Fear Loses Its Magic

🎙️ Fear Loses Its Magic

Finding Peace Before Fear Finds You

Fear has a strange way of growing.

The more attention we give it, the bigger it becomes. The stories in our minds get louder, the possibilities become darker, and before long we're reacting to monsters that may not even exist.

In this episode, Tombo Baldwin explores one of the greatest obstacles to living your Best Reality Now: fear.

Using the familiar idea from Monsters, Inc. as a launching point, he explains how fear often feeds on our attention while peace quietly restores our perspective. Along the way, he revisits several tools from the growing YUP Toolbox—including Shift State, The Way Back Method, Speak Life, The Chalkboard Method, Your Built-In Know, and Keep It or Trash It—showing how they all work together to help us move from anxiety toward clarity. 

This isn't about pretending fear doesn't exist.

It's about recognizing that fear only has as much power as we continue to give it.

When you choose peace...
 fear begins to lose its magic.

Because courage isn't the absence of fear.

It's learning where to place your attention.

YUP. I GOT YOU.

🎙️ Listen to the full episode, connect, and explore more:

🔗 https://linktr.ee/tombobaldwin

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Oh, welcome to the Yup Podcast. Hey, today we're gonna add more tools to your toolbox. We're gonna go a little throwback here, and we're gonna reference a movie called Monsters Inc. And yes, today's podcast is all about fear and how to conquer it. Let's have some of that intro music. Oh, yeah, we're in my closet here in the podcasting studio. Oh, I think a couple weeks ago before I got super busy, I tried to add a new background in this new program I'm using to record called the script, and it's proving to be a really handy tool, although I haven't completely mastered it, and it was taking so much computer memory to add that background. I haven't got a chance to go back and look and see if it's even done. But if it is, it could be really cool. If it isn't, you get to see my clothes and possibly some of my wife's, but only my clothes. Hey, I want to welcome you. Thank you for listening. If you're listening, you are a different kind of person. You are a person that is interested in changing your reality to the best that it can be now, and you're not afraid of going inside and looking at things. So if nobody's told you today, this week, this month, or even this year, I'm so proud of you. You're doing a great job, and I appreciate all you those are listening. The audience is growing. I so appreciate it. I do it because I want to get the word out. I'm living a better reality every day, and I'm living my best reality when I focus moment to moment. Like the rest of you, sometimes I stumble a little bit, and I've had some stumbling. I have to confess, as I'm moving into this best reality now, I deal with down days more than I ever have, but I'm making so much progress and healing inside so holy. When I really sit back and I take a look, I'm just like, this is a miracle. But if you haven't, and you're a new listener, listen to any of my other podcasts, and I do have a cheat sheet here, it helps me sometimes. Most of this, 99% of this is all just flow state. It is stuff I've thought about and it just comes out, and so it is incredibly hard for me to reproduce it because there's no script, there's kind of an outline up here that I go by, but there's been some great tools that I've covered, and I just printed something out. It's like feeling anxious, listen to shift state. Haunted by the past, Wayback Method is a great podcast for you. Negative self-talk, speak life podcast. Distracted. I have a great podcast that talks about the trash bins. You gotta find that one. Confused by direction, your divine built-in no. Living from old beliefs, the chalkboard method podcast, Afraid to be seeing the doorway. Just some of the tools that I've covered, and you gotta know this stuff comes from the divine realm. This is stuff that I access by getting in that place of peace and staying in that place of peace. And the other thing that I discovered, and we're gonna get into fear, don't worry. I I just want to talk about a few things here, is that as I've struggled, I found one of the most energetic, energizing things for when I get down. I just have to take a moment and I look at the beauty around me. This is usually happening while I'm driving because first thing in the morning I assess how I am, and I always wake up and when I think about it, I'm like, this is a great day. And it's amazing just how those few words can affect your day. I don't always think about it because, like you, I'm learning this stuff, I'm practicing this stuff, and I don't always do it. I know, Tom, you're preaching it. I'm trying, I'm trying, I really am. But when I'm on my drive and I realize I do some metacognition, reflect on myself, looking in as a third person, and I'm like, dude, you're really down today. You really could go home and go back to bed, couldn't you? I really could. I just start looking at the trees, and I live in Montana. I live in an absolutely gorgeous place, and so this is easy for me, but you can find beauty any place, and if you're married, gosh, one of the best ways, if your wife's a morning person, just get a little peek of those boobies. That man, that just washes it's all kinds. If you're a woman, I don't know. The penis isn't that attractive, and so this really is only advice for men in the booby aspect of it. But looking at these trees, my wife is not a morning person, by the way, so that would be a nighttime endeavor for me. Uh, too much information. Adrian's like, Tom, I can't believe you're talking. Oh, they're awesome. And no, you're not welcome to see them because they're for me and me alone, and all the doctors that when you go through a diagnosis like breast cancer, privacy is not necessarily a thing anymore. Anyway, as Joe Biden would say, looking at the trees and looking at the mountains and looking at landscapes around, and just letting it wash over me, not analyzing, not drawing conclusions about it. And it's just like letting it wash over me does such an amazing thing to restore me. So that's your tidbit for today. If you're like me, and some days are more of a struggle, just find those things that are beautiful. Some of you made me music where you just listen to it and it washes over you, and it just do it, do it. Why do we withhold good things from ourselves? Stop doing that. Things that are free, things that are easy, things that are already in your world. Why, why do we withhold it? That's why I keep asking myself. Like yesterday, Adrian, I went to work in the morning, worked till about one because it's awful hot in Montana. And some of you are gonna laugh. You're like, what's hot? It's 95. It's really hot. Can't harm me. I know we're not accustomed to that here. So kudos to you. For me, that's really hot. So I went to work really early and worked, and then came home and we putted a little bit, and we went to a happy hour and had some appetizers and some cocktails, which was wonderful. And we came home at five, and I sat down in my chair to cool off a bit, and I fell asleep, and I woke up and it was only like 20 minutes, and I was like, I'm gonna lay down. And it's like there was a part of me, that old man, that prison state that said, You can't lay down. And then the new part of me, the best reality now, says, Why the heck not? What do you have going on? Lay down. So I laid down at five o'clock and I slept all freaking night till seven this morning, and so I feel really good. So stop withholding things from yourself when you have in your mind, and there's a choice, tell that old prison state, say, I'm not in prison anymore. I can't take a break. You know you're a hard worker, you know that you probably work too much, and you may have to give yourself permission to take a break. So let's just do it right now. You repeat after me, I give myself permission to take a break. All right, so let's get into fear, and it was interesting as I was thinking about fear, and I was thinking, how do you conquer fear? And I was looking at how I conquered fear in my own life, and immediately came to mind, why is there so much fear in the world? Like, why is the news filled with fear? There's things we should be fearful about, gas prices raising, the wars here and there, the terrorist attacks, racism, new taxes, all these things that we need to be afraid of. Okay, I know every day there's as many good things that happen as bad things. Why is fear headline over and over again in the world? This is just speculation, but I think Monsters Inc. has some real truth to it. There's something out there, and I'm not saying it's a city of monsters because it could be if we expand all possibilities, it could be, but there's something that needs the energy of fear because why else would it be so prevalent? And why is it so orchestrated in movies and television? It's hard to find shows that just don't have some aspect of fear to worry about. Dramas that depict real life, worry about your car payment, worry about paying for the new repair to the car, worried about house payments, all these things that makes it makes us anxious and fearful to where our minds are just, you know what our minds were made to do? And you may disagree, but the older I get, the more I'm convinced. Our minds were made to imagine because our imagination feeds our reality and creates our lives. And if we can be distracted and we can be fearful, then we are living somebody else's life. We are feeding somebody else's energy or something. I don't know if it's a somebody, maybe it's somebody's, maybe it's something's. But the movie Monsters Inc. was an amazing analogy to this, where these monsters scare these children and they get their screams and it feeds their energy and they live regular lives. But the in the perception of what's going on, they need this. The truth really was that they really didn't need it, and there was a much more powerful energy source, but they needed the screams that came from fear to feed this reality until some little innocent girl broke the mold. Okay, you are a mold breaker, you are a code breaker, and that's what we're gonna talk about in this podcast. Because when fear comes in, it can do a couple things, and it often does them at the same time, even though it doesn't seem possible. When fear comes in, it can paralyze us to where we do nothing. But also when fear comes in, when you hear about let's say somebody's going through a really stressful situation and they haven't told anybody, but somehow you knew and you fear for the outcome because you love these people or this person very much, and you want to do something. Fear causes us to take steps, and I because the intention is good here, and I don't want to do any condemnation here, it's not about condemnation, and I've very much been in this place, and I've had a very hard time letting go of this because I am really good at this, but to step in and begin to adjust and add input in the situation, even though you were never asking, you were never privy to the situation, and so fear causes us. All right, forgive me, I'm just gonna say it because it's also true of myself, and I've done this so much, and I've made situations so much worse. Step in, manipulate, and control the situation. Fear really calls to that dark psychology that's within many of us, if not all of us, I would say all of us, because all of us have a bit of dysfunction, and so we've used dark psychology like control, manipulation, guilt, shame, gaslighting, different things like that to cause situations to change, and sometimes they change a little bit for the better, but usually they end up exploding eventually because dark psychology it helps us survive in the moment, but it doesn't serve us long term, and it eventually it will explode. And so, how do we deal with fear in a healthy way? It's very difficult because for me, I've lived most of my life. I became really good at control and manipulation, saying the right words, like bringing peace to a situation, but it was all through oh a wounded, dysfunctional person trying to get the pain to stop, versus a person that really wanted to bring healing and wholeness to a situation. And there there's fear in other things, and fear can be healthy because like when you see a rattlesnake and it's a little ways away, and all of a sudden you get fear, your body says move. But if you're really close to a rattlesnake and you have a nose and fear says move, but the right step is to not move, or to move very slowly and to back away. So in these situations with fear, this is where peace comes in, and this is where we really need to be able to grab onto peace very quickly because peace allows us to access the kingdom of heaven, the divine realm, the source realm, that place where there's information, understanding, answers. And if we can be in a place of peace, then we can get there. So my answer to fear is to take action because fear often paralyzes and Tom, you just said to not take action, to not move. Okay, the action that you're taking is in that moment, because you're all anxious, you're all riled up inside, everything's going on, right? The adrenaline's pumping, you're just you're feeling it all, right? You are, you know that feeling when fear comes in, anxiousness, stress, worry, and all of a sudden all the solutions up here, blah blah and you're predicting possibilities, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's all kinds of action going on. Or busyness, let's call it busyness, let's not call it action. Action, in my definition, is a very determined, defined step. You're choosing to stop. You're just like, what? Because when fear comes in, yeah, you maybe are paralyzed, like where you can't necessarily. I I'm thinking of a time when my daughter Elizabeth wanted to go cliff jumping, and she was up there and she was with her brothers, and she really wanted to jump, but her body was paralyzed. But her mind said, I really want to do this. So she told one of her brothers, push me off because I can't jump. And they did, because they're brothers, right? And she was like, That was fun. I'm not gonna do it again. But she's I literally couldn't jump. But this was still going on up there, and she did take in action by speaking words that she really did. Fear was telling her, and her rational responses were no. But she also knows that her brothers have jumped off of this repeatedly, and that it was safe, and many other people had, and she wasn't gonna get hers, so she took that step using all that information and spoke those words. And so when fear comes in, we're paralyzed, but this is still going on. All this up here is churning and it's telling us all the things, and the worst thing about this is the predicting of outcomes because fear helps us to predict the very best outcomes, right? No, absolutely not. Fear does not fear helps us predict all the absolute worst outcomes, and so when we get and we take the action to stop, we take the action to stop, and we say peace, and we do those things that we know with inside us that bring peace, and you have the time to do this, you can do this in a moment, you can even say, I'm stopping, and I'm choosing peace right now, and you just listen. And if you need it in a second or a split second, it will come. If you have time, you can linger there and let it come because it may be a more entangled situation, and it doesn't have to be solved right in this instant. You actually have some time in that place of peace, and so you can engage some beauty, you can engage some beautiful music, you can look at something beautiful, things that bring you pleasure. Maybe it's artwork, and you spend some time doing some artwork, and you begin to get in that flow in that peaceful state where you can access the divine realm, and in that moment of taking action to stop, right? Taking action to stop, you see the answer, and then even if the answer is scary and difficult, you've taken that piece, you've sought with a sober mind, and you know it's not a panic mind, and you know that answer is the right answer, and even though it may be scary, you can take that action to move forward to that, and so it's a whole different scenario. We're stepping back, like when we take action, it isn't rushing in because when we rush in, oftentimes it's without all the information, and it's with a rash thought, it's like this can quick fix it. And if you're like me and you've done that, and let's just say we're talking personal situations, we're not necessarily talking finances or the stress of life, a personal situation where you're got in a fight with your spouse, and you're like, Okay, this is the right action. I'm just gonna go tell them all the ways that they're wrong, and it'll be fine. Yep. Yep, you just took the gasoline can in and boom, you did it. I'm rattling my papers here. I have a little outline. So the tool is take the action to stop, get a hold of peace, and then listen and expect a divine, because the divine will come in. And let me just give you a personal example. I just recently had a a situation where I had to talk to someone and they were just having a hard time, and they were ready to give up, and someone very close to me, and I was just got a moment, stopped, listened, and I've more often than not I'm in peace. And so I was in peace, and I just knew it's like encouragement. This person has all they need. They have the strength, they have the fortitude, they just need some bolstering. And what I did and I know the situation it's not an instant fix, but it's working. When I was a painter, and I painted for a number of years, it's kind of when I was in school for the School of Architecture, I painted during the summers because it made so much money and it was a great way and it was easy. My dad was a painter, so he was able to help me get started with some tools and some different things so I could start painting and earning income in the summers instead of working a minimum wage job. So would paint houses in the summer and led to me painting full-time and then transitioning into a construction company. But in those early years, I had some houses where I had to paint, like I had a rent a 40-foot ladder, and those of you that have never rented a 40-foot extension ladder, when it's not extended, it's 20 feet. Now I'm six feet tall, and with my armspan, that gives me a little more. But you cannot get to the middle point of a 40-foot ladder, a 20-foot, it's 40-foot extended, but 20 feet long to stand it up against the side of the house. And when I rented this, I had no idea. And it took me like a good 10 or 15 minutes to get this up on the house because I had a set of ladder up on the house that I could climb to set the ladder that I was trying to put up, the 40-foot extension ladder, scoot it up the side of the house so I could extend it up to the place I needed to go, which was probably around 40 feet, maybe a little higher, because I had to get I was up to the 40-foot plus a little bit, maybe another foot or two. No, I was not on the top rung like my dad would have been hanging on to the E painting the house. No, I that is not me. My dad, when he was alive, totally could have been in the circus because he loved that kind of stuff, and I just had to close my eyes and say, Dad, I can't do that. Anyway, another Joe Biden moment there, brought to you by Tombo Baldwin. It is a nice transition, other than it's a Joe Biden known transition. And if you like Joe Biden, I I don't really like any politicians out. I love them all as people, but I think they're all, I don't know. We're not gonna go there because that's someplace, that's not a place of peace. So I climb up the when I've been on 24-foot extension ladders. That that was pretty commonplace for me. And I was like, oh, this will be a piece. I get up there, I'm scared out of my mind. I'm up there and I have the paintbrush and the bucket. The bucket's on a ladder hook, so it's hooked onto the ladder, and I have that paint, and I am shaking. If you're watching the YouTube video, you can see my I am shaking. I cannot paint. And so the action that I took, and this is probably one of the first places that I learned it. I put the paintbrush back in the bucket, and I just sat up there and I started taking deep breaths until I can get to a place of peace. In out. And it probably took a minute or two, and I got to that place, and I could paint. And I went back down the ladder, I moved the ladder over, went up, same thing happened. I'm shaking, I'm looking down, I'm predicting all the ways that I can die. And I'm not a light guy, I've never been a light guy. At my lightest, I was 180 pounds. Most of the time, I'm around 250, 300, although we're going down right now. You like that? I was reading it. And so I was just like, dude, there's no way you would survive. And then I tell myself, there's no way you can survive if you're 180 pounds. There's no way you can survive if you're 90. Dude, just realize that no matter what happens, if you fall or this ladder tips, you're gonna die. Those are some great predictions when you're trying to get a job done, you're trying to be efficient, and you're on top of this 40-foot ladder, and your brain's feeding you all this wonderful predictions about death and how you'll die and splat, and then who's gonna find you because nobody's home. Is Adrian gonna end up showing up and because she you didn't show up, or she calls the homeowner, and they're like, go out and uh you know, they see my body parts flattered all over. The second time I did the same thing, it took less, and it took less. Tell I became so comfortable with that 40-foot ladder. I could whiz around that house, I could go up and down that ladder, and I'm sure I lost weight going up and down that ladder because you get your steps in a day when you're going up and down a 40-foot ladder all the time and you're moving it two feet and you're painting a huge house. But what did I access at that point? I access peace, and I let when you're in a state and your physiology is freaking out, like you're literally you're hyperventilating, and you're just maybe the situation isn't even physical, but it's one related to your world that's so intense that it has impacted your physiology, and literally you can't breathe. You need it even more to grab hold of that peace, get to that place of peace, and then the divine, the kingdom of heaven, will speak. And the kingdom of heaven is the place where miracles come from, and sometimes when we go there, when we get to that place of peace, and sometimes the that in itself is a big deal when we get to that place of peace, and then we get to that place of peace, and the divine will speak, it's gonna be okay, and then fear's like, how, and the divine's like, it doesn't matter, you'll be okay, and you accept the divine, the kingdom of heaven, the source, you accept it, and then oftentimes there are steps, you get more answers, and you get more answers. And I've had this happen over and over again. I've had it happen with financial things, accounts that I couldn't pay, I didn't have the money, and I kept getting to a place of peace, and I get to a place, and I was like, okay, this is what I need, I need to do. I need to write an honest letter that says, I can't afford this, I want to pay it, I own up to the debt, not making excuses, which was a big thing to me for me for a while because I was a controller and you never admit to mistakes. And being honest and genuine and trying to work towards a solution because I know it was genuinely my debt, and I wasn't trying to gaslight or create some other kind of false scenario to have them second guess. I was being honest, and so as I was in that place of peace, I was like, this is what you do, and that was a fearful thing. But after being in that sober mind, getting to a place of peace, sober mind, accessing divine, taking that next step. Long story short, that debt was forgiven. That's a miracle. It was like five or six thousand dollars for giving. I've seen that kind of stuff time and time again. Oftentimes when we access and when we think about the divine, we think in divine miracles are bam like that. They're often not, they're often step by step, because the divine wants us to be whole and healed. So it uses these things as it's bringing us the miracle step by step. I just want leave you with, I mean, look at my outline here. It's actually helpful. I did this for me. It's just kind of bullet points as I go along, and it's not even about the subject, it's kind of keeping some coherence to the podcast. So I do different things. And so one of the things I just want to leave you with is fear is conquered by action which accesses peace, which brings answers. The challenge to you is take the action to access peace and see what happens. You're gonna begin to see the miraculous come about. You're gonna begin to feel the divine realm come into your world, and this change is subtle because our brains we've lived in this monstrous ink-ish world of fear, and you're gonna begin to be the one that brings peace, and you're gonna begin the one that breaks the code, you're gonna begin to see some things that wow, it's not like what they said. Huh. I'm gonna leave you with that, uh. The world is not as you think it is. It is so much more. My friends, as always, and I say this truly. I love you. Thank you for listening. You're amazing. Those of you that want a bumper sticker, send me, you should be able to access it through any podcast. Just send me a note that says, Hey, I love a bumper sticker. You don't even have to write me a review. I have them sitting around here. I'd love to see on bumpers. I'll just send you one. Send me some of that fan mail that just says, Hey, I listen, I appreciate you, dude. And I get you a bumper sticker. And as always, I got you. I do, I got you.