The Fear of Life & the Simple Act of Inward Looking That Snuffs It Out by John Sherman

The Origin of the Fear of Life

The fear of life rises up automatically in us, most likely when we are ejected from the womb at actual physical birth. Without warning, we are abruptly awakened into a wild, raging storm of what we will eventually come to call experience, feeling, sensation, emotion, and so forth. Consciousness of our existence is driven from its deep slumber in the womb into a startling eruption of violent and erratic movement, pain, pressure, noise, glaring light, and all the drama that attends our expulsion into the world. Fear and contraction inevitably ensue.

The Effects of the Fear of Life

As time passes and we see that we have managed to survive that first onslaught of raw experience, the drama and intensity of the fear of life begins to fade into the background. For some of us, most of the time, it recedes into a barely noticeable murmur of anxiety, worry, discontent and distrust of our own lives that hums along incessantly as the background of all experience. It’s the nagging sense that life itself is the problem with being human; that life itself lacks some essential quality needed for our well-being, or includes something very wrong. It’s the sense that life will never quite live up to its promise.

This murmur of anxiety and discontent becomes, for most of us, the fundamental, unexamined assumption that shapes our minds, and forms the actual point of view from which we perceive our lives. Limited by that point of view, and guided by that assumption, we learn to create understandings as to the state of our lives, and to take action based on those understandings.

Because of this, we have come to believe that the solution to the problem of being human can be found only by seeking out and destroying the things in our minds that are wrong and hurtful and threatening, and by seeking out and grasping the things in our minds that feel righteous and safe and satisfying.

We learn to resist automatically: we believe that life is inherently treacherous, and dangerous, and this belief creates a clear and present need to keep a watchful eye out, looking for threat and the means to defeat threat.

We learn to be protective, defensive, guarded and closed in our relationships with one another, lest we be tricked by them, or miss the chance of salvation by them.

We learn to believe the billowing, shifting coloration of the life force that forms the background of our minds to be existential and emotional states that belong to us. We believe those states to be the very nature of our lives, of ourselves really, and lose hope.

Our Failed Attempts at Dealing with the Fear of Life

We have a long history of failure in seeking satisfaction by employing the strategies of understanding, grasping, destroying, and ignoring. Many have come to believe that it’s the existence of the understandings and reactions themselves that is the problem, and that often leads to practices and pursuits designed to produce mental silence and quiescence. Some have concluded that thought itself is the problem, and should be stopped. And there are even those who recommend the snuffing out of ego, which is the Latin word for “I,” which is nothing more than the name I call myself.

Now, all of these survival techniques and strategies — righteousness, resistance, clinging, indifference, murderous aggression, and so forth — have had good reason to appear and to be adopted by us in our own defense. We are mistaken in doing so, but with good cause. Life can seem profoundly untrustworthy and menacing, even as it beguiles us with false hope and promise.

For most of us, the default, tried, and true response to the dissatisfaction with life is steadfast, silent denial.

Trying to Cure the Disease by Treating Its Symptoms

We’ve been trying forever to fix our lives by reforming our minds; we try to make the mind sweet, loving, and open-hearted rather than closed and mean-spirited; intelligent rather than stupid; sane rather than insane; clear rather than confused. But the mind — its character, its strengths, its weaknesses, its assumptions, its point of view, its volatility, its emotions, its thoughts, its wrongness and its rightness — the mind is not the problem. The mind is nothing really but a cloud of effects, many of which are symptoms of the fear of life. Not seeing this, pretty much everything we have done seeking an end to the underlying discontent that spoils our lives, we have done trying to change the effects of the discontent, which is to say, trying to cure the disease by treating its symptoms.

And of course, nothing works. How could it? There is nothing inherently wrong with seeking relief from the symptoms, but treating the symptoms will not cure this disease.

I do think it’s useful to think of the fear of life as a disease. It’s an affliction that came upon us without warning at our birth. Its presence has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature of our being, the clarity of our consciousness, our righteousness, our willingness, our understandings and beliefs, our worthiness or worthlessness. We had nothing to say about it, and nothing could have been done to prevent its arising. Its effects radiate throughout the life — arising in the past, spoiling the present, and projecting itself into the future.

And despite all our best efforts to eradicate the disease by attacking its symptoms, despite the devotion and commitment of the saints, despite the brilliance and insight that are to be found in the wisdom teachings, despite the rise of capitalism and with it wealth, and education, and time enough to look into these matters for ourselves, we have failed even to do much in the way of alleviating the symptoms beyond the self-denying impulse to become numb to them by a variety of means. Truth is, the vast majority of us live and die in a state of low-level misery and neurotic alienation from our own lives, punctuated by moments of passion and despair, silenced only by death.

It’s not surprising that we’ve failed. We’ve been acting from an unseen and false belief all this time; the belief that human life itself is the problem with human life. It doesn’t take enlightenment to see that there is not much hope of finding a safe home in life when we are swimming in the river of pessimism and despair that flows from that belief.

We Can Do Something About the Fear of Life

There must be something we can do. Clearly, some of us — not many, but some — seem to have found peace and freedom in life. The Buddha comes to mind, for example, and many others can be found in different times and traditions, all of whom seem to have achieved a profound reconciliation and fulfillment in human life. And, although they have been very successful in evoking in us the feel of what they see, they have had little success in providing us with any truly useful advice on what to do that might allow us to see directly for ourselves what they saw.

I want to suggest something to you that you can do for yourself that works. I know that it works because it worked for me, and it worked for Carla, my wife, and it has worked for a growing number of people around the world now; people who have, maybe even despite their better judgment, actually tried to do what I ask. I do have a theory as to why it works, but my certainty that it works comes from my own experience, rather than from a theoretical understanding, and the why of it is actually entirely beside the point. So here it is, the simple act of inward looking that snuffs out the fear of life.

If you will try, with your whole heart, to bring the beam of your attention in direct contact with the reality of your nature, you will snuff out the fear of life, which is the first cause of all human misery. I call this action looking at yourself. If you will just try to look at yourself, the disease will go away, and with it the perception of your life as a problem to be solved, a threat to be destroyed, or the hiding place of a secret treasure that will bring fulfillment and satisfaction. It’s that simple.

Step 1: Learn to Move the Beam of Your Attention at Will

To begin, just relax for a moment, and notice the obvious fact that you have the power to move your attention at will.

As you read this, move your attention away from the text for a moment, and direct it instead to the feel of your breathing. Notice the feel of your chest and belly expanding and contracting, and then bring it back here to this page. Do that a couple of times so that you become familiar with what I mean by “moving the beam of your attention at will.” That action of moving attention at will, as you just did, is all that’s needed to accomplish what I am asking you to do. The more you practice this simple act, the more you’ll become familiar with how it feels to do it. And the more familiar you become with the feel of it, the more skillful and direct you will be in the effort to move the beam of attention where it must go.

Step 2: Turn the Beam of Your Attention Inward

Use that skill to actually turn the beam of attention inward, trying to make direct, unmediated contact with the reality of your own nature, by which I mean you, just plain and simple you. You know what you are, and you will surely recognize yourself when you see yourself in this way. It really is that simple.

Repeat this as often as it occurs to you to do so.

There is no step three.

A Few Tips About Where to Look

The act of inward looking may be simple, but the actual doing of it can seem anything but easy. But consider this: the feel of you is the only thing that is always here. All else — thought, belief, understanding, things seen and heard and felt, emotions, pain, pleasure — literally all else comes and goes. So, looking for you is looking only for what is always here. Anything that is newly arrived, no matter how wonderful it may be, cannot be you. Likewise, anything that has been here and left, even if it might return, cannot be you.

Furthermore, you are the plain and unmoving field in which all else comes and goes. You have nothing to give to you or take away from you and you are, therefore, profoundly uninteresting to the mind’s eye, which has no purpose other than to keep vigilant, to stay on the lookout for things to grasp, things to reject and destroy, and things that are safe to ignore in a forest of bright, shiny, ever-moving, fantastically fascinating parade of phenomena. The fear of life is a kind of auto-immune disease. Its only function, insane as it may be, is to keep you safe from your own life, and this mission demands ceaseless attention to incoming phenomena. Because of this, its natural orientation is ever outward. You, on the other hand, are wholly and perfectly inward (more on that below).

Here are a few suggestions that some have found helpful in this endeavor:

  • Try to bring to mind a memory of some event in your early childhood. It doesn’t need to be anything important: being in a room with adults, leaving a movie theater, looking out the window, any memory will do, so long as you can evoke a reasonably accurate memory of the feel of it. Now, just for a second, see if you can remember what it felt like to be you then. Not what the event felt like, but what it felt like to be you. You may get just a fleeting whiff of it and, if you do, you will almost certainly recognize that it is exactly the feel of you now;
  • Notice the fact that you are certain of your own existence, in a way that you are certain of nothing else in the world. Look there, at that certainty, because that certainty itself is just another name for you;
  • Look for what is always here, what never moves, or changes, or comes, or goes. Everything in the universe moves. Everything moves but you;
  • Look for the person-ness of you. Nothing in the universe feels like a person but you;
  • See that there is literally nothing inward but you. Many sensations and experiences are thought to be inward that are not. Emotions, thoughts, visions, dreams, desires, aversions, pains, pleasures, experiences of all kinds that appear in the interior of your mind are outward from you, and when you attend to them, you are looking outward — no matter how inward they may feel. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with looking outward, it might even be said that looking outward is the main occupation in human life. It’s just that when you are seeking to look at yourself, outward is the one direction in which you cannot be seen. If you can understand this distinction, you might find your way home using outward phenomena to funnel your attention into the right orientation. When attention is turned truly inward, it is looking directly at you, and nothing else.

There are probably more tips like these to be garnered from those who have traveled this road, but they are all, as the saying goes, merely fingers pointing at the moon, and the moon they point to is only you. In the end, you must do this for yourself. It is, after all, you that you seek to touch with the beam of your attention, and no one can possibly know the feel of you but you.

Your Attitude and Expectations Are Irrelevant

Understand that it may be that you never get an actual, recognizable experience to confirm that you have succeeded; as I said, you are not very interesting to the mind’s eye, and the contact with the reality of your nature will be so fleeting — a tenth of a second or less — that you may never know that it happened. But here’s the good news: it doesn’t matter. It seems clear, from the common experience of many by now, that a sincere effort cannot fail, no matter how strong the feeling of failure might be. We are not, after all, trying to do this to find out who we are, or to understand what we are, or to dissolve into our true nature and become what we are, or any other such thing. We do this only to cure the disease of the fear of life with the medicine of inward looking.

One other interesting aspect of this effort is that neither your attitude nor your expectations seem to have any effect on the end result. You can look at yourself for any reason at all. Maybe you decide to look at yourself because you want to be happy, or you want to save the world, or you want to be free of pain. Or you may think that you are not 100% committed to the looking and, therefore, you wonder if it will work. None of that matters at all. All that matters are the moments when you look. The looking does the work, regardless of what you think about it, or what you may expect to gain from it.

The inward looking is in no way an end in itself; it is only the means to be free of this disease. When its work is done, I predict that you will find yourself so fully engaged in life that you will have trouble remembering what all the fuss was about that brought you to the looking in the first place.

The Course of Recovery is Uncertain But Your Success Is Guaranteed

The course of recovery from the fear-of-life disease is unpredictable. For some, things clear up pretty easily, with little inner torment; for others, the course of recovery can be quite painful and prolonged. My own recovery was quite unpleasant. It took a year or so for me even to notice that the fever of discontent had broken. It was another five years before I began to notice how profoundly different and easy my relationship with life had already become, and more than twelve years before I could speak clearly about what I had found.

So, how long it will take, and how difficult it will seem to you is uncertain. But if you will just look, the end is certain. You will lose the sense that life is out to get you, and the sense that you are trapped here. You will lose the felt need to protect yourself from the thoughts, the emotions, the opinions, the sensations, and all else that comes and goes within you and makes up your actual, ever-changing life. You will come to see that the things that come and go within you are deeply interesting, in a way that you could not have imagined when your view was clouded by fear.

In the end, you will find yourself fully immersed in your life — as you have always been. But now, you will find yourself enthralled and interested, engaged in, enlivened, and fed by the way life actually unfolds. You will see clearly that your life is the fulfillment and satisfaction you have been seeking elsewhere. You will go sane.

John Sherman
April 9, 2011
Ojai, California

Copyright © 2011 John Sherman, Carla Sherman. Some rights reserved.

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6 Practical Questions to Help You Move Forward with Letting Go – by The Sedona Method

Several months ago I wrote a post titled Letting Go – A Powerful Transmission of Truth about an online film from the Sedona Method, which I highly recommend. In fact, I’ve been so impressed by their techniques that I have not only purchased a number of products, but I have become an affiliate. Today I have some information to share with you  from The Sedona Method on this process, plus a special offer on the Sedona Method Course. I hope you will find it as transformative as I have.

Q. Why haven’t I heard of The Sedona Method?

A. The first Sedona Method class was held in 1974 in Sedona, Arizona. Since then hundreds of thousands of people around the world have experienced its life-transforming benefits.

Until recently the only way to find out about us was to be on one of the direct mail lists we use or to know someone who’s taken one of our seminars or bought a home study course. Now, we are reaching more and more people via the Internet. There is a wise saying: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” So, perhaps the reason you are just now finding out about it is that you are now ready for it.

Q. What can I expect to happen?

A. From the very first day you put the Method into practice, you will start to see benefits, and the results increase dramatically over time. You will continue to see results as long as you use it, because, at a certain point, releasing becomes second nature. Since emotional issues are part of our lot as human beings, you can receive benefits from the Method throughout your entire life!

Releasing is restorative rather than exhaustive. As you release, events which may have caused you emotional pain in the past and are continuing to cause you pain in the present are let go. What remains is a peaceful feeling. It’s really a very calming experience.

As you practice, you can expect to feel much better, start making better decisions, be more in control of your life, have better relationships and, in general, have your life improve significantly. The specifics for each individual vary widely because each of us has our own unique experiences, goals and life circumstances. Once you discover how to release, your inner self begins to blossom in many exciting ways.

Everything reported on our website is possible for you. The Method is a tool, and the more you use it, the more you will get out of it. Most graduates report feeling immediately calmer, happier and more alive. This leads to relationship improvement, emotional and physical wellness, greater prosperity, and a happier life in general.

Q. If this is so simple, why isn’t everyone doing it?

A. Actually, everyone does. Releasing is a perfectly natural experience, which everyone has benefited from at one time or another. The Sedona Method shows you how to put that experience under your own control so you can let go consistently, whenever you choose, rather than have it happen only by accident.

There is a place within each of us that is more “core” than just an array of memories making up our past—a calm place from which we can witness the events of our lives without being affected by them. When you learn to access this place, your past issues dissolve more easily as you bring them to awareness.

The Method will not only lead you toward being able to access this “place,” it will also clarify for you the basic underlying motivations that result in all the pain, suffering and discomfort you need to release in the first place. And it will, of course, provide you with the means of letting go of all that comes up for you discover as a result of your new understanding.

Q. Is this a religion, belief system, spiritual practice or brainwashing technique?

A. No. The Sedona Method is simply a technique to let go of unwanted feelings, emotions and everything else that is holding you back. It does not require any special beliefs or ideologies and is in harmony with all religions, belief systems and spiritual practices. The Sedona Method is actually the opposite of brainwashing. The Sedona Method frees you from your dependencies, allowing you to think and act clearly, calmly and thoughtfully. That’s what releasing is all about—freedom.

Q. Is releasing compatible with what I’m already doing?

A. The Sedona Method is like no other system that you’d be familiar with. It is truly unique. However, the feeling of release is something that you are definitely familiar with, even if you haven’t experienced it in a long time. The Method is, however, compatible with most anything else you might already be doing.

It’s compatible with other therapies.

Although the goal of therapy is letting go of unwanted feelings and emotions, The Sedona Method gets you there without being dependent on going to a therapist week after week for months or years at a time. You don’t need to talk to anyone to get results from The Sedona Method. But if you are already seeing someone that is helpful to you, the Method will accelerate your progress.

It’s compatible with meditation and spiritual practices.

You meditate with your eyes closed and have to withdraw from the world to get results. And it often takes weeks, months, and even years to experience profound results. The Sedona Method achieves the same results and more in less time with an “eyes open” technique. Rather than withdrawing from the world you become more “involved” in the world. And because you can do it with your eyes open, you can release in the middle of any life circumstance, while it is happening, and before it has a chance to adversely affect you. Plus, you don’t have to adhere to rules from any group or guru.

If meditation, prayer or affirmations are part of your practice, using the Method will help to clear your mind from moment to moment so that when you do engage in your spiritual practice, you will find yourself more focused and able to go much deeper much more easily.

It’s compatible with motivational programs.

Motivational CDs are great when you are listening to them. But the effect doesn’t last. You are depending on an external source for your motivation. The Sedona Method teaches you how to create/activate your own motivation and then tap into it whenever you feel the need. You don’t need to follow anyone’s orders but your own. In fact, you become your own best coach/teacher.

If there are motivational programs that serve you well, you will find that practicing the Method simultaneously will help you to move past the emotional barriers and break through personal limitations that would have kept you from moving forward before thereby enhancing the results of your program exponentially.

People who have done a fair amount of personal growth work typically report that their insights and understanding of childhood wounding have only brought them so far. They report that the Method actually clarifies for them what they have been seeking all along: a calm, authentic sense of themselves, and a way to maintain this awareness easily. They feel like they have found the missing piece to the puzzle. It is equally true that Sedona graduates who have never done a day of therapy experience a profound transformation in the way they live their lives.

Q. The price seems a bit high to me. How do I know it will work for me?

A. Compared to years of therapy and most other self-help programs, The Sedona Method is very inexpensive. If cost of the audio course or a seminar is an issue, you can learn The Sedona Method simply by reading The Sedona Method book and working on your finances. This is a great way to free up your resources to pay for the audio course or a live seminar.

Unless you give it a try, how will you know if won’t work for you? It has worked for so many others just like you that there is every reason to believe it will work for you. In fact, it works for everyone who has a sincere desire to change or improve their life. If you are one of the very few who doesn’t seem to click with this method, you are still at no risk because of our 180-day no-questions-asked guarantee.

Also, if you need help, we have a number of free resources that come with the price of the training to answer your questions and support you through your process and to help you move through the issues that are inhibiting your happiness, prosperity and well-being.

So, you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it…

Is it worth the price of the course to resolve that one nagging situation or issue in your life? That one you think about way too often?

Is it worth a small amount of your time and money to rid yourself of stress and worry, especially with regard to your health and well-being? What price would you put on that?

“The gift of presence is priceless.” – Sedona Method Graduate, Mark Kogan

You really don’t have anything to lose. If The Sedona Method doesn’t radically transform your life and your health after using it diligently for up to six full months, simply return your course and receive a refund for your full purchase price, no questions asked.

So go ahead and give it try. I know you’ve tried everything else. And I also know that if you work The Sedona Method, it will work for you.

Take The Sedona Method Challenge. Click Here.

There’s no better time to take The Sedona Method Challenge than right now because, for a limited time, we are offering the full 20-CD four-courses-in-one Sedona Method Audio Course for an additional 20% off the already discounted price of $298.00. You must use coupon code F43C826D on the last page of your checkout process to receive the deepest discount we’ve ever offered on this life-transforming course. (We will pull this price, so act now if you want to secure the best price possible!)

So, the only remaining question is… Will the next life transformation be YOURS?

To learn more about the Sedona Method or purchase their products,

Click Here.

(The Sedona Method Course is currently being offered with a
6 month money back guarantee. How can you beat that?)

Click Here to Purchase.

Have you taken the course? Please let us know how you liked it!

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List Your Favorite Rumi Quote

According to Wikipedia:
Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, but known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, was a 13th-century Persian poet, Sunni Islamic jurist, and theologian and mystic.

Rumi’s works are written in the New Persian language. Rumi’s importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages and transposed into various formats.

Here is a beautifully done video combining the artwork of Toni Carmine Salerno (http://www.tonicarminesalerno.com/), music from http://www.logos-musique.com/ and Rumi’s poetry.

Here are a few Rumi quotes that I like:

“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches you by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly – not one.”

“To praise is to praise how one surrenders to the emptiness.”

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.”

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

What is your favorite quote? Please share your favorite Rumi quote in the Comments!

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