“Fear is very subtle, and it can creep up gradually without our even noticing it. Looking back, I see that most of us are taught from a very young age to be afraid…”
Have you ever heard of Anita Moorjani? She is the author of the bestselling book, DYING TO BE ME, a fascinating and enlightening memoir about how she overcame cancer as a result of having a NDE (Near Death Experience).
“After fighting cancer (lymphoma), for almost four years, her body shut down - overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth...and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks - without a trace of cancer in her body.”
As a result of what Anita had learned through her NDE, her perspective on how she saw herself changed and she realized that she had the power to heal herself. And she did.
Anita believes that it was her overwhelming sense of fear that caused her cancer!
So what was she afraid of?
“Just about everything, including failing, being disliked, letting people down, and not being good enough. I also feared illness, cancer in particular, as well as the treatment (chemotherapy) for cancer. I was afraid of living, and I was terrified of dying…
After my best friend, Soni, and brother-in-law were both diagnosed with cancer, I started to develop a deep fear of the disease...I began to do everything that I could to keep from getting sick. However, the more I read about prevention, the more I felt I had a reason to be afraid. It seemed to me that everything caused cancer. I read about how pathogens in the environment and food were carcinogenic. Microwaves, using plastic containers for food, eating anything with preservatives, using mobile phones - they all seemed to cause cancer. The list just went on and on....
Soni died while on chemo and this just exacerbated my fears...
Slowly, I found myself terrified of both dying and living. It was almost as if I were being caged by my fears. My experiencing of life was getting smaller and smaller, because to me, the world was a menacing place. And then I was diagnosed with cancer.”
WOW!!! This was incredible! This was a revelation!
Was this a coincidence that Anita’s emotional state before and during her sickness was almost identical to mine? I felt the fear and anxiety that she was talking about. “I’m not good enough” was my mantra for my whole life! I also believed the world was a “menacing place”. Especially being outside in nature - where ticks and mosquitoes can bite you and possibly make you sick.
When I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease (MSIDS - Multi-Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome), I clearly remember being terrified of getting Lyme before I got sick. And after I got sick, I was desperate to get well, but terrified that I wouldn’t. I was totally frustrated, confused, depressed and most of all, scared. I truly believed that God was punishing me for some unknown reason. Read my blog post, I Think I’m Getting The Fear, that reveals my Lyme paranoia.
And, like Anita, I believe that this subtle thread of fear weaved throughout my thoughts from a young age.
Coincidentally, like Anita, my fears of death started as a child and were introduced to me through the teachings of the Catholic Church. Even though Anita was raised Hindu and I was Christian, our experiences are remarkably similar.
I was raised as a non-practicing Christian which means we celebrated Christmas and Easter but we didn’t go to church and I wasn’t baptized when I was a baby. (This is a long story!) Back then, the Catholic religion taught that if you weren’t baptized or went to church on Sundays, then you would go to hell. When my Catholic cousins or school mates found out that I wasn’t baptized, they told me what they were taught - I was going to HELL!! This was the beginning of my nightmares of Jesus dragging me to hell, and Jesus scolding and punishing me. And, you guessed it, I was terrified of Jesus, too!
I finally was baptized at the age of eleven and became Catholic. I know now that I was motivated to become Catholic by one thing and one thing only: fear. But becoming Catholic didn’t put me at ease or resolve my fears - especially my fear of death. I was baptized now - so this meant I was going to heaven. But this still didn’t comfort me. I was still afraid of the unknown. I was also afraid of winding up in limbo - the place between heaven and hell. Or worse yet, what if I stop existing altogether?
I admit this was a lot of deep thinking for an eleven year old! I believe my overwhelming fear of dying catapulted into other fears and anxieties and remained in my sub-conscious thoughts throughout my whole life. Could these thoughts manifest into sickness? Absolutely! I believe that my root cause to my illness was unresolved emotional trauma - in other words...FEAR!
Many many years later,when I started to release my fears and started to access the love within me, I began to heal.
In Chapter 15, Anita talks about why she got sick:
“While I was in that state of clarity in the other realm, I instinctively understood that I was dying because of all my fears. I wasn’t expressing my true self because my worries were preventing me from doing so. I understood that the cancer wasn’t a punishment or anything like that. It was just my own energy, manifesting as cancer because my fears weren’t allowing me to express myself as the magnificent force I was meant to be.
In that expansive state, I realized how harshly I’d treated myself and judged myself throughout my life. There was nobody punishing me. I finally understood that it was me I hadn’t forgiven, not other people. I was the one who was judging me, whom I’d forsaken, and whom I didn’t love enough. I saw myself as a beautiful child of the universe. Just the fact that I existed made me deserving of unconditional love. I realized that I didn’t need to do anything to deserve this - not pray, nor beg, nor anything else. I saw that I’d never loved myself, valued myself, or seen the beauty of my own soul. Although the unconditional magnificence was always there for me, it felt as though physical life had somehow filtered it out or even eroded it away.
This understanding made me realize that I no longer had anything to fear.”
Anita’s experience allowed her “true self to shine through and release her fears.”
But Anita’s experience was extraordinary and unique! So how can you release your fears without experiencing an NDE?
As for myself, I am still learning to re-condition my thoughts to serve me. This is a daily process. By being aware of my thoughts, reading books by spiritual teachers, using my intuition, practicing MFT (tapping) and getting professional help to release past trauma, I believe that I am on the road to a fulfilling and healthy life.
The therapies of Dr. Michael Gurevich, such as APN ( Applied Psycho-Neurobiology) and Neural Therapy, helped me to release fears. Read “I Think I’m Getting the Fear” and “ I Must Not Fear...Fear is the MInd-Killer” for my APN session with Dr. Gurevich. For more info on APN, read The Healing Crisis - for my APN session with Dr. Sharon Rasa.
Kathy Moser, a CranioSacral Therapist of Balanced Health and Healing, has helped me to connect to my Spiritual Self and disconnect my egoistic thoughts of fear, anger and most of all...seeing myself as a victim! Read CranioSacral Therapy and Somato Emotional Release for more info and my own CST session with Kathy.
I have learned that I have the power to heal myself. MFT( Mental Field Therapy), consisting of tapping on acupuncture points, is an effective way to change negative thought patterns of fear into new thoughts of love, gratitude and forgiveness. Whenever I feel stuck in a negative thought pattern, MFT is my first go to method for releasing unresolved patterns. Read more on MFT and how I worked through my fear of chronic sickness.
“I understood that the reason that I got sick and then chose to come back was to serve as an instrument for healing to take place in others - not just physical healing, but more important, emotional healing, since our feelings are actually what drive our physical reality...”
I agree with Anita. Our inner thoughts create our physical world. We are what we think and to quote Louise Hay - “your present thoughts create future experiences.” Our thoughts are energy and energy can be changed. Emotions are energy and emotions can be changed!
I am learning to change the fear...to love. ‘Cause that is what it is all about. When you change your thoughts - you change your world.
And loving thoughts…. create a loving world.
To be cont....
All quotes from the book, DYING TO BE ME, by Anita Moorjani.
© Danette C. Whelan 2015
