Deconstructing Fear

What is fear? Where does it come from? Is there such a thing as positive fear? In this episode we’ll dive into the anatomy of fear and how we can overcome the limitations it creates in our lives.

Transcript:

Elisheva: Good morning everyone! Good evening, good afternoon wherever you are and welcome to this week’s Weekly Energy Boost. My name is Elisheva and I have the privilege this morning of being joined by Batya Solomon, who is a dear friend and a fabulous all-around wonderful person … who happens to be one of the senior teachers at the Kabbalah Centre of Florida and we will hear all about her fabulousness shortly. This is a fabulous week for those of you finding us for the first time, because we are delving into perhaps one of the hottest topics on everyone’s mind these days, which is fear.

The weekly energy boost is a seven-day spiritual energy forecast. We delve through the wisdom of Kabbalah and share with you weekly the most practical and powerful wisdom we can find. Not only what we think is interesting and powerful, but also what’s working for us as Kabbalah students and what is working for our students. Over the years Batya, I am sure you have counseled thousands upon thousands of people. I had a great idea in the shower this morning and I want to share it with everybody. This is not only tried and true wisdom, but ancient wisdom that we try to make modern, relevant and useful.

Today we are talking about, what is fear? I am sure that a lot of people are saying, “I know what fear is. It is something I encounter every single day.” Kabbalistically speaking, on a metaphysically level, we want to understand what is taking place because over the next few weeks we are going to learn how to tackle and transform it. Now the reason this is really the most appropriate theme for us to be exploring is because today, according the Kabbalistic calendar, is the New Moon of Scorpio. Every time we have the New Moon … we don’t always get to have a show on the New Moon live, but whenever we have the New Moon in the week, we talk about how it is important on the New Moon – sometimes is 24 hours and sometimes its 48 hours – the importance of planting positive seeds. Being the best version of ourselves. Smiling when we don’t want to smile. Sharing when we don’t want to share. Because what that does is that is creates and imprint, a mold for the following 29 to 30 days thereafter. For those of you that are listening on Monday, you have that ability now, with whatever left of Monday that you got, and just the knowledge that we are entering a new energy. We spent the last not only four weeks, but basically eight weeks setting up our year to come. And today is really the first day of that year, according to Kabbalah. The plot, the script has been sketched and we – with our words, our thoughts and actions – we are actualizing that. One of the reasons I think Batya is the perfect guest to have this week is because we, Batya and I, worked together, rather closely, on another project creating curriculum and resources for our teachers. This has been … I think fear for us … we have never been able to put an entire class together about it. Yet it permeates almost every single class. When you think about it … that fear is the thing … if there is something that stops us it is fear. Fear of something.

Batya: Right.

Elisheva: Today we want to understand metaphysically what goes on. What is the mechanism behind the fear? I feel like I say it in every show, but now more than ever. This is a thing … and we want to not only help our listeners work thru it, but also give our listeners something to share with others that can help shift not only individually what’s going on, but collectively. So, what are fears? For those of you who are listening you can also write in the comments. What are your typical fears? What are the fears you encounter regularly? Where do you want to start Batya? 

Batya: What comes to mind is fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

Elisheva: Of course!

Batya: Of course! So, if you listen to any of my classes … I will give myself a shameless plug right here, Prosperity Principles every Wed at 11 am EST. I always regard the teachings of Kabbalah come from the Bible –Torah in Hebrew – and it is only filled with metaphysical concepts. Because we do not have a metaphysical language, the information, or the energy, is transferred in stories. So, the first story we receive at the beginning of the bible – which makes absolutely no sense but beyond the scope of this particular conversation – of in the “beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The beginning is not what you think it is; it is not linear time. What is the Bible telling us? If you took the religiosity out of it and you looked at it as a “Handbook for Humanity” … here you are. You are a new soul. You are incarnating into this 10th dimension and the first thing we learn … and I don’t have time to go into the details of it, but the first thing that we learn is we are incarnating into a world of illusion – where time, space and matter only affect this dimension and we are going to get sucked into different situations which is False Evidence Appearing Real. So, we have this story of the Garden of Eden – Adam and Eve and the trickster, the Opponent, who becomes a snake. There are so many levels to that. The first thing we are introduced to in the Handbook of Humanity is when you get to the 10th dimension one of the first things you are going to encounter is fear. It’s false evidence appearing real! Now what did we come to the world to do? We came to the world not to be sucked into fear. Not to be sucked into the illusion of this world. Now how does fear work? There are three kinds of fear basically. There’s the fear of pain and destruction, basically two kinds of uncertainty, I will put it to you that way. Right? There is the pain of what’s happening around me. And the fear of what’s going to be with me. That really is the essence of fear. An unhealthy fear is, “What’s going to be, with me?” I will take the word unhealthy out of it and just say it is a lower form of fear. What’s going to happen to me? What’s going to be with me? And then a general fear of what’s going to happen with other people. If you think that thru a little more, you are going to realize that it’s also going to be, what is going to happen to me? What about me? As long we are in that frame of thinking – What’s going to happen to me? What about me? What do they think of me? – then life is very fearful. And we came to this world ­… if I could take the conversation a little bigger here. We incarnated into this world so not to get sucked into the fear. Now there is a positive side of fear, should we talk about that?

Elisheva: Yeah, we promised that we will talk about the positive.

Batya: Yes. There is a positive side of fear. There are levels of fear, right? The lowest level; what’s going to happen to me? That is uncertainty. There are different kinds of expressions of uncertainty. What are we uncertain about? That there is no system; the system doesn’t make sense; there is no Creator force; what the heck am I doing on this planet; I am stranded and nothing makes sense. Logic just gets me so far. And I think I see, or I know what life is really about then I get … BOOM, smacked in the face with an event, something suddenly happens. I don’t know how to make sense of it. I try to predict the future from the past. That doesn’t work. We resort to all sorts of coping mechanisms because we can’t feel certain. As long as we don’t have a certainty that everything is exactly where it needs to be, and you are exactly where you need to be in your spiritual process. When we are not reminded of that, we are not in that frame of thinking, then life feels very fearful.

Elisheva: We brought up something that I think is really important, is the uncertainty piece. That I think is as, if you have been listening for any period of time, if you have been studying Kabbalah, really if you are on any spiritual path you know that we call it certainty. Other paths it might be called faith, or trust or knowing. That’s one of the measures by which we recognize spiritual growth, is your certainty growing.

Batya: Yes, absolutely

Elisheva: One of the things the Kabbalist teach about fear, is that without fear we don’t have a mechanism to strengthen our certainty. When I understood that I felt a little bit safer to handle my fear because there was a benefit, incentive, on the other side.  If I will work thru my fears, the benefit is greater certainty and greater certainty is greater connection and revelation of light in my life. I think a lot of people avoid dealing with their fears, for fear of what’s on the other side. Here comes Kabbalah and says there is only benefit on the other side. The transformation, the purpose, when you are able to identify a fear. You know I am working thru something … I notice I have a fear of something, say I have a fear of public speaking.

Batya: Number one fear … public speaking!

Elisheva: On the other side of that fear, I may find that I am a brilliant speaker, captivating charismatic human being. But that’s not the goal. The goal is that by working thru that fear, its spiritual expansion. I will have a closer relationship. I will be more connected to that spark of light that is already inside me. Even though, like you said, it comes in the illusion of what’s going to happen? How are they going to receive me? Or what kind of rejection might I risk experiencing?

Batya: That goes back to the creation story. By the way it is not a history lesson. The creation story is happening right here all the time. We are creators, we are always creating our story. In the creation story the snake is the one who starts to introduce the doubt. Doubt in the Creator, doubt in the system of life, that’s really what it comes down to. On the other side of fear, you can’t talk about fear without talking about two things. The Opponent force, that is throwing challenges at us all the time. It looks like them; it smells like them; it sounds like them; it’s definitely them! They are the reason I have the fear; they are the reason why I am miserable; they are the reason I am a victim! Out challenge and our steps of growth is to resist going there – to resist blaming; take back responsibility and accountability. For some reason, and part of the game of life is, I am playing hide and seek with God. We are all playing hide and seek with the Creator force, whatever you want to call it, – Allah, Buddha, whatever you want to call it. Your higher self. We are all playing hide and seek with that. That was the purpose. That’s the means, I should say. The purpose is to own our creation. To not be affected by the illusion of this world. If you don’t know you are an immortal soul having human experiences, then life is very scary. You are like a rag, like a rag doll tossed in the ocean of life; just being tossed around. You are looking to anyone and holding on to anyone or anything that gives us temporary comfort or the illusion of security. There is no security. What is secure?

Elisheva: David was supposed to be on the show this morning … no David! What’s secure? 

Batya: What’s secure? What can you count on? Your money? You know you have seen that go down! The government? We don’t want to get into that conversation!

Elisheva: Yeah, we stay away from that on the Weekly Energy Boost!

Batya: Economy? People? People come and go. Just today I got a text from someone that their business just died. Just like that, at a young age. There is no such thing as death, but that’s another episode.

Elisheva: That’s another episode!

Batya: What can you count on? There is that uncertainty. What can we count on? When you can count on something – and you hold on to that – you are able to resist falling into being reactive. We talk about reactivity probably every episode, that reactivity is actually the opportunity NOT be reactive. It is really the doorway to a whole other parallel life. Life with less fear; the life with more certainty. What the opposite of fear?  

Elisheva: Certainty?

Batya: Love. Love and certainty are the same. Think about that. When you love – truly love – you are not thinking about yourself. You are thinking about that other person. You love them so much. You care so much about your community; you care about a cause. Yourself concern disappears, that’s the remedy for fear. There are really only two channels here my friends. There is love and there is fear. We talked about positive fear and negative fear. There is some called positive fear, which is a form of love. The positive fear is called awe … “yirah” [Hebrew]. Unfortunately, in Hebrew a lot of times you see it written … for those of you who read Hebrew … I see it a lot mistranslated. It says in the Zohar … I am sure there are a lot of Kabbalah students here who read the Zohar. If not, then get one ASAP. It’s more important than the American Express card; don’t leave home without it. It says in the Zohar there is fear of Hashem, “yirah” Hashem, and it is translated as fear of the Creator. It’s not fear. A higher level of fear is awe. Awe is like jaw dropping, reverence. I don’t know if that even encapsulates the feeling of awe. There is only one time in my life that I actually felt awe. We won’t go into that, that’s another episode.

Elisheva: Another episode! Dangling carrots for our listerners!

Batya: [Laughs] Awe is … Can you imagine you are standing in front of the Grand Canyon or some gorgeous, overwhelming site of nature? There must be a Creator here! If you ever given birth or been with someone and witnessed the act of birth of a soul coming into this world. By the way, I have been on both sides of that midwifery thing. I have helped many, many women give birth. But I have also been helping people transition. It’s the same thing … sorry I am back at that topic again!

Elisheva: You don’t have to apologize.

Batya: It’s amazing! It’s that awe of – wow! There is something so much greater than our five senses here … incredible! When we give into fear, we are like – take the possibilities of our lives, the limitlessness – and we shrink it down to this tiny, weeny, little packet of nothing but fear. If you can’t do anything with fear what happens? It becomes anxiety and stress.

Elisheva: We are going to talk about that next week.

Batya: There you go! Ok!

Elisheva: Stay on the path Batya! Stay in your lane! The interesting thing … we always like to give deep, complex Kabbalistic secrets. The word in Hebrew “yirah”, when you change the letters spells the word “sight”. For me … we were just watching a class the Rav Berg gave about this. What happens is, when you see the bigger picture; when you have that long range vision; and you know – ok, what I am experiencing right now may be challenging, painful or difficult. But, in the long term, in the big picture, its leading me to a blessing.  

Batya:  That’s right.

Elisheva: That’s really where … again, that’s another level of developing certainty, seeing the light in everything. According to Kabbalah, the light is more present in darkness than it is in light.

Batya: Here is a really interesting thing. If you are a person who has a lot of fear … I’ll share with you what I do. When I find myself … When my opponent is playing with my head, and looking for my hot buttons and pressing with insecurity buttons you know … what’s going to happen? I stop and I take a deep breath. Really, what am I afraid of? What’s going to happen? Oh, David Ghiyam he didn’t show up today … so? Life goes on, with all due respect.

Elisheva: 1/3 more talking time for us!

Batya: Ha-ha, just saying! The things we are so busy being afraid of, by the way … Studies show at least 80% of the things, or more, that we are thinking about, are afraid of, never even happen! Sucks our energy! You know where that energy goes? It could be going to health. It could be going into creativity. It could be going into manifesting much more abundance, love, and greater relationships. Starting with ourselves, our higher self; with the creator force. It could be going into so many wonderful, positive, things. Stop aging. I said it! Drop the mic right there.

Elisheva: Don’t drop the mic … it’s not our mic!

Batya: It’s not my mic [Laughs]. I am afraid I may have to pay for it. And so what if I have to pay for it!

Elisheva: You bring up something really powerful and it’s a question I find myself asking students in one-on-one sessions. So that happens, then what?

Batya: Exactly, that’s a great strategy.

Elisheva: When you get through … you realize first of all, whatever is going, whatever you are worried about happening isn’t going to happen. And if it does you will handle it … you will make it!  

Batya: And it’s never as bad as you think.

Elisheva: That’s the second thing that I think is important to share with everyone. Fear is meant to be cured, not coped with.

Batya: That’s right, I love that.

Elisheva: That I think is one of the most important things, because a lot of people look at fear and say …

Batya: Fear is not an illness. I don’t know if cure … is that really the right word you want to use?

Elisheva: Healed? Transformed?

Batya: I would say resisted.

Elisheva: Resisted? Ok, meaning we are meant to work through it; we are not meant to live with it. There are a lot of people out there that say well fear keeps me healthy; fear keeps me safe.

Batya: I am going to even challenge that.

Elisheva: Go for it.

Batya: I am going to even challenge that we are meant to work through it. I don’t think so because it’s not even real … it’s an illusion.

Elisheva: What verb would you use?

Batya: It’s a trick of the opponent force to suck me into reactivity.

Elisheva: How do you get to the other side of the trick?

Batya: Restrict. I hate to throw myself under the bus, but it’s really good to through yourself under the bus. Because when you throw yourself under the bus … see the opponent is like a kidnapper.

Elisheva: By the way, if you are not familiar with that term, we talked about it and defined it a lot in last week’s episode, which was called Passion and Spirituality. The opponent is basically this construct. Batya, last year when you were on the show you said it was like VR – virtual reality suit when we come down to this world. Our body is like this virtual reality suit that comes with a narrator.

Batya: It’s like an accessory.

Elisheva: That narrator is always going to put you in a corner, create fear, create uncertainty, temp us to act out of lack … and the purpose is to overcome it. It’s not there to win. It’s not there to triumph. It’s there for us to say, “You know what … sit down, shut up! I’m in charge here!”

Batya: The opponent force acts like a kidnapper. It gets, … creeps in and kidnaps our certainty and our self-esteem. It plays with projections of what we think our reality is. It sucks our life force out.

Elisheva: You know why it works for people? In a way, what we are doing when we are afraid of some potential happening in the future – potential loss, failure or rejection – we are taking energy from the future.

Batya: Exactly, the opponent is stealing it from us. Don’t identify with the opponent. It’s one of the tricks of the opponent.

Elisheva: True that!

Batya: True that!

Elisheva: I like a visual. Imagine that you worried about some event you’ve got to get thru or put on; something is happening in the future. You have fears about it. What are you doing? Draining that event of energy. That’s really something to be worried about.

Batya: Because nothing is real. We are constructing our reality all the time. Nothing is real. I can only imagine somebody listening to this. “What the hell is she saying!?”

Elisheva: I think you need to explain the illusion. What people go through feels very real. How can it be an illusion?  

Batya: It feels real. The reason it feels real is because you keep identifying with your virtual reality suit, called your body consciousness. It’s not who you are. You are not your shoes! You wear your shoes, but you are not your shoes. We are not our body. Our bodies are these vehicles by which we navigate this world. We are pure consciousness. That’s who you are … pure consciousness. I encourage you, even if you don’t meditate, some people run away from that word meditation. Spend five minutes a day considering, what does it feel like if I was an immortal being of consciousness and I am wearing a virtual reality suit? Let your imagination go with you for a little bit there. The opponent force is not a bad force. We need that challenge so we can rule over this world. Go back to the handbook of humanity.

Elisheva: Or go back to the last show! If you are confused about what we are talking about, pause now, go back to last week’s show then rejoin us!  

Batya: We will meet you later!

Elisheva: The interesting thing is that what happens many times, as Batya was saying, when we resist the temptation to feed the opponent or the fears, we get to the other side of what we were afraid of and you realize it was all smoke and mirrors.

Batya: Exactly!

Elisheva: That’s what Batya means when she says illusion – smoke and mirrors. The universe is constantly giving us the opportunity to show our spiritual prowess. Eventually you get into a scenario where you are afraid of failing, or being vulnerable, losing something – and you say, “What do I have to lose?” Once you stand on the other side of that fear, you realize no one was out to get me! They had intended something else and I had movies and scenarios running thru my head which were all an illusion.

Batya: Let’s give some examples.

Elisheva: Let’s say for example you have these great ideas. You are in a career, profession you that love. You have been doing what you are doing for many years and you have great ideas, but you are afraid they will be rejected. By the way it could be in a relationship. You want to open your heart to the person you are dating, and you are afraid you are going to be rejected. Your family has this perception of who are and what you are about, and you want to be real and genuine with them, but you are afraid you they are going to reject who you really are. This happens when people study spirituality. They start to transform, and they are afraid to show their renewed, new version of themselves.

Batya: Let’s say you work for a company and they change the rules on you, and they change company policy, and you did not get the memo for whatever reason. So, what happens when something like that happens? Or your boss comes up with a new protocol and they didn’t tell you about it. What’s the first thing a lot of people think? Oh, they are going to fire me! They don’t love me. They don’t want me. Why didn’t I get the mem? Meanwhile you didn’t bother checking your email, but that’s beside the point. Then the opponent takes us for a ride – nobody likes me here; he or she never liked me from day one. We do these things all the time and we stop, pause or say what a pleasure. You have got to use the tools; they are so powerful. Say to yourself, “Is it true?” My husband didn’t bring me flowers this week, he doesn’t love me anymore. Is it true or did my opponent just start playing with my head? Is it true or is it not true? We don’t even know! When we don’t question … I encourage you to start questioning. I am feeling fear right now. Hmm … what is that about for me and how is my opponent playing with my head right now? This is my internal conversation. Another trick of the opponent by the way, is putting us in boxes – its either this or that. I saw your husband; he was at lunch at your favorite restaurant with some gorgeous blond! Oh my god, my marriage is over! Who is she? I bet you it was from that Christmas party three years ago. I knew something was up! A whole movie goes on and you find out it was his cousin Debbie. How many times have we fallen into that? Things like that. The funny part is you gotta laugh. When I think of fear, you know what I think of? I think of The Wizard of Oz … a classic story. She gets lost in Oz from Kansas and everybody is in awe of The Wizard. Everyone is afraid of The Wizard. Then we have the opponent, the Wicked Witch of the West. She is rattling her broom and screaming at her and everybody is afraid of the Wicked Witch. She finally gets to The Wizard and he has got puffs of smoke and this projection. I think of the opponent that way. Then we find out The Wizard is a scared little guy himself. When she pierces thru the illusion, and who helps her with that? The dog, pulls on the curtain, and what do we know about dogs? They are love; dogs are love. It’s such an amazing story, that’s why it’s such a classic story. Just like every Bible story is a story. It’s not about history. It’s about consciousness. The dog is filled with love and is not giving into any fear, whatsoever … and look it’s all an illusion. What does the Good Witch tell Dorothy? Let’s say the Good Witch is her soul as part of the metaphor. Everything you always wanted is within you. As long as we think we want something outside or there is something wrong with the system of life, we are opening the door to fear. That’s one of the indicators, like you said before, your level of spiritual growth. To the level we are afraid about anything is the level that we see how much more spiritual we need to be or grow on our path. There is no right or wrong or good or bad. I always like to warn against being a spiritual phony. “I can’t be afraid anymore because I listened to the podcast. It’s not spiritual to be fearful, so I am not going to be afraid.” Please don’t do that. Wherever we are on our path is exactly where we need to be, part of our process. Just judge yourself and measure yourself against who you were yesterday. If yesterday you were afraid to stand up to somebody, why are you afraid to stand up to that person? In what way did you give your power away to that person so that you are afraid? Another shameless plug … I truly believe in the class I gave recently, Spiritual Self Defense, how to spot a predator and how to avoid predatorial boundary violation.

Elisheva: Somebody is asking about that right now in the comments! Is it okay to distance ourselves from anybody who treats us badly?

Batya: Absolutely! The question you need to ask yourself is what was that about for me? I gave my power away to their opinion of me that is more important than my opinion of me! Think about what we do. The Rav Berg always used to say, the worst disease or addiction of all addictions is approval addiction.

Elisheva: We talk about that a lot on the show.

Batya: We take all of our power and give it away to an illusion. What do you care what that other person thinks? Are you going to see them again? Want to hear my embarrassing story? I have to tell this now. Did I tell you this story about what happened on Rosh Hashanah? I believe in throwing myself under the bus. Not because I don’t love myself, but because my opponent is playing with my head. One of the other ways the opponent plays with our head is we have to look good and not look bad. Isn’t that a fear?

Elisheva: That’s the rejection. I have to look good.

Batya: It’s approval addiction. I am so afraid of what they are going to say about me. Long story short, we had the privilege of being together during the High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah. 

Elisheva: Socially distanced …

Batya: Of course! Politically correct! I won’t even touch that one! We are walking down the street … there are a whole bunch of the teachers. It was a really great because it is very rare, we teachers get to be with each other on the holidays. Usually, we are busy with our students all the time, but because we are socially distancing it was a very small, limited group. A bunch of us were walking down the streets of Manhattan – we are going from the west side to the east side – and I was walking the back with one of the teachers. He is so fascinating and filled with knowledge. We are talking Zohar and it was an amazing, incredible day! I was so busy with myself; I am so happy with myself – what a manifester! I am feeling so good and all that. Meanwhile, while we are having this spiritual conversation (and I am feeling so righteous by the way), what I didn’t realize was that I was wearing panty hose and my dress was riding up … all the way up past my assets! We had just finished crossing Madison Avenue and I see a bunch of people across the street screaming BUTT, BUTT!

Elisheva: [Laughs] You are like, Batya, Batya!

Batya: At first, I thought they were saying Batya. But then I was thinking is there a cigarette butt? Luckily my husband happened to be standing in front of me and now behind me and he pulls my dress down. It was too late! I had already advertised by voluptuous assets all over Madison Avenue. Now that was such an incredible opportunity for the opponent to come right in there and just dump a whole bucket load of fear right on me. Especially when I was so high on pedestal. First, I was mortified, for about 60 seconds. Then I just started laughing. So, what! Everyone saw my butt, lucky them!

Elisheva: People pay money for that!

Batya: In another frame of mind, I could have been completely traumatized; devastated. I am never wearing panty hose again. Or I am going to wear a coat everywhere in case my dress rides up again. I encourage you, whatever it is you are afraid of, to look fear in the face and think about what is the story behind that fear? Who told you, you are not okay? Who told you, you are not worthy? Who told you, you need someone else’s approval? Who told you that? Because they lied! When you take back you power – whether its fear of not looking good; fear of people’s rejection … you know what’s more important than other people’s rejection? It’s your rejection of yourself! You know what’s more important than other people’s acceptance? Your acceptance of yourself! What do I think? What do I feel? How do I feel about it? That’s their opinion, now what is mine? When you do that … wow, yourself empowerment goes right out the roof!

Elisheva: You know the example of fear of rejection – whether it is from family, coworkers, anybody on the street looking at your butt – for most people the fear is actually of discomfort. The example of what someone said before, for example you are becoming spiritual and he was afraid to come out spiritually to his family, who was very religious. What is the fear there? You may have to have some very difficult conversations.

Batya: Been there, done that!

Elisheva: Many times, if we look deeper, then you find out you are not really afraid of the rejection, or the failure, or investing more energy. You are actually addicted to comfort. Your addiction to comfort has you afraid of being uncomfortable!

Batya: There are deeper levels of that too, I would say. For example, parents use it as a weapon in parenting. “You better do that or da da da da da.” That’s unfortunately happens a lot; it happens to us all the time.

Elisheva: Looking at those examples, where we are not going to our next level because, like you said before – number one fear is public speaking, number two is death and number three falls into the failure/ rejection category.

Batya: That’s because of abandonment. Take a child, when the parent threatens a child using the tool of fear. The child thinks my house is the world and my parents are God. God is abandoning me, and I can die and do my spiritual work or what I came here to do. There is so much fear of the unknown; death is the unknown. The beauty of this conversation … it’s such a great liberating conversation by the way because this is like that stick that we all beat ourselves up with. The opponent gives us a little drop of doubt and we take it over and boom, boom, boom all day long. We are busy reacting to our fears and trying to cope with our fears – which I disagree with coping with our fears. I say drop it, look it in the face. Like you said, it’s smoke and mirrors. There are healthy fears, just put that on the table. I am afraid to jump off the empire state building – that’s a good fear.

Elisheva: By the way, being afraid of the dentist, if it helps you take good care of your teeth – that’s awesome also. There are people that that kind of fear paralyzes them, so they don’t enjoy life. We have to be careful of that also.

Batya: We have to balance that. Don’t do crazy things. I saw this guy … we had an event once, and the person parked his car across a six-lane highway at night. He was wearing a black suit, on top of that. He is crossing in the middle of these cars rushing by. He is crossing this highway … my heart just jumped into my throat. I said, “This guy is a goner!” I said to him, “Why did you do such a crazy thing?” He says, “I have certainty.” Well, my friends, that’s not certainty! That’s stupidity! Certainty does not mean that life is going to go my way. Certainty mean that whatever shows up is exactly what need to happen for my benefit. If you go thru life thinking that everything is happening for my benefit, then what is there to be afraid of?

Elisheva: That’s the cap on the smoke and mirrors conversation. The universe most often does not need us to go thru the wall, but just needs to see our willingness. In the same way that people who seek discomfort are constantly uncomfortable. People who are willing to be uncomfortable don’t have to go through that same level of discomfort. The universe is going to give us what’s best for us in any given moment. Whether it’s painful or not is up to us and our perspective of it. My favorite example is if you have a birthday party or some celebration and you are worried you are going to have to speak. A lot of people get nervous if they are going to have to speak. How many times have you prepared for the speech and not had to give it? 

Batya: And then been relieved!

Elisheva: The point being, you said, “If I have to do it, I am going to do it. Here is my notecard with my five points I want to make.” And in the end, it doesn’t happen.

Batya: Let’s talk about public speaking. What is so frightening about public speaking?

Elisheva: I am a recovering fear of public speaking speaker. The listeners know this about me. I used to not be able to order food at a restaurant. I would tell whoever I was eating with what I wanted, and they would tell the waiters what I would like to order.

Batya: Why was that frightening?

Elisheva: To be honest with you, I think it was a fear of rejection. It may have been low self-worth; that my voice isn’t valuable enough to be heard by more than just me. I honestly don’t remember.  

Batya: Doesn’t it boil down to what do people think of me? Are they going to reject me? They are going to humiliate me. Humiliation, rejection, booing because we want other people’s approval.

Elisheva: I think there was also a degree of its better just to be quiet. Better not be heard, make waves, express your desires.

Batya: That is the reactive life strategy to a broken belief about oneself … I am not worthy. Who told us we are not worthy? You got to go back to the Garden of Eden again. There is that snake, there is that opponent, that says I am not worthy. I am not worthy of love, public speaking, my opinion doesn’t count. Let’s talk about how to use fear and not to let fear use you.

Elisheva: You have three minutes.

Batya: Now I am afraid of what I am going to say … Just kidding! Fear can be a motivator too. We need fear, I just want to put that on the table. We need fear just the way we need a trainer. If we are going to be a boxer or get better at a sport, we must have that push back force that gives us resistant force; that shows us where we need to improve in order to achieve our ultimate goal.

Elisheva: Fear is the mechanism that helps us get stronger certainty.  

Batya: The purpose of fear is to overcome fear. When we are confronted with fear, we can do two things. We can give into it and fall apart and become a slave to it; we can realize it is an opportunity to resist the illusion of whatever is going on. We can also use fear as a motivator. When the doctor says, “You better go change your diet and exercise. Because the way you are living your life right now, you are going to be dead in a year or two.” … that’s a wonderful motivator. I don’t want to die. I want to live healthy and have a great future. We can also use fear in that way. Not that it controls us, but that it can actually motivate us. The other thing about fear is that right behind the smoke and mirrors is the light. Just right behind, right beyond it.

Elisheva: I like the example of the brick wall. If you are afraid of what’s on the other side of the brick wall – if you find a way to climb over it or around it, you realize it was smoke and mirrors and you could have walked right thru it. You could have walked right thru it. I wasn’t real, but for whatever reason, you spent that time and energy strategizing how am I going to get around it, over it? When you could have just poked it with your finger and realized.

Batya: It is easier said than done. I just wanted to put that on the table. Everybody’s got their own level. Everyone’s got their own weak part. The opponent force is very smart and knows exactly where to go with each and every one of us to press that button – to kidnap our self-esteem and hold it ransom while he blackmails us. You can help yourself to overcome fear, you know – push your finger thru the smoke and mirror – is to tell on your opponent like I just did. Tell on your opponent. I said I threw myself under the bus, I really didn’t. I threw the opponent under the bus. The opponent says, “Hey you should be embarrassed.” When you don’t give your power away … wow, the possibilities are endless! I do encourage you – don’t let the opponent force play with your head. Keep on asking, what is this really all about? What are my opportunities? Where is my opponent trying to steal my life force energy through fear? You don’t have to buy into it. Don’t accept it. Question, question, question! Push back a little bit. Question, is this real? What happens if? So, what if it doesn’t happen? Very, very powerful tools. I encourage you to use them. First of all, breath and be grounded. When we are breathing and grounded then we can see things. When we don’t want something from someone else, then we can see things a lot more clearly.

Elisheva: This is just the beginning of a conversation we are going to continue the entire month of Scorpio. Next week we will be talking about phobias and anxiety; and what does it mean when a fear becomes paralyzing that we embody it and how to work thru that. We will also be talking about tools for overcoming fears from the Kabbalistic point of view. We have a lot of great stuff planned for you. Share the show, like us, comment, rate and review and we will see you next week on the Weekly Energy Boost.