Review your Fears Thoroughly

[RufusACanal]

You will notice that the word fear is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, your employer, and your wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It is an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence is shot through with it. It sets in motion trains of circumstances which bring us misfortune we feel we don't deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing as a sin. It seems to cause more trouble.

Review your fears thoroughly. Put them on paper, even though you have no resentment in connection with them. Ask yourself why you have them. Isn't it because self-reliance has failed you? Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse.

Perhaps there is a better way - we think so. For you are now to go on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. You are to trust infinite God rather than your finite self. You are in the world to play the role he assigns. Just to the extent that you do as you think He would have you, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable you to match calamity with serenity.

You must never apologize to anyone for depending upon your Creator. You can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. Never apologize for God. Instead let Him demonstrate, through you, what He can do. Ask Him to remove your fear and direct your attention to what He would have you be. At once, you will commence to outgrow fear.

[Tazman53]

Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.

So many fears, the fear of failure, the fear of being found out... found out that we are not as strong, or confidant, or self reliant as our facade would lead those around us to believe. Fear of the success of others, of being wrong, of needing help, of giving up, of telling the truth. A list far longer then can be typed here.

This is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most Good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.

When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our own little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn.

When I quit playing God and let God do what he does best and started to let him care for me and my actions, the fears began to melt away, the more faith I developed as I let him point me in the right direction the less fear I had.

Am I without fears today? No because try as I may I am no where near spiritual perfection and accept that I never will be, but I do strive to progress on a daily basis the best that I can.

I can say that today my life is not totally fear driven like it used to be.

[nandm]

Fear is a faith that something bad is going to happen. The authors show us where to note the fears that we identify. In our next fourth step list, we examine the fears that we have noted here and learn a successful method of outgrowing these fears.

Unexamined fears unconsciously control our actions. When, in many situations we act upon our faith that something bad is going to happen, we place ourselves in the position to be hurt.

The clear-cut directions for the fears list of our fourth step are given here. Clearly we are to write this list down. We add to the fears we identified in our resentment list any other fears that we may have. the first column contains a description of our fear, e.g., "I am afraid of being alone." The second column contains the reason we have this fear and the third column contains the solution to our fear. The authors suggest a reason for our fears, which is a reliance upon our human resources rather than God.

We who have no experience with God working in our lives believe that our own human resources are the only power to which we have access. Our fear comes from the knowledge that our own power is often not enough. Some of our fears are instinctual, such as the fear of falling that we have from the time we are born. We learn some fears from experience. We experience a negative result and we have faith that we will always experience that same result. We may ask someone for help and be rejected, so we fear we will be rejected again. Fears such as this govern our actions. Some fears serve to keep us out of danger but when we are controlled by unreasonable fears we are not always free to act in our own best interests. This is a method of applying reason and the Power of god to our fears.

We look at aour fears again. Many of the fears that controll us are unreasonable. We have never applied reason to them. We adopted many of the ideas behind our fears prior to becoming mature adults. This is our chance to re-evaluate our fears when we are sober adults.

By listing the fears that we have, we develop the ability to identify the forces within us that drive us to act the way we do. Many of our less desirable reactions to life are the result of fears. We may treat our spouse badly because we fear they may leave us. We may avoid other people because we fear they may not like us. We may steal because we fear we may not be able to make it on our own. None of these methods of coping with life are entirely successful. By listing our fears, examining them in the light of our new way of life, and seeking help from God, we place ourselves in the position to begin to outgrow them.

Using bravado to cover up our fear and denying that we have it is one of the signs of fear causing us to act in foolish ways.

We adopted this new basis of our lives by making our third step decision. This is a good example of exactly how to put our decision into action. Our old way was to rely solely on our own inner resources and coping skills we had developed over time. We either avoided the source of our fear or we denied having it and acted in an unsuccessful way to overcome it. Our new way to deal with our fear is to identify it, examine it and ask God to remove it. This way works. As we try it repeatedly on all our fears, we see for ourselves that it does work and we come to rely upon it.

The key word here is "do." Seeking to do God's will as we gain a thorough understanding of who and what we really are will produce in us the humility necessary to receive God's grace. We see that our problems are of our own making, that we are the source of the calamity in our lives. god gives us the strength to meet life's difficulties when we aree humble enough to ask for it.

Knowing that God will give us the strength to meet any of life's challenges gives us courage. When we relied solely on our own power, fear of failure would sometimes prevent us from even trying. When we are seeking to do God's will, we know even what seems to be failure will turn out for the best. We can learn and grow ratehr than have our self esteem destroyed by our failures.

Asking "Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would havee us be" is the key to overcoming our fears. Turning to God for help is the guiding principle of our new way of life. This prayer asking God to remove our fear is an important part of our new way of life. Rather than be driven by worrying about what we may lose or fail to gain for ourselves, we aak God to help shape our lives.

Our fears, based on self, no longer fit in our new lives. As we change the focus in what we desire in life from the satisfaction of our instinctual drives to a life based upon seeking God's will our fears seem to disappear. By relying upon our Higher Power, we find that our needs are met and that our wants change. Our self-centered fears of losing what we have and of not getting what we want lose their power over us.

[RufusACanal]

Awesome!

[nandm]

Thank you, Rufus. I truly enjoy your posts as they force me to think about the selected passage. Without your challenging posts, that force me to learn and think, I would not continue to grow.

[sugErspun]

I was thinking about this over the weekend...thanks for posting.

"evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence is shot through with it"

How very true...pretty much means I=Fear (if my very existence is shot through with it)

Then the suprisingly simple answer to ALL my fears: "Isn't it because self-reliance has failed you?"

Where is my reliance now? What is the central focus of my life?



BB qoutes taken from AA.org

[RufusACanal]

Adam,

Thank you for all you do - good post and yes, self reliance has been my pitfall.

[bballdad]

Rufus,I have changed the way I do the fear thing some what during the last few years
When I do a inventory and see the fear,I dig down deep as I can and follow the evil and corroding thread.I try and peal back layer after layer.It shows me how it all started out as fear,and then I see character defects come from it.I see the harms done to myself and others..I can also see how big it grew...and it all started from a seed produced from self

I find when I trace it,it takes some doing to get used to.Another good thing it shows me is how easy the insanity can creep back into our lives.Self has failed me and this way shows me excally how

[Rob B]

Good thread and one that I felt moved to share my current experience on. Recently I completed an intensive fear inventory. In meditation I asked God to show me my fears in an effort to face and be rid of them.

The answers came and I listed them, I also listed the opposite, for example,
Fear of success-Fear of failure
Fear of being alone-Fear of being connected intimately

and so on, I had about 40 or so when I was down, I wrote out how self reliance had failed me, and what areas of self were driving that train of fear, I then asked God what his vision opposite of the fear was.

After looking at this, all my fears could be boiled down to just one. PAIN, I am afraid of physical, spiritual, and emotional pain. Every fear I had listed was just a manifestation of this one primal fear. I've been sitting with this and take great comfort in the Big Books promise that we can start outgrowing fear immediately. Current fear in my life is a good way to measure my current level of agnosticism and what domains in my life I am still trying unsuccessfully to manage. I guess for me, it all boils down to how much do I trust my God.

[bballdad]

Current fear in my life is a good way to measure my current level of agnosticism
I guess for me, it all boils down to how much do I trust my God.

well put Rob

[Tazman53]

This is one awesome thread with some awesome replies. Thanks to you all!

[RufusACanal]

Yes Martin it is. Though I work in the Death Care industry, I fear death; my own death. Of late, this thinking creeps to the edge of my vision. How selfish of me to "want" to live a longer span, but I do. I justify this thinking with all that I still want to learn and see and do. Now that my mind is clear, "I want" to create and build and enjoy and love more. How selfish and self serving, yet it remains that this is my secret desire. I joke offhandedly that I will live forever, though I personally do not believe it so, yet I do not want to die. How sad a commentary for a man who has been gifted with so much.

Rob, I would welcome more from you on this fear inventory. I need to look at how fear continues to shape my behaviors, thoughts and motives.