Arondaho Speaks III

Fear and Adrenaline

Arondoho

Steve Ryals

Arondoho is here, Dear Ones, to shower you with love and life’s abundance. You truly live in a miraculous world filled with life’s blessings and the exquisite extravagance of Unconditional Love.  And yet this world appears frightening to many. As faithful readers of this magazine, you have no doubt wrestled with your own fears from time to time.  You may even be searching for ways to alleviate your fears, as they can become debilitating if you give in to them.  When your species bows to the tyranny of fear, the result is the planetary situation you face today.

Your culture has set you up to fail, of course.  This world wants you to be afraid, even needs you to live in fear.  Political might is backed by the very real threat of force, from police to military.  The popular media incessantly and hysterically floods the senses with stories and rumors of war, serial killers and rapists, diseases including HIV and cancer and the threat du jour.  Why?  Because it’s so effective in maintaining the status quo of fear-based consciousness.  Those in power commonly wish to remain so.

As long as the population is kept in fear, it’s easy to control them.  We believe it’s important to remember that those in power are also run by fear, in this case the fear that they will lose their power and will be held accountable for their abuse of that power.  Allow your compassionate hearts to open and you will see the power mongers for who they really are, children of God/Goddess who are lost in fear.

We remind you of these truths so that we may be on the same page, so to speak, as we proceed with our discussion on fear and adrenaline.  You see, fear is encoded in your DNA.  Your brain researchers have recently traced five primal emotions to the limbic system of your brain.  The limbic system is one of the oldest parts of your brain, and operates below the threshold of your consciousness.  The five primal emotions are: rage (fight), panic (flight), separation anxiety, lust and seeking.

It’s crucial to gaining some measure of control or mastery over your fear that you understand the makeup of your bodies.  You are hardwired for these five primal emotions, which can also be thought of as instincts.  Your bodies are hardwired to survive, at all costs, at least long enough to reproduce and continue the species.  For the purposes of our discussion, we’ll focus here on rage and panic.  Rage is a useful emotion if your body’s life is threatened (you, being a Divine spark of God/Goddess are, of course, immortal).  Panic can be useful if you need to move very, very quickly out of harm’s way.  What rage and panic have in common is a powerful surge of the adrenaline hormone, which in the blink of an eye can energize the body so that it can either fight or take flight.

Please, Dear Ones, understand here that this adrenaline surge takes only a split second.  There is no thinking, no consideration at all in this process, at least not as you might imagine.  When the threat is immediate, your body’s reaction must also be immediate.  Of course there are still times when you find yourself in need of extraditing your body from the path of that pesky bus.  However, let’s be clear that for most of you, most of the time, personal physical danger at the level of death or even injury is not a common experience.  What is it, then, that you fear?

Simply put, you are taught to fear the loss of perceived status. Losing a job, losing face, divorce, losing a family member, shame, humiliation, growing older, all of these and more have in common the idea that these experiences should be feared and avoided at all costs.  At the same time, your culture is profoundly hooked, or addicted to, fear, or more precisely to the adrenaline rush that fear brings.  Slasher flicks, extreme sports, politics, speeding and much more all serve to keep the adrenaline pumping.  If you are to truly gain mastery over fear, it’s imperative that you come to a deep appreciation of the siren call of adrenaline.

We trust that you can now see that the concept of fear is in many ways a smokescreen for the deeper truth of your addiction to adrenaline.  Knowledge is power, and what you do not understand rules you with an iron fist.  When you try to wrestle with your fears without understanding the connection to adrenaline, you are doomed to failure.  Your brain’s limbic system is hardwired to be afraid, and your body is hardwired to respond to adrenaline.  That rush of adrenaline is what the junkie is searching for.  It’s also what the athlete hungers for, and the soldier, and every single person who manifests virtually any type of risky behavior.

And we do not wish to make adrenaline rushes wrong.  As we keep saying, your bodies are hardwired for them.  They can be avoided only by avoiding life.  It’s being controlled by your fears that you wish to transform.  And it’s easier than you think, because fear is simply excitement without breath.  The next time you find yourself afraid (and remember, Dear Ones, we’re not referring here to fear caused by immanent danger to the body, but rather various non-physically threatening experiences you’ve been taught to fear), simply do one thing, breathe.  Breathe consciously into your belly as you become aware that you’ve been holding your breath or breathing very shallowly.  As you breathe, notice your posture.  It will probably be contracted or hunched over, as though you were trying to protect your vital organs, which is simply a normal part of the body’s fear response.  Allow your body to straighten, shoulders back, chin up, and continue breathing deeply.  The fear will subside, as it can only reign supreme when you are contracted and holding your breath.  As your breathing deepens and slows, remember that you are a Divine Soul having an earthly experience, that it is natural for your body to feel fear (it’s hardwired, remember?) and that all of humanity is profoundly addicted to the adrenaline rush of fear.  And if you find yourself in fear anyhow, please, Dear Ones, only love yourselves, including your fear.  Judging yourself for feeling fear only makes the fear, and ensuing judgement, more harsh.

Once your breathing has slowed and you have remembered your Divinity, you are once again at choice.  Do you still wish to experience the adrenaline rush?  Wonderful!  That’s one of the multitude of gifts of being embodied.  Only now you can choose the adrenaline rush of excitement rather than that of fear.  You say you have nothing to be excited about?  We humbly beg to differ.  To start with there is the miracle of life itself.  That you live at all is truly a miracle.  And you have friends and family who you love, and who love you.  We trust that you care for yourselves enough to have a warm, dry place to sleep, and that you eat well.  Do you feel profound gratitude for being?  If not, we highly recommend that you find something or someone in your life to be grateful for.  As you continue to breathe slowly and deeply, be grateful for your breath.  Be grateful for the loving words of wisdom that come pouring throughout these pages month after month.  Be grateful for the sun, and wind, and the flowers, and sunsets.

Now that you understand the nature of fear, that you are all hard-wired for fight or flight and for adrenaline, you are at choice.  Not about getting out of the way of that bus, your body will do that for you before you have time to think about it.  But the next time you’re feeling afraid and there’s no bus in sight, simply remember to breathe.  Breathe, straighten up, and become present to the moment.  When you are present, you’re at choice.  We’ll illustrate with an example.  Let’s say your boss begins acting even weirder than usual.  You interpret your boss’s weirdness as meaning that your job is in jeopardy.  You become filled with fear at the possibility that you may lose your position.  As you remember our words and begin to breathe into your fear of losing your job, you suddenly realize that you don’t really like it anyway.  Your boss doesn’t appreciate you, co-workers blame you for their shortcomings, and you know deep inside you are capable of far more than your position has been requiring of you.  In the blink of an eye you shift from fear to excitement.  There are plenty of jobs for those willing to work.  There are endless opportunities for those will to tap into their limitless creative potential.  The possibilities are literally infinite.

So what changed?  Your breath, Dear Ones, your breath and your perspective.  What had been seen only as a source of fear suddenly becomes an opportunity.  And that is the final idea we want to share with you at this time.  Not only is fear excitement without breath, it is also a gift.  Fear is an opportunity, a doorway into another world, but only if you are willing to breathe into your fear and listen to what it has to tell you.  Your Higher Self is always sending you messages of hope and promise, but your culture has unconsciously subverted these messages into impulses of fear.  The trick is to breathe into your fear and listen for the still, small voice inside, the One endlessly calling you to your highest potential.

 We wish you peace….