Fed By Fear
Sit quietly for a moment and after reading the following words, stare off into the distance and reflect on what arises for you. What feeds you? What absolutely nourishes your soul and leaves you well fed? Let your mind wander from food to drinks to creative abilities to music to relationships to, even, money, etc. Reflect for a few moments on those things that you feel sustain you as a human being. If you wish, write them down, as it may be useful later.
When we satiate our hunger, what is really being fed? As we explore why we do what we do and why we choose what we choose, we may find that at the root of our choices there is some level of fear motivating us. Once more, food is a good medium to uncover how we are prompted and fed by the sensation of fear.
Throughout life, we are given opportunity after opportunity to reclaim any power fear has over us. If we are scared of heights, we can dare to look down from the airplane window or from the top of a rollercoaster, to see that our fear was just a thought. When we were children our parents would make us look in the closet or under the bed to discover that, indeed, there was no monster in our bedrooms. It was a means our parents used to teach us how to identify with fear and how to balance it.
Fear serves a purpose in keeping us safe and alerting us of danger. This is very useful as a human being, however, if we begin to overuse fear it can become a hindrance in our daily lives, keeping us from moving forward and blossoming into our full, capable selves. And, just like food, if we continue to feed our fear, it is what begins to falsely sustain us, making us dependent on its adrenaline hit as nourishment.
Let us use coffee as an example for today’s purposes. Coffee is a useful stimulant, has certain health benefits, and smells pretty darn good. From its aroma to its intrinsic properties, coffee can keep you alert and plugged in from all sides. It is fortunate for those on the Whole30 that coffee is allowed, albeit with no added milk, sugar, or other flavors. However, there are many fasts, cleanses, and diets out there that shun coffee, trying to get their participants to look at their motives for drinking the liquid stimulant. In general, coffee is harmless. The creator of Bulletproof Coffee would even probably be an advocate for the necessity of coffee daily as a staple in our diet to aid in memory retention and for good brain health, as he touts the combination of coffee, butter, and MCT oils (medium-chain triglycerides) as a good concoction for such a remedy, based on his and many other’s experience with the coffee cocktail. Still, it cannot be denied that often coffee is a stimulant we use to motivate us in the morning and/or to help us concentrate on certain tasks.
There is a camp of people who do not drink or eat caffeine of any form. I would be one those. Years ago I stopped eating or drinking any source of caffeine due to kidney issues in which ingesting the stimulant was not aiding in my healing process. It did not affect me that much because I was not using caffeine as my driving force throughout the day. Come to find out, I was using fear instead but did not know it. I had a stressful job with long hours and with lots of travel time. It was not an outside stimulant that kept me going but my inner dialogue pushing me to go above and beyond because I did not feel sufficient enough to be in the position I was blessed, and earned, to be in. There were many shades of fear that fed my lifestyle at that time and I would not have made the connection had I not been prompted to avoid stimulants in my food and beverages, inspiring me to take a deeper look at how fear feeds my motives.
In recent years, as I have streamlined and minimalized my life from food to my living space to my choice in occupation, I have recognized how much fear has nourished me and that it is part of the journey to dig deep within to continue to find those areas where that feeling of failing or not being good enough or any other similar shade still resides. A Course in Miracles teaches us that all choices come down to either love or fear, and if we are honest about what feeds us, we will notice that we are sustained by the same two options.
Again, there is a level of fear that is helpful as a human being, however what is important is to recognize how we are using it. Awareness is key, for we can even use fear out of love, just think of those parents who rush to keep their children from playing in the street in fear of being hit by a car. Their motives are based in love as they move in fear. The rabbit hole is deep with this one but it is worth the journey to continue to explore our motives, not just with food, but also with all details in our lives.
If you made a list earlier after your time of reflection, can you identify where you are fed out of love? Out of fear? Allow some time to visualize what life would be like if each choice was based on love and fed only by love, for that is real and sustaining nourishment. That is the change that changes everything. Namaste.