Everyone knows sex sells. Greed sells too, and again, this is
something we all know. But little did we know that the really big, best
seller of all is FEAR and it’s companion, dread.
Here are some current ‘epidemic’, ‘impending’
‘catastrophe-in-the-making’, brilliantly-marketed FEARS: Fear of
recession, depression, terrorists, war, disease, food, air, climate
change, computer crashes, natural disasters, breast size, impotency,
break-ins, drug czars and addicts, immigrants and aging.
Here I focus on an area closest to my own experience as a
physician-psychiatrist: the fear of illness and dying. As you read about
overcoming and transcending this fear, think of it as an effective
metaphor for the other fears listed above. When you come to the end
reread the piece substituting each fear.
Start with this fact: To fear our body is a powerful
way to create disease. Why is this? Because fear is about being
attacked and when you think you are going to be attacked you are both
hard-wired and soft-wired for flight or fight. This, in simple terms, is
bad for your physical health when carried on continuously or
repetitively on an intermittent basis. Your body is not set up to be
constantly on the alert for danger or shocked repeatedly by the
unexpected. It is not necessary to go into the physiology of why this
might lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and even cancer.
Here is the rub: If fear can be created it leads to disease thereby proving that the fear was warranted. This is every politician, salesman and businessman’s dream: to create a need for snake oil.
In the external world we no longer buy a car or a house just for
comfort and to raise a family, former symbols of success and stability
that they were. We now buy an alarm system surrounding a car or house to
protect us from an attack that is inevitably coming.
Similarly in our internal world, in the case of fear of illness, we
are taught to wait to be attacked from within by scary pathogens of all
types, prions, viruses, bacteria, fungi, worms or ravaging cancerous
cells. We are then inundated with words and images encouraging us to
attack back with drugs and vaccines. Television sets, both advertisement
and news, are now literally more like warning systems for an impending
attack, even if it is a sneak attack like impotence. Get them, (it), before they, (it), get us.
This simply doesn’t work to ease fear; it creates fear. In the process a
lot of drugs are sold in pharmacies and in the streets, for when you
are talked into fear and then become an attacker you solidify the idea
that attack must be coming and complete a circle of dread. If I need one
drug, then I must need another. If I attack anything I inevitably will
be more afraid as I wait for retaliation.
The facts are that, as I point out in the book, your body is a
perfect part of the perfect whole always healing itself. It is an error
to think your body is defective or that you have a basic fault, or that
you are split and separate from a perfect whole. The words you use to
overcome fears are central to your sense of peace of mind and joyful
living.
Focus the words you choose on wholeness and unity and
thereby stop ‘buying into’ fears such as the fear of illness and the
enticement to attack and demonize your body. As you see you are part of
larger wholeness your immune system is strengthened so your body can
naturally do what it does best, serve as an amazing communication
device.
Put your attention on remembering yourself. Make it your
intention to do the following simple exercise daily. With your eyes
closed take a deep breath in and repeat these three phrases ten times,
morning and night as you breath out: 1) I Won’t indulge in fear and I
Won’t identify with my body 2) I Will love the world and I Will forgive
myself and others, and 3) I Am whole and healed. I AM LOVE.
As you work these Three Words, Won’t, Will and Am, you will begin to experience recovery from their healing power.
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