FEAR PARTY
A few weeks ago my daughter became suddenly afraid of something. She couldn’t get it out of her mind. So I said, let’s have a Fear Party. We sent invitations to all of the things we were afraid of. We actually made them. Then we got dressed up and went to the party (it was in a room in our house). The party was packed and amazingly everyone we invited came, even the scariest of guests. At first we just stayed in a corner of the party and talked to each other. Then we got curious, and we glanced at one of the guests. They made eye contact and we quickly looked away. But then we glanced again and we looked long enough to see that they actually gave us a smile. Not a creepy smile, but a friendly smile. We looked away again and then you know what happened. That guest came over and said hello. We said hello back. And we learned all about them. After a few minutes we weren’t scared any more. We repeated this process with multiple “people” at the party and by the time we left we felt great and couldn’t stop talking about our new friends.
This my friends is not just for your kids, it is for you. You can confront most fears in a similar fashion, once you identify them, that is. From my perspective there are three kinds of FEAR.
Surface Fears - Usually you know about these - i.e. fear of heights, fear of spiders, fear of the dark, fear of flying.
Deeper Fears - Usually you don’t know about these although you may know about some of them - i.e Fear of failure, fear of commitment, fear of loss, fear of illness, etc. You can become aware of these fears through deeper psychospiritual work.
Fear of Death - This is the root cause of all fear. It is a deep thing though because most people would probably agree that they are afraid of death. But this is not what I am talking about. I am actually not talking about a physical death. I am talking about the death of SELF. You actually love your self more than you can imagine. Not in a healthy way like true self-love. True self love involves love of your true self whereas most people just love the false self that they have created. This false self includes all the beliefs you have about your self and all of the beliefs you have about the world. You are absolutely terrified of losing this self. The thought of it dying is so terrifying that you do everything in your power to keep it going.
How do you approach the root cause of all fear - the fear of death?
Begin dismantling your beliefs about your self and the world. You will begin to grip less tightly to the false self as you go through this process. I wrote about this in a prior article and how to start doing this with Post-It notes. You can go real deep with this process if you are inclined, so be warned.
Get to know death. Invite Joe Black to your fear party. This will not fully dissolve it, but it will help.
Appreciate the cycle of life and death. From an early age we are taught (this is a belief system) to be afraid of death and we often see what I think are rather strange rituals around death. It is pretty simple really - Life would not exist without death. Things must die so new things can be born.
You must spend time doing death awareness work. You may find some of what I am about to say morbid or silly, but it is a part of the healing process.
This includes hanging out at cemeteries. I spent most of my life terrified of cemeteries and if I drove passed one I would cross my fingers. As I went through this process, a 250 acre cemetery near my house became my favorite place to hang out. It’s actually where I shoot most of my outdoor Qigong videos.
This includes writing your own Eulogy.
Contemplation - There is a funeral home where I live called Amigone Funeral Home. I find it hysterical because to me it reads - Am I Gone? Which is a profound question to ask if you are doing spiritual work or death awareness work. Other Questions like - What is the "I" that is gone? What is the “I” that dies when “I” die? Who is asking this question right now? What is it that dies? Is there something that doesn’t die when “I” die? or the famous Zen Koan (riddle) - What is your original face before you were born?
Mirror Exercise - There is a mirror exercise and others you can do in the book Nobody Home by Jan Kersschot. If you do these exercises you may start to feel a grip in the gut. This means you are approaching the root fear. This is the holding place for it and I will leave it at that.
It has become popular to talk about ego death. The goal is not ego death. You need an ego. It helps you function in the world. You don’t need the false ego. The saying “die before you die” means all of your falseness has died and you are operating from your natural state.
Enjoy your fear party and have fun at your local cemetery.