see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil … disregarding our fears is hazardous to our health

Date: 2nd December 2017

 

This blog comes with a rating: Suitable for adults only.

Warning!!!! This is NOT a discussion on demonic activity in our lives.

I heard a parable* the other day about a man who was going on a long journey. So he cleaned his house, locked it up, and then left for his journey. A year later he returned to his home only to discover that his house had been taken over by a whole host of demons. As he unlocked, and walked through the front door the demons attacked him. Fearing for his life, he fled. Three times he tried to gain access into his home, only to be repeatedly attacked. As he sat on his front porch, bruised and battered, he had a revelation.

So he tried again. He opened his front door and as the demons rushed to attack him he gave them a deep bow. Immediately half the demons disappeared. Then he walked into his living room only to be rushed by the remaining demons. He bowed and offered them refreshments. They all disappeared. Finally the huge king demon appeared and attacked him. As he opened his mouth to swallow the man the man put his head inside the demon’s mouth. Immediately the demon disappeared. Ah, finally the man had his house back.

The moral of the story …?

Fear is humanities’ greatest threat. Our fears, whether perceived, or real, have the power to destroy us. Some fears are birthed from physical abuse, or emotional neglect. Other fears are around our ego, and our sense of self. Psychologists have noted that ‘fear of abandonment’ sits at the root of all our human fears. Now I’m not talking about being left alone, and uncared for, although that can be very real for children. Fear of abandonment can be described as fear of being humiliated, or not being heard. It can be a feeling of inadequacy, or fearful that someone will discover that we are flawed. We are unlovable and without meaningful connection to others.

A three step plan:

☣︎ Acknowledge the fear.

Recognise it, and be prepared to accept that it is there. Ignoring or ‘stuffing’ our fears create a sense of foreboding. It is almost like being stalked. There is no escape, the fear won’t go away! The fall out from the level of emotional energy required to keep it under wraps will eventually take its toll. Our relationships, our emotional health, our capacity to cope will all be compromised.

☣︎ Consider the fear.

It is not enough to acknowledge the fear, we must consider, or think about it. I really like, and have often used, Living Wisdom’s phrase Trace, Face, Replace.** It is essential we get to the bottom of what we believe about the perceived threat. Remember all fear is about what we believe, or perceive, to be a threat to us.

☣︎ Embrace the fear.

Confronting the fear is our greatest weapon. That is where so many of us fall down and keep repeating the cycle of fear. Which eventually renders us powerless, guilt ridden, and shamed. It is essential that we not only think about and consider the fear, we must confront it and replace it with truth. Backus says, “You feel the way you think; you think the way you believe. Learning to control your emotions begins when you learn to listen to your self-talk.”*** Our ‘self-talk’ about any situation will determine whether we confront, or ignore and stuff down our fears.

Learning to listen to our self-talk, for some of us our self talk occurs as images rather than words, is the crucial first step in discovering what our basic beliefs are.

Those beliefs are the primary source of expectations, assumptions, attitudes and beliefs. The difficulty is that we have a never ending stream of self talk going on but don’t always notice it. A bit like back ground noise that has become so ‘natural’ is goes undetected. I’ll give you an example. Years ago I was living in a house where we got a grandfather clock. Every quarter hour the chimes would go off. Well the first night I could hardly sleep for the noise!! Several months later a friend stayed and at 2am she knocked on my door to ask me if I could stop the clock as it was keeping her awake. You guessed it! I had become so used to the clock that I didn’t even register its loud chimes!

In my next blog I’ll go into more detail about self-talk and how to dismantle it.

Shalom Deborah

* My thanks to Joy Cowley, who shared this parable. I’ve taken the liberty of adapting it. I encourage you to visit her website www.joycowley.com

**  www.livingwisdom.co.nz  “Trace the lie. Face the lie. Replace the lie, with the Truth.”  Misbelief Therapy … Learning to Tell Myself the Truth. William Backus, Bethany House, 1994. This is a book that has saved mine, and countless others, life.

*** Learning to Tell Myself the Truth, p.15

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