When we hold onto fear and pain after something traumatic has passed, we do it as a sort of safety net. We falsely believe that if we constantly remind ourselves of all the terrible things that we didn’t see coming, we can avoid them. Not only does this not work, but it also makes you less efficient at responding to them if they do. Because most of the time, you’re so busy worrying about monsters in the closet, you forget to address the actual things that will erode you over time: your health, your relationships, your long-term vision, your finances, your thoughts.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

We can hardly begin to consider this problem unless it is clear that the craving for security is itself a pain and a contradiction, and that the more we pursue it, the more painful it becomes. This is true in whatever form security may be conceived. You want to be happy, to forget yourself, and yet the more you try to forget yourself, the more you remember the self you want to forget. You want to escape from pain, but the more you struggle to escape, the more you inflame the agony. You are afraid and want to be brave, but the effort to be brave is fear trying to run away from itself. You want peace of mind, but the attempt to pacify it is like trying to calm the waves with a flat-iron.

The only problem with sadness, desperation, anger, hopelessness, anxiety, anguish, misery, is that you want to get rid of them. That’s the only barrier. You will have to live with them. You cannot just escape. They are the very situation in which life has to integrate and grow. They are the challenges of life. Accept them. They are blessings in disguise. If you want to escape from them, if you somehow want to get rid of them, then a problem arises – because if you want to get rid of something you never look at it directly.

if the problem is fear, the answer is knowledge.

A great deal of fear is a result of just “not knowing.” We do not know what is involved in a new situation. We do not know whether we can deal with it. The sooner we learn what it entails, the sooner we can dissolve our fear.

When we’re in fear, we hold on to what we’ve got because we don’t trust that there’s more. We pinch off the energy, we’re scared to share, and we focus on, and create more of, the very thing we’re hoping to avoid, which is lack.

Rather than death or exile, if we feared fear itself, we would practise avoiding the things we believe to be bad. [20] As it is, in the classroom we’re fierce and fluent, quick to answer any little question on these topics, and adept at drawing the right conclusion.

We relive our worst moments over and over and over instead of letting them go, we pick at the emotional scabs and refuse to let the healing happen and the pain subside. We won’t rest until we’ve made sure someone else feels as badly as they’ve just made us feel. If I have to suffer my entire life I will make sure you see how you’ve wronged me! We cling to the resentments that take up our brain space, waste our time, spin us out, keep us angry and depressed and very often make us physically sick and sometimes even kill us because . . . um, why?

We worry because we feel unsafe, and want to be safe. Yet it is perfectly useless to say that we should not want to be safe. Calling a desire bad names doesn’t get rid of it. What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking it is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it. In other words, if we can really understand what we are looking for — that safety is isolation, and what we do to ourselves when we look for it — we shall see that we do not want it at all. No one has to tell you that you should not hold your breath for ten minutes. You know that you can’t do it, and that the attempt is most uncomfortable.

"Feel the fear, then let it go. Jump in and do it - whatever it is. If our instincts and path have led us there, it's where we need to be."
~The Language of Letting Go

Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.

Whenever I’m faced with a difficult decision, I ask myself: What would I do if I weren’t afraid of making a mistake, feeling rejected, looking foolish, or being alone? I know for sure that when you remove the fear, the answer you’ve been searching for comes into focus. And as you walk into what you fear, you should know for sure that your deepest struggle can, if you’re willing and open, produce your greatest strength.

Write down everything you fear in life.
Burn it.
Pour herbal oil with a sweet scent on the ashes.