Women's Empowerment Stories ...

Your Best Life Strategy
~ Ingrid Bacci

What is your best strategy for living well? There is and always has been only one true answer to this question. You have the very best chance of living at the top of your game, and with the greatest degree of happiness, if you make your primary goal each moment of each day learning how to let go of fear.

How pervasive is fear? It is everywhere in our lives where we do not experience profound peace and its corollary, joy. Fear is identical with feeling that anything in life - absolutely anything - controls you. Fear is the experiential expression of disempowerment.

Fear is not always conscious, since it can hide itself under many covers. We are conscious of fear when we feel nervous or anxious. But fear also masks itself in other feelings and attitudes. For example, fear is the source of anger. We have no cause to be angry if we aren't afraid. Fear also breeds competitiveness. We don't need to be competitive if we aren't afraid. Fear underlies the need to please, to be approved of, to be liked, and to be top dog. We don't need these if we are not afraid. Fear creates jealousy, resentment, disappointment and depression. We don't feel these feelings unless on some level we feel afraid of losing something. Fear creates boredom. We never feel bored if we are without fear, because then we are full.

All negative feelings come down to fear. And fear comes down to feeling that something outside you controls your fate, whether that is a person, a situation, an institution, or belief in a particular code of right and wrong.

Finally, all fear creates fearful consequences. We drive ourselves sick with fear, drive others away through our fear or seek to control them, and live in judgment and fear of judgment. All this breeds a dark world - the world we live in.

The only solution to fear is letting go of the addiction to feeling disempowered, to feeling that we are somehow lacking. Fear is, after all, an addiction. Addictions are habits that we engage in in order to feel better, but that actually make things worse. Whenever we feel fear - or anger, or need for approval, or disappointment, and so on - we try to control something or someone else or even ourselves, in order to feel better. But we can never win at this game. The more we try to control, the more we fear losing control. In the long run, fear breeds personal and social disaster.

To heal from fear is to refuse to listen to the reasons it gives us for feeling that way (Your ego will always find reasons for you to feel bad.) and to work instead on releasing ourselves from the feeling of fear in this moment. Let's say I notice that I am anxious about meeting a deadline. I work on releasing myself from my fear by breathing, relaxing tight muscles, or visualizing something peaceful. This shifts me slightly out of the fear. Then I approach my tasks from that slightly calmer place. And I repeat this process again and again, working on letting go of fear while I live my life. Over time, the fear simply dissolves, and I recognize it was really an illusion.

Let's say I am in an argument with someone. I notice the tension in my body, a tension that is all about fear, and I focus on observing and letting go of that tension as much as I can. Then I speak to the other person from a place of greater calm and less fear. This makes my life more pleasant as well as my communications more effective.

Moment by moment practice of releasing the internal experience of fear and cultivating the internal experience of peace is a life journey that can bring extraordinary results, if only you practice. You too can become truly peaceful in this chaotic world. You too can own an ocean of peace and joy in the midst of a life full of uncertainty. You too can let go of the illusion of fear.

~ Ingrid Bacci

Reprinted with permission. To learn more about effortless living, visit Ingrid’s website at http://www.ingridbacci.com