Getting Quiet with Barb ~ Listening to the Wisdom Within

When Fear Falls Away

• Barbara Robitaille

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The journey toward coming home to yourself begins with getting quiet, and grows when fear falls away. By observing our feelings with compassion, we learn to break free from the self-imposed prisons, creating a life in alignment with our souls. 

In this episode, I offer an effective technique for uncovering the truths that will set you free. 


Barb Robitaille:

Hi, I'm Barb Robitaille. I invite you to join me in the radical act of getting quiet. Every day, we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians. We have only to open up, only to discover what is already there. That's one of my favorite quotes by Henry Miller. When we get quiet, we open to knowing ourselves, the self that is no self, that part of us that is part of the greater mystery, unique in its beauty and truth, genuine, authentic, untouched by judgment and trauma, great and perfect, as is Holding so much to bring to the world. You're the missing piece of the greater puzzle. Your purpose is to bring your peace to the world, to create and love the world into being, to align with the musical score of the universe, the song of love.

Barb Robitaille:

My friend, Mary, had five kids. Brian the youngest had watched all his siblings going to school for years and he couldn't have been more excited to enter kindergarten. He drove Mary crazy the year before. He was constantly insisting he was ready now. So September rolled around and a very excited Brian headed off to school. School started on a Monday and on Friday morning of that same week Mary went into his room to wake him. He looked up at her and said "and just how much longer is this going to go on? Brian was quick to discover that maybe this whole school thing wasn't all he thought it was going to be and that maybe he didn't want to subscribe to the school program.

Barb Robitaille:

Brian's question to his mother is one we would do well to ask ourselves occasionally, as a way of checking in with ourselves, to see how we're really feeling, a way to look behind the curtain and see if we're fooling ourselves about our lives. And just how much longer is this toxic relationship going to go on, ignoring the truth, postponing my needs, pretending everything is okay? Hopefully we would feel that, yes, we want to keep going doing as we are. But sometimes the question can shine a light on what we might want to change, and I think it's important to know we can change aspects of our lives if, after careful thought and soul searching, we realize that we aren't living the life we'd hoped for and that we have a deep sense, even if we can't name it, that there is something more calling us to be to do.

Barb Robitaille:

I'm not talking about the inevitable disappointments or hard days, challenging times. I'm talking about chronic, foundational misalignment and disconnection from our spirit, our soul's core, where our doing in the world isn't supporting our being. To discover, if we've gone on autopilot, a steady treadmill of unquestioned routine that we mindlessly adapt to, having surrendered to a path that is zapping our life force, we need to get quiet in order to take stock of where we are in life right now. We need to get quiet to allow ourselves to sink into the truth of how we feel. This is the only way we can stay on track with the intention of living a genuine life aligned with our soul, with the song of love. The thing is, we don't always want to be honest with ourselves, facing the truth of how we feel and come face to face with the choices we've made and where those choices have led us can be daunting, uncomfortable, and we avoid it by staying busy, distracting ourselves with all matter of busyness, postponing the come to Jesus, meeting within fear holds us hostage and it's a self-imposed prison.

Barb Robitaille:

I'm going to date myself here, but years ago there was a television program called the Andy Griffith Show. Andy was the town sheriff of Mayberry, a sleepy small town, and Andy was pretty relaxed in his approach to enforcing the law. There was a character named Otis. Otis was the town drunk and he and Andy had an agreement. Otis would stumble into the jail cell after hours, let himself into one of the two cells. Here he would sleep till morning. When he would put his hand between the bars and reach for the key ring that was hanging on a nail between the two cells, he would unlock the cell door and head home. He put himself in the jail cell and he let himself out when he was ready, when he'd sobered up. Done his time. Isn't it time to set yourself free? You've served your sentence, you've done your time. Like Otis, you can free yourself from your self-imposed prison cell. The key is within your reach. At this point I feel it would be helpful to talk about a four-step process, or awareness building I use with my clients that helps us reach the key through the bars.

Barb Robitaille:

I call it dropping the F-bomb, summed up by fear, facts, freedom and faith. And here's how it works. Facing our fear is the first step. If we don't face our fear, then we stay stuck and it can cripple us from within. It's as though the heart adapts and adapts until there is a climate of not being able to feel We've shut ourselves down. We lose faith in ourselves, we don't trust ourselves anymore. The good news is that if we have the courage to commit to examine our fear, we feel lighter immediately. Our souls love the truth. So the minute we set out to face our fear, we feel better, even though nothing has changed about our situation. But the energy has begun to shift. I've learned to adopt a lens of compassion as we look into our fears. Adopting a lens of compassion supports us in becoming a sacred observer, in holding a neutral, non-judgmental view.

Barb Robitaille:

Be curious, become as detached as Detective Sergeant Joe Friday in Dragnet. "Just the facts, ma'am. This brings us naturally to the second step. You're looking only for the facts, not your idea of what's true, not what you wish were true or what you hope to be true? No, the absolute facts. So with each observation you ask yourself is that really true or is this a story I'm telling myself? What might be true is that you have a strong emotion and we want to look at that, because our emotions usually have a message for us. But be persistent in digging underneath the emotion to get to the heart or the truth of the matter. If we're curious, we can feel compassionate, without going down the rabbit hole of our old story and staying stuck in a motion that is ungrounded in reality. Uncovering the facts is like shining the flashlight under the bed, looking for the monster who your young child is certain is hiding there, only to discover it's a dusty old slipper or a long lost stuffed animal that your child is delighted to be reunited with. Freedom.

Barb Robitaille:

The third step is ours when we let fear fall away. Uncovering the facts leads us to let go of what we've been carrying, beliefs that we've adopted that weren't true for us, beliefs that led us in shaping our choices. We let go of what no longer serves us, what doesn't benefit us anymore. Oh, what a relief. We open to our creativity. The liberation we feel encourages us to nurture those tender shoots that we stifled. We move from fear to reuniting with a long lost friend, we take back our power, we take back creative control of our lives and finally, each time we uncover and reclaim a part of ourselves that we left behind and take back our power, we deepen our faith in ourselves, we begin to trust ourselves again, to trust our own information, to live in a place of possibility, to own our unique creativity and soul's expression, to take ownership of our own criterion for truth and beauty. The F-bomb From fear to facts, to freedom, to faith. And we begin again each day.

Barb Robitaille:

Let's take a moment and I'll be back to share a little bit more on how to shine a light on that monster under the bed. So here is the simple four step discernment process to support you in becoming so. Number one name the issue that has you feeling stuck or continues to spin in your mind and heart. Two name the fear, or fears that surrounds this issue for you. What are you afraid of? What emotion or emotions are you feeling? Three articulate the facts. What's really true, not what we imagine is true, based on emotions ungrounded in reality, or the story we've made up or our idea of the truth. Four allow yourself to rest in the freedom that is created when you face your fear and uncover the actual facts of an issue. When you feel more ease, you are able to tap into your intuition. With a fresh perspective and loving lens, creative, inspired solutions emerge.

Barb Robitaille:

What was once dreaded will often hold an element of excitement. What are some possible solutions or fresh ideas that you can imagine to address the issue? I'll give you a hint. Sometimes the best option is to do nothing, focus on what would be constructive and, if you'd like support and also be a sacred witness to others, you may want to visit my website and check out my pilgrimage into presence, the six month program I've designed to deepen your connection to the divine as an intimate experience, to the journey into the heart of presence, to be guided by the questioning, sharing, both as a group and in private sessions, with me, witnessing each other as we light the way forward, strengthening our relationship with ourselves, our intuition, our sacredness. Together we walk the quiet path and we begin in September. If you feel drawn to this possibility for yourself, you can find out more and also schedule a call with me to talk about the experience and answer any questions you might have by visiting my website, talkwithbarbcom. So until next time, let's live and lead from love.