Fear, Trust, Surrender

By Irma

Quiet Fears

This is my story about what I went through to get rid of a quiet fear that didn’t seem to have a reason and was just always there. The journey started with a conversation with my meditation guide who told me that fear is not real…

The idea that my fears are not real was a difficult concept to accept. That they exist only in my mind. That no one else in the room can see or know my fears even if they sound like the same fears because everyone developed their own personal version of the fears.

The second difficult realization to accept was that the only reason I still have them is because I refuse to let them go. When I was challenged to let them go, I thought, I’m not holding onto my fears; Why would anyone hold onto fear?

I used this meditation method to reflect deeply on that question and started to see that I was holding on to my fears for security. Like keeping a dollar in your pocket in case you need it.

I felt like, as long as I’m afraid, I will be vigilant. I won’t be caught off guard. Staying vigilant all the time meant living in fear. Not the screaming type of fear, but a quiet fear that’s always lurking in the background. I could never completely relax. Some people describe it as waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I learned that I have a hard time letting go of my fears mostly because I could not trust that I could handle what’s coming next. I had zero trust in everyone. I used to feel that even God couldn’t be counted on. So, for me, having this deep lack of trust in anything was the cause of my quiet, constantly running fears. I felt alone.

I meditated more deeply and saw that I always wanted to be self-sufficient and in control. I believed that if I was self-sufficient, I would always be in control and not depend on others. I wouldn’t have to trust anyone, but more importantly, I would not have to be disappointed, or left hanging.

Trust is hard.
Because friends have let me down.
Because people haven’t always been there when I needed them.
Because sometimes the others in the group don’t even like me.

Further meditation helped me to see that I operate under the illusion of being in control. I could see how I manipulated and pushed to get people to do what I wanted and make events turn out as I wanted, to calm my fears.

It took a lot of energy to manipulate and organize so many things to my will only to discover that some of what I was editing out of my life, would have actually been good for me. As I reflected on this I saw that I didn’t really know what was best for me. I had to stop. I surrendered control.

Surrender brought me peace. Meditation helped me let go. And slowly, life started to flow without the evasive maneuvers fueled by a fear that doesn’t exist.

This meditation method has made it possible for me to understand the fear that has been plaguing me all my life. That fear no longer runs quietly in the background all the time nor does it tell me what to do.