***Five ways to eliminate fear

How do you eliminate fear in your life? Here are five quick tips to get your started:

1) Understand what fear is

First off, it’s important to understand that fear serves no purpose whatsoever. The phrase “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” is highly inaccurate. Why are you afraid of fear to begin with? Fear is paralyzing, and is also an indication that something is very wrong. You have heard said that animals can smell fear. They do this because they know their prey is unable to act, unable to act to get away. The prey are easy targets.

Humans, of course, are not immune either. If a government or some private organization can make you fearful they can easily control you. Like the predator animal in the wild, they can force you to something you would not ordinarily do, with disastrous consequences. Take the war on terrorism. Do you think so many Americans would give up so many civil rights if not for the fear of terrorists? No, of course not. People act irrationally. And that lets those who spread the fear take over and manipulate the situation.

2) Understand the source of your fear

Fear is really fear of the unknown. Take a traditional Hollywood horror or suspense movie. If you know who the killer is and when he is going to strike the movie is no longer scary. The fear has been removed.

If you are fearful or are living in fear it means you are afraid of something that is unknown, real or unreal. That’s why it’s important to discover the source of your fear. You see, fear is 100% irrational. This means it isn’t “logical” like crying if something is sad. So if fear pops up it means something else is going on rather than the obvious. That’s why horror movies affect people in different ways — everyone brings a different life experience to the table. For example, if you almost drowned as a child you will have an extreme fear reaction to a horror movie about a killer drowning people. Others in the theatre would not.

Take fear of terrorism. You can’t control when terrorists are going to attack, but the reality is your chance of being killed or injured in such an attack is less likely as being hit by lightening. In fact, one report puts your chance of dying in a terrorist attack (on a plane) at 1 in 25 million. Being struck by lightning is 1 in 500,000. That means your fear comes from something else. Look at yourself objectively — what are you really afraid of? Once you discover that then you will no longer be afraid. You’ve uncovered who the killer is in the movie!

3)Do not overcome fear, eliminate it

Always keep in mind fear does not exist in flow, your true self designed for success. That means to overcome fear you have to take a radically different approach to dealing with it. “Overcome” isn’t really the right word. It makes fear sound like an obstacle that will show up again — you overcome fear this time but it will be a lifetime battle. This is the wrong way to look at things. Such thinking gives tremendous power to flow blockages (things that prevent your success), as you are always on the defensive, often to the point of fearing to be in fear!

Take a rent or mortgage payment. Every month you are fearful you won’t make it. You find your flow (or think you have found it) and overcome the fear. But then next month you spend the every day worried and fearful that you have overcome the fear of not making it again. It’s like an ongoing battle that you can never win. This is why finding your flow (your true success) is never, ever a battle. You don’t overcome fear or conquer it as if it’s some enemy that plagues your life.

You must eliminate fear totally so that it never returns. It cannot even exist as a “vanquished enemy”. This gives too much credit and power to something that can literally ruin your life.

As mentioned above, start by finding the source of your fear, understanding what it’s about, then removing it from your life since it is irrational and serves no good purpose. Sounds simplistic, but the reality is fear is not part of you in any way, shape or form.

Eliminating fear can be a hard process. It’s not that you can’t do it (anyone ultimately can!) it’s just that you’ve been conditioned most of your life to accept it as part of living. Imagine as a child being told you would die or be injured if you ever rode a bike. Do you think you could get on a bike as an adult and learn to ride? No, all this irrational fear around death and injury would be swirling in your subconscious.

4)Do not let outside influences control your fear

Fear can only take hold where it is allowed to take hold. I’ll give you a funny example of what I mean. I’m a man, which means advertisements for feminine products, dresses, purses and similar “women things” have no effect on me. This should be the same way when it comes to you and fear. Since fear is irrational any media outlet, religious group, or other entity that promotes fear should have no effect on you. Yet for many Americans such things do have profound effects, and oftentimes they are very subtle. Few people realize that a daily diet of news and even religious dogma impedes their success.

Want proof? Challenge yourself to a media game. Don’t listen or read any news for a week. It’s okay — you’ll get the relevant information from other sources. Now keep a diary of how you feel about the world and your own situation. Most importantly, keep track of what you are afraid of.

After the week is up watch a bunch of news programs and read the newspapers. How do you feel? What are you afraid of?

You will be surprised at the results. I was! Not only have I done this myself, but I’ve also experienced its effects within 30 minutes. At my gym I decided to use an exercise bike. The bike was in a room where the televisions were showing 24-hour news programs. After my workout I was supposed to feel great, but instead I felt awful. I was depressed and sad even though my body felt great. It suddenly dawned on me I had just watched a half an hour of misery and doom, none of which affected my life. I further proved this phenomenon by working out in a separate area without having news on — I felt great afterwards, both physically and mentally.

5) Use fear to your advantage

This may sound contradictory to what I’ve said, but the fact is you can use fear to your advantage. Now this only applies if fear is still part of you life. Your goal is to ultimately eliminate fear altogether, but for now why not use it to your advantage?

Okay, what am I talking about? Fear is a flow alarm, those things that warn you something is wrong in your life. Anxiety, sickness, anger and worry are also fear alarms. This is actually a good thing since when fear appears you can immediately know that your success is being blocked. When you experience fear take a self inventory — what is going on in your life? Where is this fear coming from? Why does it reoccur?

Remember, you’ve been conditioned not see fear as a warning but something you should accept. You have to fight this programming until you can eliminate it. Why? You are always going to face challenges in your life. Fear does not need to be part of them. Like you, I’ve experienced numerous problems in my life, from financial woes to relationship issues. Fear used to be a big factor in those, now it’s not since I look at every situation logically.

To sum up, until you totally eliminate fear from your life use it to empower yourself. Knowledge is the key to success. Once you know why things are happening you can then take charge and find ultimate success. Ignore the doomsayers, especially in the media, although pay attention to their game. News programs want higher ratings. Politicians want more votes. Religious types want more donations. And so on. All at the expense of your success.

Treat fear like the virus that it is and you will be able to accomplish things beyond your wildest dreams!