June was intense. Anything that was out of alignment with the love vibration jumped up and shouted for attention.

That means if you had some fears operating in your life – consciously or subconsciously – those particular boogiemen were lurking around to shake you into awareness.

You see, fear is out of alignment

with the vibration of love.

And in June, fear showed up for me too.

Not only was I dealing with some serious family health issues (with both my human family and my feline family)... I had a surprise confrontation with one of my Boogiemen!

And it wasn’t pretty!

But I am grateful for it none the less. I learned where that Boogieman came from, and what I needed to do to dissolve his hold on me.

Before I dive into the details, I'd like to take a breathing break.... just because if  you are reading this you probably need it!

So right now pause and gift yourself a nice, deep relaxing breath.

Really.

Your Body will thank you!

Go ahead. Close your eyes and breathe deeply.

Place your hand over your heart and take 3 nice deep breaths.

Go ahead. Take a moment or two to do this. It will help.

Now.

Breathe!

Were you holding your breath before I asked you to take a nice deep breath?

Or perhaps you were simply breathing normal, shallow breaths. 

I think most of us tend to breathe from the top of our lungs, expanding our chest, rather than breathing deep from the diaphragm to fully fill our lungs.

But I digress… The important thing to remember is

When we are stressed we hold our breath.

I think this comes from our cave men days when we were afraid of the big bad whatever that was lurking in the bushes waiting to pounce.

If we held our breath we would be still and silent, except maybe for the sound of our heart pounding… although the fear pheromones we were giving off would be a flashing neon sign if the big bad stalked downwind!

We also tend to hold our breath when we are focused on something or concentrating. And not just when doing delicate or dangerous work either!

Maybe that comes from our hunting days when to deliver a perfectly aimed shot (arrow, stone, what have you) you go still, focus intently, and hold your breath.

Whatever the original cause,  holding our breath is something deeply programmed into our behavior, especially when we are functioning on auto-pilot, which is pretty much most of the time unless you make a practice of being in the now or living in the moment… consciously.

BTW, I just did the holding breath thing while typing this.

So you may have needed a deep breathing break too!

And now you might be asking what does holding my breath have to do with breaking the fear barrier?

Well in addition to hyperventilating when fear strikes, another response is holding our breath so the boogieman will leave me alone.

The boogieman in this case is your deepest and possibly subconscious fears.

(And yes, we all have them. Some of us are just better at moving through them… or ignoring them. And you know which basket you fit in…. face it or ignore it.)

Much like we’d hold our breath to avoid a real life threat, we still behave this way when a fear is operating in our life.

And sometimes we have a cavalcade of fears running the show.

If you are like me (and many of my friends and clients) in addition to individual fears you have what I call a “fear collision” that results in a fear smashup or conglomeration.

This means that the surface fear that you are aware of my not be the BIG one that scares the crap out of you.

Underneath there is conglomeration of fears that needs to be untangled before they can be dealt with individually and released.

This happened to me in June. And it wasn’t pretty. And it really hurt. The Cliff Notes version: I moved my practice into a lovely office space complete with classroom. It was time. And then, like a deer in the headlights, I froze.

OMG, this is really happening. I was excited and scared. New growth, new expansion and new expenses, oh my.

And the boogieman I thought I had dealt with years ago hit me with a bucket of ice cold fear.

My back went out for no physical reason whatsoever. Whoa. Back pain, sciatica, and numbness. Message came in loud and clear. Fear working its paralyzing effect on me.

I hit the books and also went inside to see what was going on. I identified what I thought was the fear and cleared it. Felt good for a day or two and back it came. Did more inner work. Pain lessened. But it was still difficult to sit for any length of time.

Got outside help: chiropractor, massage, energy work, deep dives with both my coach and my mentor. Some relief, some things shifted and released…

but clearly I had not gotten to the real cause of the issue…

the BIG FEAR driving it.

I first thought it was a money fear. But that was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I then worked on fear of stepping out, worthiness and several other things.

Each helped a little, and yet

I knew there was more, hidden deeper and masquerading as something different, yet energetically similar.

Did you know that fears do that whole pretending to be something different?

Beliefs do too.

That’s what can make it so challenging to work through your stuff by yourself. Can you work through it? Of course.

Is it sometimes a great idea to bring in someone else to help you cut through your own BS story? Absolutely.

Turned out there were several past lives conspiring here for me to finally see the gift in the crap, own it and release it. It had to do with taking on responsibility for everything, including other people involved. But it didn’t stop there.

Misplaced responsibility collided with feeling guilty about how past events went down, judging/blaming myself for everything that happened when I only played a part in it, wanting to punish myself for this ancient incident, and withholding forgiveness from myself for my part in events that happened ages ago. 

Oh my. What a tangled ball of feelings, beliefs and emotions were hiding underneath the fear of stepping out and money fears.

My healer helped me understand that not only was I holding on to this past baggage, my feelings of guilt prevented me from seeing what my soul had wanted to learn from it.

The misplaced guilt resulted in forms of self-punishment and self-sabotage which kept me from receiving the lesson, gift and blessing of something I dragged around through lifetimes.

Since then I’ve moved through much of it and have learned another lesson around taking appropriate responsibility and the importance of forgiveness. (And you can bet there will be articles, posts and classes about these topics!)

I am deeply grateful to all my teachers in this and for the angels and others who helped me release millennia of guilt and pain. So I can move forward with more grace and ease. Whew!

I share this with you to provide you a mirror with something you may be dealing with, especially around self-love, forgiveness, guilt, shame, blame, judgment, self-punishment, fear, and carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.

BTW, I tend to teach what I learn, and June taught me a whole lot. If I can help you move through things quicker as a result of this experience (and other ones that came before and the ones yet to come), well that makes it even more worthwhile.

Here are some wonderful tools for you that I use to get past the surface fear and uncover the events, emotions, feelings and beliefs that glommed together to create fears and other ways we handicap ourselves:

• The Secret Language of Your Body by Inna Segal (This is my favorite book for pin-pointing the emotions and beliefs behind physical symptoms anywhere in your body. Plus she provides suggestions and guidance to work through and release it.)

• You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay – nice chart at the end of physical ailments and associated beliefs/emotions

• You Can Heal Your Life Companion Book by Louise Hay – goes in deeper with exercises to do around common topics (fear, money, relations, etc.)

• Energy work, especially chakra clearing

• Journaling on what you are feeling the way you are feeling

• Asking the powerful series of questions: what do I think would happen if _____; then what happens; then what… and keep following the trail to you get to the final answer which may surprise you. It will also help unlock all the other things that got tied to this belief!

• Past life regression to get to the cause
   
• Intuitive Counseling
   
• Apply the truth test to fears and beliefs:
  • Identify the fear/belief
  • Ask why do I think this/feel this?
  • Where did this idea come from?
  • Who else in my life thinks this way and has same belief/fears?
  • Where did they get it from?
  • Is this true?

Remember: Just because you believe something doesn’t mean it is true.

Just because you are afraid of something doesn’t mean it can hurt you.

Just because you are afraid that something bad will happen doesn’t mean it will.

Be willing to ask “Is this true? What is the truth?”

Now, gift yourself another deep breath. 

And learn to tell the difference between a real fear, warning you of danger, and a false fear that is really a scary story you tell yourself and believe it is true.

Be kind and gentle and patient with yourself. We are all experiencing growing pains!

May you have an insightful and pleasant month.

Love & blessings,
Karen

PS. I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences on dealing with the fears ... feel free to share in the comments area below!

PPS. Share the love… if you like what you read, please like it and share it on your favorite social media sites. My heartfelt appreciation in advance!

If it seems a little familar, much of this post was in my July newsletter.

BTW, If you are interested in booking a personal consultation with me (in person, Skype or phone), and you are willing to look under the bed in in the sealed closets and face your fears, please check my services page or contact me
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(some elements of the graphics are courtesy of Microsoft Corporation... thank you!)