Most of the things we’re afraid of never happen, but the fear can mess up our lives.
Learning to process it is crucial.
If preventive measures and rational explanations don’t quash your worries, work on the fear as an inner growth process.
The best way to do this is to go into it rather than run from it.
You can even do it with something as scary and taboo as death!
Death is our most basic angst, and therefore potentially our greatest teacher.
For millennia spiritual traditions have used death as the great advisor.
To deal with fear of death we have to break the taboo against focusing on it, which only serves to make us feel spooked and scared.
A death fear, unless based on an absolute, imminent threat, means your process is asking you to wake up to something new in your life.
Something in you needs to die, and something needs to be born—a way of being, an attitude, a way of relating, etc.
Right now, the whole world is being asked to change and grow in this way.
Try this (but don’t do it if you suffer from chronic depressed or anxious moods):
Lie down, close your eyes, and breathe slowly and deeply.
Imagine you die.
Follow your experience with your awareness. (Forget rationalizing about whether awareness carries on after death; this exercise is for processing your fear while you’re alive).
Imagine you’re a dead spirit.
Notice what you feel and see.
Is it freedom? Relief? Love? Power? Creativity? Just being? A Zen state? Playfulness and fun? God? Connection to the cosmos?
Ask yourself how you can bring this experience into your life.
Look back at your alive self and give yourself some sage advice about how you should live, what you need to change, and how you should do it.
There’s inherent purpose in processes that make us afraid; they’re meant to shock us out of our complacency, and wake us up to new awareness.
