When the Thunder Comes

What do you do when thunder comes into your life?  In other words, when something happens that might cause you to react in fearful ways?  Check out this episode for  an up close look of the spiritual practices of introspection and connection.

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Well hello out there, all of you wonderful folks in Fearlessly Feral Living Land. This is Reverend Karen coming at ya. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Today we are going to be talking about thunder and lightning. A little bit about fear too. The title of today's podcast is When the Thunder Comes. But first we're gonna do the introduction. Welcome again to Fearlessly Feral Living, broadcasting to you from the Woogie Ranch out here in the back 40 of northwestern Nevada, where I'm a half an hour away from the nearest gas station and the nearest grocery store. This is a podcast devoted to using new thought principles to ensure successful creative living. Fearlessly Feral Living is a focused ministry of centers for spiritual living and is devoted to the vision of a world in which everyone lives fearlessly feral. In other words, wild and free. We blend spirituality and psychology to work from the inside out to promote wild, successful, free living. The mission at Fearlessly Feral Living is to provide a strong and unshakable inner foundation that works for successful long-term living. And the purpose is activating inner self-awareness so we can live unlimited lives. I do this by talking about spiritual principles in practical ways so that they are applicable to everyday living. So here's my story on thunder. I was awakened in the middle of the night the other night to the biggest, loudest, most badass and impressive thunder and lightning show I've ever witnessed. And in this neck of the woods, we get a lot of thunder and lightning at this time of year, so that's saying something. I'm not sure when this particular show began because I was sleeping, but after it woke me up, I was up for about a half an hour or more just watching and listening to this awesome display of Mother Nature before the rain finally came. When I began to smell that heavenly smell that the high desert gets from a good rain, I fell back asleep. After witnessing all that drama, I can understand why our ancestors reacted the way they did to storms like this one. They didn't have the education we have access to. They didn't have the science that explains things like what the time lapse between lightning and thunder means. And when we don't have explanations for the things that frighten us, we make up stories about it. What the ancients had to say about thunder and lightning was that it came because the gods were angry. We've displeased them somehow and we must shape up. This is how dogma is born, guys. How many of us believe that in order well first of all, how many of us believe that we have to please God? I got news for you. I don't think it works that way. How many of us believe that in order to please God we have to behave in a certain way? Well, if we don't have to please God, then we don't have to behave in a certain way, except in a way that is our truth. More on that later. And if we don't behave in a certain way, we've made God angry, and that's why bad things happen to us. How many of us believe that? How many of us believe that if bad things happen, we deserved it because our thinking is wrong? Or we somehow invited it. These are all versions of the same thing. A belief in something that gives us justification to believe the things we do. I like to go a bit deeper with beliefs like this, and that's what this podcast is all about. And I want to address something. In Science of Mind, we talk about how our thinking creates our reality. And so it's really natural to think that if something bad happens in our lives, we thought it up. And we tend to go to that place of shame and blame and guilt behind it. And we're blaming ourselves. First of all, remove blame from your consciousness and your vocabulary. It's like should. Both of those things have no place in our lives if we want to live fearlessly feral. Secondly, that's not how this thing works. That thing, that thing that says our thoughts create our reality. Well, yes, they do, and there's more. And that simple statement is very superficial understanding of what this thing, this teaching called science of mind is all about. So there's a yes and to that. Anyway, let's go back to the thunder, shall we? Even if you're a modern person and you scientifically know what thunder and lightning is, when it's that close and that loud, and believe me, that night, oh my god, it was so loud and so close, it can still be a bit frightening. And when we are frightened, we are subject to being easily manipulated. Because we'll believe just about anything if it makes the thing we're afraid of go away. Thus we become victims of misinformation. So check out what you're believing in, guys. Research it carefully, because there's a lot of misinformation floating around these days, and it will take us down a path that is no good for us. Anyway, if we don't acknowledge our fear and accurately research what we are afraid of, we simply become cogs in someone else's wheel. We become machines for someone else who has an agenda. And because we have pride, we then proceed to defend ourselves, even when to others it's blatantly obvious that there's something wrong with this picture. But we dig in our heels and we defend our position, which was never ours to begin with. Because we adopted it in a heightened state of fear, and it worked for us at the time. And then we attack others who don't think as we do, and they retaliate, and then we have separation, us and them. Does this sound familiar? It's what's going on in our country right now, guys. We've been manipulated into this divisiveness that's going on. And I'd like to propose a different way of doing things. And if you've listened to me before, you know where I'm going to start. I'm going to start with each and every one of us. What if we could recognize our fear as fear? What if we were willing to do that? What if we could then acknowledge our fear and respond instead of react, but respond with a calm resolve to deal with the fear rather than react impulsively to it? Because reactions always get us into trouble. We say and do horrible things when reacting. What if we could pause and think about what is going on and maybe do some good solid research? Would we not then be able to better decide what, if anything, we needed to do about it? So when I woke up to that loud thunder, at first I didn't know what it was. Now, my default reaction when I don't know what something is is I kind of retreat. You know, fly or fight? I fly. So I waited. I nestled under the covers and listened for a few minutes, and then I realized it was a spectacular storm. It was so noisy and dramatic. Really, I knew I wouldn't be able to get to sleep until it quieted down, so I simpled settled in to simply enjoy it, and then I realized that the dogs were having an issue with this storm. One of them in particular, Annie. She was trembling and panting, the poor thing. The other one wasn't. I think he was just upset because his sister was upset. So I snuggled both of them in close, doing what I could to comfort Annie. And of course she's in fear and nothing I do is gonna comf comfort her. But I held on to her anyway and pet her and stroked her and s and crooned at her a little bit. Soon the thunder and lightning died down, the rain began and Annie stopped shaking. And then I fell back asleep. I knew what that storm was, see. Annie didn't, and in her fear, she had a physical reaction. And in psychological terms again, flight or fight. When she's in fear, she goes into flight mode. Thank God she doesn't go into flight mode. I've seen her do this many times when she's in fear. I see I saw her do this the first day I met her. She was in flight mode because she had been abused. She just wants to hide from it all. I wasn't afraid of the thunder and lightning, although I was in a heightened state of alertness. Because with all that lightning, the danger of fire is real. So I was just kind of paying attention. I only describe this because how we deal with fear in one thing is how we deal with fear in all things, big and small. So it becomes advantageous for us to become aware of what fear looks like and what it feels like within us, and what we do when we're in fear, and then what we can do to respond to that fear without harming ourselves or others. Self-knowledge such as this, guys, it's invaluable. It puts us in a position of empowerment instead of being victimized by our own fear and easily manipulated by others who take advantage of that fear. Self-reflection is a spiritual practice that is so powerful and so valuable in our lives. Find or create a practice of regular self-reflection so that you can become aware of what's going on inside of you. Discover what fear feels like inside of you. Learn how you respond to fear and react to fear. In this way, you can respond intelligently when something happens. So, if you're just beginning a practice of self-reflection, there's all sorts of processes. And there's more to self-reflection than just looking at our fear. But since we're talking about fear in this episode, I'm going to narrow it down to just fear. And you can actually apply these processes to other things, but we're going to do fear today. Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living, and I agree with him. Do this self-reflection work, guys. Find out what's true for you. Know yourself. Think about it. If we don't know ourselves, we're subject to what others think they know about us. That means we become victims to what they think we should be doing with our lives. If we don't know ourselves, we run the risk of all sorts of unpleasantness. For example, let's say we say yes when we really wanted to say no, or vice versa. We allow people to say or do things to us that we really don't appreciate. Yet we can't set boundaries because we don't know ourselves enough to know what we want instead. Because when you set a boundary, say, you know, we say, I don't want you to do that to me. I'd appreciate it if you did this instead. That's a boundary. I've got news for you. In setting boundaries, we need not only to vocalize what isn't acceptable to us, but we also need to ask for what we want. The people in our lives that we vocalize that to, they are then at choices to whether or not they want to honor those boundaries. And then we are likewise at choices to whether or not we want to honor our boundaries as well. What that means is if they choose not to honor the boundary, we then get to choose, okay, do they get to stay in my life or not? We get to honor our own boundaries. Again, that's our choice, not theirs. Here's another reason why knowing ourselves is so valuable. Because if we don't know who we are, we won't know what kind of people we want in our lives. I started a self-reflection practice when I was about 33 years old. Before that time, I was numb. I had two feelings, rage and nothing. I mean literally nothing. I shut down. If I wasn't shut down, I was range I was raging, literally. Today I can tell you most days what I'm feeling at any given moment, and there's a wide range of feelings there. A wide range. This means I'm at choice as to how I want to respond to what is going on. And I'll tell you, my self-reflection practice in the beginning, somebody gave me a fears, a feelings list. Yep, it was that elementary for me. I didn't know what feelings were. Somebody gave me a list. I had to start looking at those things and then looking at myself and going, oh, I might have some of that. I might have some of that. Okay. And I start getting some some ideas of what feelings felt like and looked like in my life. So if you're just starting out with this thing and you don't even know what you feel, get yourself a feelings list. Google it. Just Google feelings list. You'll get a zillion of them. Print one out or copy it and paste it on your electronic device. Don't waste the paper. And check it out. Look at that. Start there. So if we're in fear, we do really crazy stupid shit behind fear. Oh my god. We might not re recognize that we're in fear, but we've got the signs. Here's some of the signs. We're trying to control something or someone. That's a sign of fear. We're trying to manipulate someone. That's a sign of fear. We're micromanaging. But that's a sign of fear. We're anxious. That's a sign of fear. Can't breathe. That's a sign of fear. We don't trust. Do you get the picture of what fear looks like in our life? So start to pay attention to that kind of stuff. Realize when it's going on. And then it's pretty soon you'll get better at it and you'll realize when it's going on before you've done something stupid behind the fear. And then you can catch it. Because if you do something stupid behind the fear, then you've got to fix it later and it's a mess. Better to catch it before you do it. So we become aware of what we do when we're in fear, and then we can begin to do two things. First of all, we eliminate that fear by replacing it with something better. And then we change our behavior. So what does eliminating the fear look like? Well, try asking yourself what's the opposite of fear? A lot of people have a lot of different answers to this, and I don't know that there's any run wrong answer. It's what works for you. But I can tell you that many people say the opposite of fear is faith. If that's true for you, then you might want to then examine what do you have faith in? And then you might want to ask yourself such questions as does this thing that I have faith in keep me safe? Does it make me feel at peace? Does it help me navigate life? Because if what you have faith in isn't giving you peace and joy and happiness and a feeling of safety in the world and help you navigate life better, get something new to have faith in. It's as easy as that. So we replace that fear with something. Love is another thing you can replace the fear with. I use both. Pick what works for you. When we eliminate something from our life, so we've got fear, we've decided we want to eliminate it. You can't just willy-nilly eliminate it. Because nature abhors a vacuum. We get to decide what we replace that fear with, not anything else. We decide that. If we don't, guess what? It's going to be decided for us. And then we're victims again. Because whatever was is decided usually isn't going to fit us, and it's going to f make us feel like we've been taken advantage of or victimized. We create that. This is how we create victimhood in our life. So we decide what we're going to replace the fear with. And if you're like me and you live for 33 years with a fear-based consciousness, you gotta find something really big to do that. Really big. In the beginning, in addition to having a feelings list, because I didn't know what they were, I replaced fear with hope. Hope that things could get better in my life. Then I began to learn about the processes, process of the twelve steps, and I realized as I began working and doing and living those processes, that with every step I went through, some more of that fear went away and it got replaced with things like hope and trust and joy and things like that. Every step I worked, more things be begin to replace the fear that was going away. Honesty, courage, humbleness, personal responsibility, and discipline. So I used that process of the twelve steps in the beginning and I got all those wonderful things out of it. Again, I don't think it matters what process you use, just create one or find one. Today my processes are a little different. I don't need to tell you what they are. Start where you can and move from there. But eliminate that fear. Replace it with something bigger that works. And then we can go outward and change our behavior. We can stop doing the stuff that is destroying our lives. We can stop being dishonest, we can stop withholding of ourselves, we could stop being selfish. All of that stuff will go away if we do this work. I promise you, really. Last but not least, when working with fear, we have to connect. Now again, like fear and faith and love and all that other stuff. Connection, it doesn't matter what we connect to, as long as it helps us. I connect with a capitalized wisdom that's a part of me. I connect with an energy force that is everywhere present. I connect with what Ernest Holmes so delightfully called the stuff that is. So that's what I connect with. Find something you can connect with. And again, if it doesn't work for you, get something different because we're a choice here. When we begin to eliminate fear from our lives and replace it with things like love and compassion, we can also access that something greater. And that's when really cool things begin to happen because whatever that something greater is, it usually gets to be even greater than it ever was. And then wonderful things begin to happen. So when a huge, dramatic, loud thunder and lightning storm comes, and you live alone in the back 40 and you're suddenly awakened by it, don't you don't fear it if you've done this process. That's a metaphor now. When something huge and big happens in your life that's could feel threatening and life-changing, we don't need to fear that because we've got a process and a thing. We've got stuff in our lives that will help us navigate it successfully. That's what this whole thing is about. That's what this whole thing is about. And when we get to do that, then we get to appreciate and become grateful for what is happening in our life. Just like I was able to appreciate and be grateful and sit there in awe and watch this storm and hold my dogs and comfort them while it was happening. So, guys, that's what the spiritual practices of self-reflection and connection can do for you. They allow you to move through life with comfort and peace and grace and ease. And that's what fearlessly fair living is all about. So today I am knowing fearlessly fair living for me and for you. And again, fearlessly fair living is a focused ministry of Centers for Spiritual Living. Fully tax deductible. All of your donations and support is fully tax deductible because we are a 501c3. And you can support us in a number of different ways. You can support the podcast by going to Buzz Sprout and going to Fearlessly Feral Living. You can find us on Patreon, again, Fearlessly Feral Living at Patreon and become a member. You can do a one-time donation by going to our PayPal page. By the way, the PayPal page is in my personal name, Karen Lindsley. And all this information is in the show notes as well as on my website at fearlesslyferal.org. I thank you very much for listening, and I very much appreciate you.