“All Suffering is due to wrong identification.”
– The Buddha
The process of dissolving my deeply rooted fears began when I was backpacking around India as an impressionable 24 year old. I decided to work at one of Mother Theresa’s homes for the destitute and dying in Calcutta (now Kolkata). The experience of sitting with people as they died seeded a belief in me that we are not our bodies, and that our consciousness transcends this dense Earth realm.
This belief eventually sprouted into an inner knowing as I encountered experiences that reinforced this truth. For example, when my girlfriend died of breast cancer 13 years ago, an evidence-based medium was able to tell me things no one would know but us. Also, as I became fascinated with past-life memories, I researched numerous verified past-life memories of children as well as adults who recalled past lives through hypnotic regression.
In their book, A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife, Victor and Wendy Zammit argue that if all of the evidence for the afterlife were put in a court of law, it would win easily and unanimously. Evidence of the afterlife reveals that we are eternal, indestructible soul beings. Although we one day will lose our body, we can never separate ourselves from the energy and consciousness that animates our body. Thus, a key premise in releasing fears is to know that you can never be harmed.
From the vantage point of the body, that sounds absurd, and it is, because the body gets hurt, sick and dies. But truth is relative, and from the “more relatively true” vantage point of your “more permanent self,” you ultimately cannot be harmed, because you are energy and consciousness that comes from Oneness, and how can Oneness be harmed? The more Truth can become embedded in the belief system of the ego, which is based on the illusion of separateness and identification with our body, the more our fears begin to melt away, being replaced with a calm, inner assurance that all is well and always has been and will be.
Fears are built into the human experience. Fears come with a body that can get hurt and die. Messages of fear also come in when we’re young and we are completely dependent on outside caregivers for a sense of love, value and security. When it doesn’t happen, because our parents are humans operating from their own issues and beliefs, subconscious fears can take root, such as not being lovable, being judged as “less than” or fear of failing, etc. We get conditioned early on to look for our sense of self through outside sources like family and friends rather than from within.
Thus, a big key in releasing subconscious fears is to identify more with the aspect of you that cannot be harmed. Freedom comes with an identity shift.
When I help clients release limiting fears, I initially guide them on a deep inner journey within to connect with their Higher Self and Source energy. This is possible because no one can be separated from their Higher Self and Source energy…it simply gets covered up in the human experience. Thus, hypnotherapy can be used to help de-hypnotize yourself from the source of all suffering — ego identification.
From the vantage point of Source, all fears stem from false beliefs of the ego self. They feeltrue from the ego’s mindset, and may have become embedded into our subconscious mind’s operating system at a young age, but these beliefs are not actually true from the standpoint of a higher dimension of yourself and of Truth.
As we begin our spiritual journey of awakening out of ego identification, there becomes a trickle-down effect of releasing subtle fears that are not in alignment with our Higher Self. We, as souls, are challenging ourselves to allow our body/mind systems to be clear vessels for the brilliance of our true selves to shine through. As we operate and live less from our false fears and outdated programming, and more from our true selves, we are naturally guided by our own passions, gifts and strengths.
We become the beings of freedom and love that we always have been and always will be.
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