Where Fear Gets Its Power

Fear gets its power from the future and past — worrying about all the feel-bad things that might happen in the future, based on all the feel-bad things that did happen in the past — convinced they’re all going to happen again any moment.

Not only is that negative goal setting — it's a complete fantasy, because the past and future don't exist. The future is not here and cannot be accessed, and the past is over and cannot be changed. The only way you can access the past and the future is in the mind through imagination and memory.

Nothing wrong with either, they’re both powerful tools. But the mind is where fear lives, and if you spend too much time in there, endlessly overthinking, fear will use your imagination to worry, and your memory to regret, so you fear the now.

If you want to take that power away from fear, come back to the present moment. It's the only thing that's actually real, it's all you need to 'fear' — except you'll find there isn't much to fear. For example, the only thing that’s real in your life right now, is you reading this sentence — which I am sure is going well, and there's nothing to fear. It's just reading.

That principle is MASSIVE.

If you lived every other aspect of your life in that same way — full focused on each moment, as it comes to you moment by moment — you can live life fearlessly. Or should I say, "fear-less-ly" — as in less fear each time — because it takes a bit of practice. But the more you do it, the less power fear has over you, and that will help you overcome the following: