can work there. It’s such a lot to unpack it might not even be possible to really do that.

My title is then misleading. I think it is. I’m sure if you googled it, you could probably avail yourself of a thousand and one ways to get rid of fear by all sorts of authors, so I’m kind of sorry I even brought it up.

I don’t actually think I did bring it up — it’s just here now, and I’m trying to look at it, just to see what happens with it and where it goes. I guess we’re about to find out.

You should maybe know all my writing is really like this. I just follow the thread where it goes. My mind is a sort of factory that way — it just spews this stuff out, and look, here you are absorbing it. Are you sure that’s a good idea? Because who cares what I think when it’s your own thinking that always scares you?

I don’t think the world at large needs to lose its fear — probably because I can’t really say I care what it does. I always think it knows what it’s doing, so not my problem. I try to figure out my own life, not anyone else’s.

As a rule, I basically figure unless it’s in my domain to do, it’s none of my business. That doesn’t mean I wish anything ill will — I don’t. Stupid activity, if you ask me. But on a larger level, I humbly figure I have basically zero to do with anything going on outside my own head.

I live my own life the way I like, thinking what I like, feeling what I do, and the rest is more like: sorry, but I can’t help you — only you can do that.

If I’m doing anything here, I think it’s called a testimony — that yes, it’s possible. It’s possible to go from being afraid of your own shadow, timid and utterly self-degradingly subservient to forces that seek your demise, to a little bit of sunlight.

Personally, nothing is stuck if you ask me. It’s simply always only a matter of moving.

I guess then let’s start with the body. Does fear live in it? Hide in it?

Maybe the body is fear — but no, if it was, you’d always be afraid, and that’s not the case. Even the most fearful person relaxes when they reach their own front door.

I used to think there were pockets of fear stored like memories in my own mind, and on some level that’s true — memories are a doorway to fear. Usually it happens that our own thinking does it; we might be perfectly fine and then, out of the blue, we get the idea to think about all the things that might go wrong — the whole what-if storm starts flowing.

Humans have an innate capacity to think of shit that no other species ever does. That might be the result of the increasing complexity of living — like how you can’t just go rent a house now if you’ve got the cash.

Now they have to investigate your past to see if you’re a suitable match, and most people have something somewhere they’re ashamed of. No one can really hide anything anymore. If someone wants to see where you’ve been and what you’ve done, it’s pretty easy.

Personally, I think this is a new pathology we’ve descended into — a fresh hell based on the belief that there are too many criminals and bad people in the world, and this is how to flush them out.

Of course, “the world is full of bad people” is a belief, and I don’t recommend believing in it. Belief could be your best friend, but right now it’s probably not.

Diving deeper into the idea that memories are units of fear seems like a good direction. So that leads me to ask next — where are memories stored, if anywhere?

I do think there’s evidence they’re stored in the body, and I’ve heard from a reliable source that the legs are something of a warehouse for them. But the whole body might be involved. I once thought that the water in the body stored memories, and I think I’m right about that, although I can’t prove it.

Oh, by the way, I can’t prove any of this — so really, don’t take my word on anything I say. This is just how I think, and you can do your own thinking, which will always be more helpful. That being said, the body might not be what you think it is. It could just be energy, possibly a juggernaut of electric threads full of all sorts of information running wild and free, bobbing around from this to that in a soupy kind of way. I know you think you have a body but maybe you should think again. Of course, that's up to you.

Even so, there are a lot of things to try when it comes to fear problems. I’ve done a lot of practices over the years, such as dry fasting and running in high temperatures. There is no way to tell what did what. You just have to find your way if you ask me — but that’s your job, not mine, since I can never know what yours is.

I don’t even recommend my methods. You have to know yourself.

I’ve heard if all else fails — just shit it out. That almost always works.

If memories are stored in the legs, then just walking should stir them up and maybe out. I like walking. It’s one of my favorite activities, and I almost never feel fear when I’m engaged in it — unless a dog is chasing me. That used to come up quite a bit, which might mean I was accessing my fear and it was showing up as a vicious dog. You think that’s impossible, I know, but wait and see — because things can be very different from what you start with.

Many people swear by meditation to quell fear — just shut that mind of yours up, that’ll do it — but I don’t meditate. I do a type of breathing session where I connect my breaths, and I think this does something for my attention, but I don’t say it’s for you. The truth is I don’t know what you can do from where you are. You might need to find out where you are first.

If there is a first trick, it might be to admit that you are afraid.

Why do people act the way they do? Because they are afraid. Nothing else.

If you act like you are somehow important — puffed up, pretending — you’re afraid. On some level you’re still a little kid afraid no one will listen or pay attention to you, so you latch onto some artificial power play.

Getting rid of personal importance seems to quell fear. Because really, no one’s important, and this one I can prove. Look around — humans are a dime a dozen on this planet, so what you call yourself doesn’t matter. There are so many of us now, no one knows what it will do with us next — maybe cull the numbers, who knows.

That’s always a possibility around here. Human history is full of it, and if patterns repeat, we’re probably standing on the edge of some kind of mass exodus. Most people are afraid of that.

Death is humanity’s greatest fear. That’s just in the literature now.

Why else would millions of people flock to the doctor over every little ache and pain? Simple — they don’t want to die. They are afraid of this the most.

They’re afraid something’s wrong with them because they’re having sensations or symptoms — and maybe there is — but as a rule now we are so afraid of our own bodies and what they might do to us that we’ve become a planet of paranoids. Imagine, afraid of your own skin. Well, that’s popular — just not sure why. Not like it’s pleasant, and it doesn't get you high — at least not in the beginning. Maybe the doctor has some drugs, and that's what everyone is after.

We fear pain itself. The idea of pain causes fear. We don’t want to feel that — but I don’t think you can wake up without feeling it. Honestly, it’s not so bad once it's over. I'd say the other side makes up for anything you go through; then feeling is wonderful again. I wonder what feeling nothing is like — no, not really, that sounds like being dead. No thanks.

Being afraid to feel what we really feel drives entire industries. Personally, I think not feeling is the source of most problems. Many are insensitive, unfeeling, and not even really human anymore. Maybe they didn’t even start off that way. We can never be sure.

If we fear what we are feeling, we’ll use all sorts of things to keep from feeling it. There’s an epidemic of that fear. Anger is especially demonized.

Whatever you do, don't feel that, they tell you. Are you talking back to me, young man? How dare you! If it’s not loving, it’s not valid. Don’t be angry, that’s unpopular now — too vulgar. Head down, slink along, that’s just how I like you, now stay that way. Always remember I’m bigger than you are. Silence is strength. That’s your mantra.

Strange customs. Angry parents always trying to get their kids to stuff their anger. You'd think they'd figure out how unhelpful that is, but I don't see it happening. Why are they angry? More fear.

So yeah, I’m just looking at all the fears we might have, since that’s number one — how can you face your fear without knowing what it’s all about?

Financial fear is rising lately. The economy is shit. Prices are tripling. Yeah, nothing lasts forever, but we had a good run of it. Remember the Depression — they lived. I had a lot of trouble with this one. My mind kept running ruin scenarios to get me to look at my beliefs. If we could all just stop being so gullible, that would help. Maybe we all choose our own Truths for once.

Fear, though, is usually tied to whatever face you think you have. Embarrassment is the main driver. If I fall to ruin, what will my family think of me? Probably, as usual, they’ll say it was my own damn fault. That’s a very common internal sentiment.

We fear what others might think of us if we don’t get our lives right or make them look like all the other ones. Fear really drives the ideas of all strange normalities, which are all just conformity built on fear of embarrassment. You used to blend in to survive — maybe your tribe of people was being attacked so you’d try to join one that wasn’t. Now you just join to feel less afraid. If everyone believes in something, it’s much less embarrassing to find out you were all fooled, and it’s not just you, a lone weirdo.

Fear of being unloved.
Fear of being alone.
Fear of looking stupid.
Fear of lack.
Fear of being wrong.
Fear of not being good enough.
Fear of being held responsible for someone else’s pain.

They all grow from the same root.

I used to have a fear of the world ending — of World War Three starting.

How I got over that was by realizing maybe it needed to end. If that’s what was going to happen, what was I to oppose it? Do I influence anything around here besides my own house? Not likely.

I figured out it was only my responsibility to live my own best life. The rest was out of my hands. That’s a fear-buster right there.

Mainly I adopted a line from a song in the movie Frozen: “Do the next right thing.” The trick is knowing what that is — and that’s easy: it’s what’s right there. Maybe the dishes need doing.

If it’s not clear, then ask: What does my mind tell me I want to do? Just make sure you actually know your own mind before you believe what it says.

You’ve already got all the answers, but if you think someone else has them, you’ll never find them — because they don’t. They never do.

Learning to formulate your own answers might be the best way to quell fear. If you learn to really think about what your fear is, you can find out about it — and then find your own way through.

That’s it. The answer to getting rid of fear is learning how to really think.

If I really think of it, World War Three looks like the perfect solution to someone who’s been thinking small. It would wipe out the whole mess in one fell swoop — everything from constipation to economic inequality would be gone in a matter of minutes. What you really fear about that is if you’d disappear too — but only the character goes. That should be a relief, because what you are would remain; it would just go back to being what it’s always been: consciousness.

And maybe that’s the real terror — not war, not death, not even losing the world — but losing the idea of yourself. Probably you're still working on your self-image. You need more time even if you can’t be something better. You can only stop pretending. This obsession with yourself can go too. I know it's hard, but you can work on it.

Of course, there will still be blocks, or just shit that comes up that scares you. The mind’s a trickster — it can play games with you if you don’t understand how it does.

Most people can’t control what their own minds make them think about, like continuously bringing up some past event just to torture them. If it sucked the first time, rehashing it will make it worse.

Shame is usually behind those loops.

In that case, it’s good to know no human is that great. Not a perfect one anywhere. Everyone is basically stupid. A simple read through history will confirm that.

I no longer fear that. I can be stupid any day of the week now and it doesn’t bother me at all. That realization takes care of a lot of fears with one swing.

Afraid you’re not living right? How else would you do it, then?

You can always try something else. Whether it works or not isn’t the point — trying new things should be enough.

Fear of not being good enough — good enough for what? Who else has lived your life right? No one can say.

Anyone who thinks they can is lying. People like to talk, but so what? It’s what we do around here.

Okay, have we covered fear and how to get rid of it? The truth is, I don’t have to know.

I say if you’re afraid, you can deal with it — by looking to see what it’s really about. Usually, it’s a lie you believe in, but that’s everyone.

I used to fear being invaded by ants. I’d see them in the kitchen and freak out. I imagined that if you scraped up my entire house and about three or four feet of dirt under that, you’d discover I was living atop a great big ant hill with trillions of ants going to and fro in some sort of ant empire.

Then I saw ants on the wall in my pantry. I was sucking them up with the vacuum attachment, but as soon as I cleared the wall, I’d look away for half a second and they’d all be back. I thought, “Where are they coming from? What hole are they crawling out of?” but there was none.

Yeah, it was just my mind imagining ants. You think that’s impossible, I already know — but maybe you’re not doing it right. I doubt you are. In my life I’ve only met one person who could do that, and it’s not you.

If it’s not here, why think about it? Is there any point in worrying about what might happen? No. You’re just making yourself sick for no reason. You can cause a lot of problems that way. You’d be surprised what your mind can dream up when you’re unawares.

Anything is possible. Maybe ruin. Maybe war. Or maybe nothing. Who knows?

Is anything ever certain? That’s what you have to find out.

Maybe plan your day down to the minute — see if you can make it unfold exactly as you imagined. You can’t. But it’s good to learn how to focus on what you do want. Worry drains energy you could be using to create, to move, to live.

On some level it’s all about energy and how you use it.

We waste ours slowly when we worry or when we watch endless videos designed to hook into our fears. The guys who make them know that. That’s like a cash cow — millions of views. The idea of disaster is big business these days.

Everyone’s talking about how bad things could get — but so what? Maybe that’s how they entertain themselves. A lot of people live boring lives, and these stories bring a jolt of excitement to their routine. It’s exciting to think the end is near — because maybe it means they can finally quit their jobs.

Everyone’s looking for a way out these days, but that’s nothing new. Fear’s been with us forever. It’s the real reason there’s any drama at all. Without fear of hunger, no one would do anything.

So at least understand yourself — and your fear.

Because here’s the thing: fear itself is insanity.

It’s our internal system sending the message that something’s off — that shit’s fucked up. Only somewhere along the line, that message got hijacked.

The fear multiplied until it filled the whole room, until now everyone’s walking around seeing things that aren’t even there. The inner fear became the outer world. We’re looking at fear taken to extremes and calling it reality.

Because really, why fear something? The answer’s always this: you don’t know what it is, and you’re mistaking it for something it’s not.

My final answer is I don’t have your answer. You have to find that all by yourself. You can do that if you want to.

Maybe you think you can’t, but all it takes is a little common sense — like asking yourself this: Does normal seem normal to you?

If it doesn’t, you might want to do some thinking. Things are not what you were told they were. I can tell you that much. The rest is just this… go think some more.

At the very least, don’t be afraid of that. Be adventurous and see what it does.

For all you know it might lead you to a rabbit hole that leads out of fear and straight out of here. Wouldn’t that be fun?

It’s no different than standing at the top of one of those water rides. The guy gives you a little mat that you’ll lose halfway down. You sit on it, and either someone pushes you or you push yourself. The line is waiting. You know you have to go, so you do it.

This is really the same thing. After all the twisting and splashing, flying through this tunnel to who knows where, you fly out the other end and think, “Was that it? Oh, that wasn’t so bad. Kind of fun really.”

And your dumb ass goes right back up the stairs to do it again.