How Do I Handle the Fear That I'm Feeling? with Eckhart Tolle

But when I get really afraid of losing all my money in the stock market, of getting sick or losing a loved one, how do I handle that fear? Again, the question is about fear. How do I handle the fear of catching a disease, of losing every many things. Many people are experiencing not only the fear now of the virus, they're also experiencing the fear of the repercussions of what's happening. Businesses are closing down, or everything is closing down. It's a very strange thing that this is happening. It's like an enforced closing down of the busyness, not just the business, but the busyness of the world. And enforced sudden ending of all that. Many planes are not flying anymore. Some cities are empty of people or suddenly, as if because until this happened, the world was absurdly busy, noisy busy. Everything was in movement, everything was lost in the world, lost in their minds. And suddenly, as if somebody said, let's turn it off for a while. Oh, enforced stillness. Almost exactly what millions of humans actually need to experience. It doesn't mean that they will automatically also experience the inner stillness, but there is a possibility of an awakening for many if they can go beyond the fear, the fearful thoughts. But how do you go beyond the fearful thoughts? Well, it requires a little bit of awareness. The. But if you are here with us, you probably have that awareness. What I mean by that is the awareness of what's going on in your mind to recognize rather than total identification with what's going on in your mind. You have in the background an awareness of what's going on in your mind. Very different, because it's a different dimension of consciousness, the awareness, it's not the same as a thought. The awareness can recognize what thoughts go on your mind and you realize I'm thinking all these useless thoughts. But that realization, I'm verbalizing it now because we are communicating through language. But that realization that all these useless and destructive thoughts are going through my head, that is a realization that is not verbal. It's pre or post verbal because it comes through the awareness. And there's a simple recognition that what's going on in your mind is not helpful. It's making you fearful and unhappy. So it is to be tackled there. All these. The problem that he mentions, he mentions or he or she mentions. 3. Fear of losing all my money, all my savings, my investments, what I've been saving, of getting sick or something bad could happen to a loved one. So you have fear for yourself, you have fear for others. And of course, all these things are not happening now. The things that you Fear. But they could happen, says the mind. So I better think about it now, because in case it does. Of course, if they did happen, you would face the situation with the power of your conscious awareness. You would face the sickness, you would face the loss of money, and you would even face the loss of a loved one or the suffering of a loved one. With the power of your presence you can face that. But what you cannot do, you cannot overcome these problems or face them. Because they only exist in your imagination. They haven't even happened yet. Therefore there's absolutely nothing you can do about them. In fact, they will simply amplify. The more you think about them, the more they become amplified. It's a totally illusory realm that is making you suffer. And so if there's a minimum of awareness, you can suddenly become aware of what it is that you are doing to yourself. Well, it's not that you are voluntarily doing it to yourself, but one could say it is happening to you. So you become aware of what is happening to you. Because the thoughts in your mind, virtually all the thoughts in the absence of awareness happen to you. They are not voluntary. So people say, I think this, I think you don't think the thinking happens to you when you're not aware. You are at the mercy of thought. You are at the mercy of the energy field. That is what we call thought. It lives in you. You are possessed. You don't know it. The moment you realize it, that this is not the fearful. Thinking isn't something that you do. Because if it's something that you do, you say yeah, I'm doing it, but I can't stop it. No, you are not doing happens to you. So some people say, well, perceive it as well, why am I doing this to myself? Well that's already. It's a good first step. Why am I making myself suffer by thinking all that? And then the next step is you realize, well, it's not really me doing it. It's the self serving thought forms that are swirling around in my mind continuously that are making me unhappy, that have no useful purpose. I'm not helping myself or anybody by thinking these things, by projecting bad things that could or will that could happen. And so with the awareness of what's going on in your mind comes the first time, a moment of freedom. Because before you had no free will. Without awareness you have no free will. You're at the mercy of a conditioned mind. So what do you do? So you have recognized that what's been happening to you fulfills no useful purpose. That's important realization. Because before there is an assumption in the unconscious mind that unless you worry a lot, then you're not controlling your life. There is the delusion that the more you think about useless, you don't, you don't know it's useless. The more you think about the problems of your life, then you need to continue thinking in order to hold it all together. You need to really worry all the problem of the world. If you don't worry, your life will fall to pieces. It's the underlying assumption, of course it's a delusion. So the worrying, the fearful thinking does not want to end. You need to know that, that it has a momentum and you cannot fight it. If you fight it, you make it stronger, you give it added energy. So it's not by willpower that you can stop it. Or as I just said, you can stop it briefly, but not for long through exercising willpower. So you stop it simply by first recognizing not only the futility, but also the destructive nature of that type of thinking. And then you begin to see that a lot of the unhappiness is produced by the narratives in your mind. And at that moment you have a choice. You. You can continue being dragged along in the stream of fearful thinking, or you can say, my choice is now to take my attention away from fearful thinking. I'm verbalizing it. But where does it go? If the fearful thinking wants all your attention, it wants all your consciousness continuously. It says, no, I'm letting go, I want it. And then you say, no, I don't want to go that way anymore. It's very simple. You bring your attention somewhere else. You need something at first. My recommendation is feel your inner body, direct your attention. Let's say you wake up in the night or in the morning. Direct your attention. Instead of thinking, direct your attention into the inner energy field of your hands. And then you hold it there. It's not. Doesn't require willpower. It's just a simple decision. And you hold it. You feel the inner aliveness in your hands, becomes an anchor for stepping out of mind, being present. Can you feel the energy in your hands? I can. And it's always wonderful. I've been feeling the energy in my hands for many years. It's always fresh and new. And then don't tire speaking of it, because it's always fresh and new. And of course, it's not just the hands. If you can't feel the energy in your hands, close your eyes and ask yourself if you are, let's say, your right hand. Or if you're left handed, your left hand. Ask yourself if your left or right hand is still there or not. Is it still there? How do I know it's there? How could I know it's there right now? Now you can't know it because you remember it was there when you saw it a few seconds ago. That's not knowing that it's there because it might have disappeared. You close your eyes. You're not moving your hand. How can you know it's there? You can know it's there, but how does it happen? What is it? How do you know it? You can feel it. But what is it that you feel? You feel the energy within the hand. It's very subtle at first, so you need to be alert to feel it. But that alertness that then goes in the body is taken away from thinking. And suddenly your hand feels more alive than it was before. And that's only the beginning. You can feel both hands simultaneously. And then you realize you can also feel other parts of the body. Your feet at the same time and legs. And then you become aware of all pervasive sense of aliveness in the entire body energy field. And the amazing thing is, by the way, you may also become aware that you're breathing because that's connected with the body. You're breathing into the body and the breath flows in and it flows out. And the more become aware of your body, the more become aware of your breathing. The more you become aware of your breathing, the more become aware of the body. There's wonderful aliveness there. And what happened to your mind activity? It subsided almost completely or completely. Because you cannot be aware of inner body and at the same time think. A few fragments may be there of thoughts, but not a sustained stream of thinking. It's not possible because your attention, your consciousness has gone away from the conceptualizing mind into the inner body.