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Don't let fear stop you from living

Question: "My life feels so empty and I feel so numb as to how to live my life. I feel afraid of everything. I went through a divorce 3 years ago, and just recently remarried, but I am so unsure of everything in my life. How do I start to feel again, and enjoy my life? I hope you can give me some words of encouragement!"

Psychic Advice : You are not alone - unfortunately, many people go through life feeling numb, empty and afraid. Sometimes it is triggered by a great trauma, such as your divorce, which can cause a person to withdraw and retreat from life in order to feel safe. For some people, it is a series of traumas, disappointments, or painful life experiences that cause them to become numb and lifeless. Going through life in this way is not really living, it is simply existing and biding one's time on Earth, waiting for the pain to be over or for life itself to end.

When we face painful experiences such as loss, abuse, abandonment, rejection, failure, grief, etc., the body produces chemicals that numb our emotions so we can survive the heartbreak. Over time, these chemicals will normally wear off, and the pain will surface little by little so it can be healed. The heart may never fully mend, and will have scars from past pain, but it will seek to love again and function fully again. However, the mind can become so afraid of re-experiencing pain that it seeks every means necessary in order to maintain and sustain numbness. This fear of pain can eventually develop into a fear of everything, as you have been experiencing.

The mind becomes afraid to risk doing anything, being with anyone, or feeling anything because it does not want to risk feeling pain, hurt, disappointment, or rejection again. The mind becomes convinced that it is safer and better not to feel anything at all, so it will seek out drugs (prescription or otherwise), alcohol, food, shopping, sex, television, or any other addiction that will create an altered state so it can avoid feeling and being aware of what the heart is feeling. This is the major cause of all addictions.

The real problem is that stopping feeling pain also stops the feeling of joy. Numbness is not selective, it numbs out all feelings of love, joy, even peace. This is another reason for addiction, because a person who feels numb is using another substance or activity in order to feel "high" and get a sense of enjoyment, but it does not last. What goes up must come down under these circumstances, so a person who is down will seek to feel high again, and that promotes the cycle of addiction. Even running can become addictive, as people seek to have the "runner's high" caused by the body's production of serotonin.

Some people can even be addicted to negativity, or to depression itself. This may seem strange, but depression also produces chemicals in the body that create a numbness, which can become addictive. Depression can also create an illusion of control, because as long as you are already down, you don't have far to fall when faced with life's disappointments and challenges, whereas if you allow yourself to feel joy and something bad happens, the fall can feel life shattering. In some ways, it can feel safer to be in a perpetually depressed state, because when you expect to be disappointed, life will meet your expectations, so you can't be disappointed!

Humans are designed to feel emotions deeply, but many people are afraid to feel because they have encountered profound pain in the past, sometimes repeatedly, and they fear that they cannot cope with such pain again. We cannot cut out our heart, but we can cut ourselves off from it. However, when you stop the flow of emotion, or e-motion, life can come to a standstill. Everything in life must flow, and when you stop the flow of emotion, you also stop the flow of true abundance and prosperity, because you put a wall up that can stop everything from coming into your life. Under these circumstances, even if you manage to create abundance and prosperity, the protective numbness will not allow you to enjoy it.

Stopping emotions can also eventually affect the heart in physical ways, leading to heart disease and heart attack, or other types of blockages to the heart or other vital organs. Physical ailments usually begin on the mental and emotional plane before manifesting in the physical body. If we do not heal it on one level, we will still have to deal with it on another level. We cannot escape from our pain, so it is best to do whatever is necessary to heal it on the emotional, mental and spiritual levels before it becomes physical pain.

What may be even more serious is that intuition is intrinsically connected to our emotions. If you stop yourself from feeling, then you prevent yourself from receiving your own intuitive guidance, which is designed to keep you safe from harm at all times. This intuitive guidance can serve to protect you from pain by giving you internal messages and "feelings" of who and what you can trust. Your "gut feelings" and internal warning system can alert you to things you need to pay attention to and what to do about it, but you must be able and willing to feel it, trust it and follow it.

If you were to be honest with yourself, you probably had some feelings of warning in the past before you encountered your painful experiences. Those intuitive feelings help us to make the best choices for ourselves. The first thing you must be willing to do is to trust yourself again, and to trust in your own inner wisdom, knowing and guidance to keep you safe, and to lead you to your joy, if you will allow it.

What has happened to you is that you no longer trust life: you do not trust other people or life experiences because you are afraid that they will cause you pain, and you do not trust yourself to keep you safe or protect yourself from pain. Energetically speaking, what you are doing is withdrawing your light and retreating in fear, but this makes you vulnerable to pain and attack, which are the very things that you fear, causing you to withdraw even further. This is how people eventually become agoraphobic and reclusive.

The key is to wake up each day and visualize a bubble of light shining around your heart, protecting and healing your heart from all past, present and future pain. Then visualize that there is a bubble of light surrounding your body, which is your force-field of protection that is shining all around you. Whenever you feel afraid, shine this light even brighter instead of withdrawing it. Let this light be thick and strong around you, and state an affirmation that says: "This Light that surrounds me is the Light of Love, and love is the strongest force in all the Universe. This Light is a powerfully protective light, which allows all that is love, light, joy and prosperity to enter my space, and protects me from all else for all time. Get used to surrounding yourself with this light as a warm blanket of safety and protection, visualizing it first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and whenever you want to feel more safe, protected and secure.

Now that you are safe and protected in the Light, you must learn to trust yourself and your intuitive guidance again so it can guide you to your safety and to your joy. Visualize that there is a magnificent Sun above you, which is the Source of all Love, Light, Wisdom and Healing. Imagine that there is a beam of light pouring down from this Sun and entering the top of your head. As you breathe, allow this magnificent light to pour down into your heart, healing your heart, and filling it with Divine Love, joy, peace, and courage. Now see this light filling your whole body, and filling it so full that it overflows all around you, surrounding you in the Divine Light of protection. Allow this beam of Light to pour down infinitely from your Source above you, giving you all the Love, guidance, healing and wisdom that you want and need to live a joyful, peaceful and fulfilling life. (An expanded version of this meditation is available on my guided meditation recording "The Magic of Intuition")

This will begin the process of awakening for you to feel and trust in life again. Give yourself credit for having enough trust to marry again, because many people who have been through the pain of divorce will not allow themselves to love again. Now, the challenge is for you to really trust in that love, and trust in your partner. Allow yourself to always speak your truth with Love, which will honor you and protect you by creating boundaries of self-love, rather than walls of fear. Speaking your truth is the most loving thing that you can do for yourself and for those you love, because it allows you to give yourself and them the gift of your true self, and the gift of your unconditional love. Boundaries provide a shield that allows love to flow in and out, whereas walls do not allow love in or out. You must protect yourself by honoring yourself, and by listening to and following your inner wisdom, feelings, and guidance. This will keep you safe.

You must also rediscover what gives you joy. You may be finding that you are no longer the person you used to be - you have transformed, so the things you used to enjoy may not give you the same joy or satisfaction that they once did. Now you must explore and discover the joys of life for yourself anew.

One of the greatest ways to conquer fear is to face it head on. As people grow older, their fears tend to increase as they become more and more aware of their own mortality, and as they shy away from potential pain. The only way to overcome this is to take reasonable risks that allow life to be thrilling again.

Start by making a list of things that you have always wanted to do, things you've wanted to learn and to try, then start doing them. You and your family can also create an activity box where everyone puts in ideas of things they really want to do, and each week you draw one of these activities to do together the following weekend. Every reasonable request must be honored! Be willing to try anything once, and you will feel the thrill of living and enjoying life again. When you are numb, you deaden your experience of life, so you are really a walking dead person. It is time to come alive again, and make the most of enjoying all that you have with your present partner.

Pain is designed to be a growth experience that evolves the soul, and life without pain is not much of a stretch for the heart and soul. Living will always have pain involved, but you decide to what degree it affects your life. Only you can choose to let pain stop your life. You know that you have survived pain in the past, and honoring that will give you more strength and courage to face life in the present and the future. The past only repeats itself when we did not learn the lesson or receive the gift that it presented to us the first time. As soon as you receive the gift and wisdom from that experience, you break the pattern and are free create whatever you choose to experience for yourself.

If you keep choosing depression because it feels somehow safe and familiar, then you will continue to attract circumstances that will support you in your depression. If you choose to live life with joy and passion, and commit to that, then that will be your predominant experience of life, even when you experience pain and challenges. Ultimately, the choice is yours. You can harness the strength and courage that you have gained from the past to really live life, or you can let the pain of the past cause you to fear repeating the patterns of pain in the future, which will create exactly that.

The only thing that can fill the emptiness that you feel is gratitude for all that you have, and all that you allow yourself to receive. Emptiness comes from giving without receiving, and from having the castle walls defending you from possible attack to the point that no supplies can get in - eventually causing starvation. You must start giving yourself what you need, and allowing yourself to ask for and receive what you need from others. You must also start to fill yourself full with meaningful and joyful work and activities, so that you may feel fulfilled. The fact that you were willing to ask this question means that you are reaching out for life and asking for what you need. Now you must be willing to receive it, and let life and love in so you can really enjoy living it.

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