THAT NASTY FOUR LETTER WORD – Senior Living Insights

THAT NASTY FOUR LETTER WORD

 

Yes, I’m writing about the “F” word.

This “F” word is – F-E-A-R, one of the most crippling of the four letter words. We all have some. FEAR directs our lives with enough strength and power to keep us confined within the steel cell of our minds. A prisoner of “fear.”  If you doubt it, take time to honestly examine your own fears to see how they have kept you in bondage. How have they denied you some of the joys of life? What have you always wanted to do but didn’t because of fear?

Some of us have worked hard to remove one steel bar at a time. Others tend to be content within their prisons. Few if any of us live within the freedoms that are ours simply for the taking.   The unfortunate thing about fear is that not only does it deny us the freedom to live; it is consciously or unconsciously passed on from one generation to the next.

My own mother had far too many fears that she passed on to her four daughters. She was fearful of the water and didn’t want us to drown. She was fearful of bikes and skates, so we were “saved” from falling down and bruising ourselves. The dark. What people would say if….And the list could go on and on.

As many of you know, Tom and I spend as much time on the water as possible. Vacation destinations are mostly to the ocean. And boating is a top priority. But I don’t know how to swim so I play it safe and cautiously while others are in the warm tropical water snorkeling or swimming to cool off. The turning point for me was a recent incident where we were in a water taxi going from one small island to the main one. I usually wear a lifejacket, but our luggage had already been stacked forward and the lifejackets were all beyond reach in the nose of the bow. After our group of six boarded, several islanders came aboard making far too many people for such a narrow wooden boat. The half hour ride was riddled with fear as each of us knew that it would not take much to tip the boat. I realized then how unfair it was that I could not swim and others would have the responsibility of saving me, in addition to themselves, if we’d capsized. The only way to conquer fear is to face it, and so I’m taking swim lessons. And so, “You can teach an old dog new tricks!”  So don’t you dare use “age” as an excuse.

My fellow-writer, Marion Duckworth said, “Isn’t it interesting that you are doing so well so quickly and fear kept you from learning to swim. A message for all of us.”

            The point is, that for many of us, life is quickly fleeting by and we are missing out on living life to the fullest because of our fears. Now, while the clock still clicks, it is a good time to do something that your fears have stolen from you..  The four letter word can be turned into a five letter word: FAITH in yourself and your ability to CHANGE. One of the best ways to initiate a change is to state what your intention is for that fear. Intention is just another way of saying that we can create what we think about. Our first thought becomes an “intention” about a specific fear, emotion or attitude.

In a new movie, “What the Bleep! Do We Know!?,  which is sweeping the country,  Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “I wake up in the morning, and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. Now, sometimes, because my mind is examining all the things that I need to get done, it takes me a little bit to settle down, and get to the point of where I’m actually intentionally creating my day. But here’s the thing. When I create my day, … out of nowhere, little things happen that are so unexplainable; I know they are the process or the result of my creation. And the more I do that, the more I build a neural net in my brain, (and I can) accept that that’s possible. It gives me the power and the incentive to do it…”   (This amazing movie will be shown in Walnut Creek on August 13, 04.)

I’ve written about the power of intention before but it is so powerful and I’m so excited about the possibilities that you’ll just have to bear with me because I really want you to get the concept. It’s so simple that it would be easy to think it doesn’t matter. But it does. Here is how to make it work for you:

·         Break your day into segment. A segment begins the moment you wake up and have a first thought.

·         Now direct that thought into an intention. Send out the thought of what kind of day you’d like to have. Perhaps you felt grumpy, or not as well as you’d like to feel. The thought you’d send out is for health and joy and you would concentrate on those.

·         The next thing you do becomes a segment, and so on all through the day. Before you begin each segment, direct your thoughts towards a positive, joyful outcome.

·         Now you are in control of your thoughts, your day, and your life. You will feel more in control instead of out of control.

·         Believe!  (FAITH REPLACES FEAR)

Had Tom and I and our group taken control of the segment before we stepped into that island boat in Tonga, directing it to safety, we would have spoken to the captain about the vessel being overloaded and asked the islanders to wait for the next boat taxi since we had a plane to catch that morning and needed to get to shore. And we would have made sure that we had easy access to the life jackets and I would have been wearing one. In other words, having a clear intention as we go through the day, assures us less stress and gives us more of what we really want.  It gives us control over our fears and allows us to create a positive outcome.  So—NEVER AGAIN AVOID THE FOUR LETTER WORD, “FEAR.”

 

 

 

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