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How Do I Dissolve Fear Based Thinking During COVID-19?

Simon Reilly

How Do I Dissolve Fear Based Thinking During COVID-19?

We feel fortunate to be of service to financial services professionals who have clients that appreciate their service now more than ever. And we’ve been fortunate to provide our service to our clients virtually for decades.

Service is another word for love.

Love is a Conscious choice of the Being, Heart or Soul. Being Conscious living in love of the present moment and Accepting what is.

Fear is an Unconscious choice of the Amygdala – the primal fight, flight or fright mechanism of the Brain. Being Unconscious surviving in fear as a result of an unresolved past or future.

Over the past few weeks, fueled by what is going on in the world, I’ve been seeing articles about The Five Stages of Grief:

  1. Denial 
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

We live in an age where we receive volumes of information and misinformation, and in today’s world it’s impossible to predict what will happen. With the unknown we’re prone to Anticipatory Grief.   Anticipatory Grief refers to a feeling of grief occurring before an impending loss about what the future holds when we are uncertain.

  • How do I handle an uncertain future that could include illness, loss of money or losing a loved one? 
  • How do I handle fear?

Awareness.

Awareness allows you to make a Conscious choice of the Being, Heart or Soul vs total identification of the Unconscious choice of the Amygdala – the primal fight, flight or fright mechanism of the Brain. These are very different choices.  Conscious Awareness allows you to distance your Self from all the useless and destructive thoughts that the Amygdala may be thinking about things that could happen, but have not happened.   These things have not happened, but they could happen, so I better think about it over and over says the Amygdala.

If it did happen, your Infinite Conscious Awareness would give you the strength to deal with an illness, loss of money or losing a loved one. With the strength of your Infinite Conscious Awareness you would face loss and suffering. 

What you cannot do is face problems that only exist in the imagination of the Amygdala that have not even happened. The more you allow the Amygdala to do the thinking, the more you amplify the suffering.

With Conscious Awareness, you become aware of what the Amygdala is doing to your Self. In the absence of Conscious Awareness, the thoughts of the Amygdala happen to you. Without Conscious Awareness you are at the mercy of the thoughts of the Amygdala. The Amygdala has you possessed and you don’t know it.

A step towards Conscious Awareness is coming to the realization that fearful thinking isn’t something you’re doing. You’re not doing the thinking; the Amygdala’s doing the thinking. With Conscious Awareness you realize that this kind of thinking isn’t helping you and it’s not helping others.  Without Conscious Awareness you have no free will. With Conscious Awareness you realize that this kind of thinking fulfills no useful purpose.  And you realize there’s an assumption on the part of the Unconscious Amygdala that unless you worry a lot, you’re not controlling your life. The Unconscious Amygdala thinks about problems, which requires more Unconscious Amygdala based thinking to hold it all together.

The Unconscious Amygdala has you believing that if you don’t worry your life will fall to pieces.

The Unconscious Amygdala’s fearful thinking does not want to end, if you fight it, you make it stronger and you give it energy. You may try to outthink the Unconscious Amygdala with positive thinking or willpower. You can do it briefly but it won’t last long.

Thinking is about choice.

Conscious Awareness allows you to recognize the unhappy narrative, the futility and distractive nature of the Amygdala’s fearful thinking.

What is your choice? A choice to be dragged along with fearful thinking or a choice to dissolve the fearful thinking?

No! I don’t want to be dragged along with fearful thinking; I want to focus somewhere else!

How do you focus somewhere else?

Here are some deep breathing exercises that I share with my clients.

Yoga at home: meditation concept
  1. Sitting upright, with a view to having a belt to tie around your ribcage, inhale expanding your ribcage out as far as you can and then tighten the belt. This will give you more conscious understanding of expanding and contracting your ribcage as you inhale and exhale repeating ten times.

2.   Lay flat on the floor and place your hands on your belly and as you are inhaling push your belly out and up and as you exhale contract your belly inwards and repeat ten times. This process will help you to be more conscious of what’s happening with your body on the inhale and the exhale.

3. Start off by breathing in through your nostrils filling your chest cavity to the count of five seconds. Hold your breath for twenty seconds. Control your exhale of your breath for 10 seconds. And repeat this 10 times. Note that this ratio is 5/20/10 and that you can modify this depending on your level of comfort.

(Contraindications: do not retain the breath if you have high blood pressure or other cardiac issues, if you’re pregnant, or have eye or ear problems. Children should also not practice this breathing exercise. If you have other health issues, please consult your physician.)

 Note: Retaining the breath for 20 seconds can be a long time if you’re just starting. It’s possible you’ll have to work up to the 5/20/10 ratio. Start wherever you’re comfortable, it might be 3/3/3. If you struggle with breath retention or it’s contraindicated for you, just breathe in for 3 and out for 3, and work your way up. The exercise should be controlled, easy and pleasant, not forced or uncomfortable. If at any time you feel dizzy, stop the exercise and return to normal breathing.)

As you are doing the above deep breathing exercises, visualize the light of 10,000 suns radiating through every cell of your body while you affirm; light, love, happiness, peace and joy are within me. Remember to feel these affirmations at a deep heart level every time you take in your breath.

Through the Breath, you cannot be aware of your Conscious Awareness and the Unconscious Amygdala’s fearful thinking at the same time.

Conscious Awareness through the Breath dissolves the obsessive Unconscious Amygdala’s fearful thinking with Being Conscious living in love of the present moment and Accepting what is.

Breathing Love, breath by breath, is a Conscious choice of the Being, Heart or Soul.