Has there ever been a time in your life -- a period of real self-enriching growth -- that wasn't connected to a risk you either willingly undertook or -- to a time of inner trial where there was no other choice for you but to take a risk? Of course, there's only one answer to this question, and it's one recognized as being true wherever you may ask it in the world: The prize of greater wisdom and inner strength always goes to those who take, in one way or another, the risk.

Taking conscious risks can be such a powerful catalyst for inner change. A conscious risk involves making a choice to do what’s true, in spite of what that choice may cost you. On the other side of any conscious risk is the realization that who you really are has nothing to fear. But, in order to make this self-liberating discovery, you must willingly face those fears, whatever they may be. 

What do you do when you face difficulties in your life? 

It’s a question all of us need to answer because we all face them. It’s not a matter of if you’ll face difficulties, but when.

You can’t avoid these circumstances, situations, or conditions. They will come to you at some point in your life. Today, I’d like to talk about different scenarios you might face with a few case studies, including my own. 

More than that, though, I want to offer you some tools to face these challenges and come out the other side stronger than when you began. These dark times come into your life, but they don’t need to keep you from your dreams or from living into your purpose.

The deepest parts of you know that if freedom from fear was as easy as "creating a new reality" for yourself, then you would already be the fearless person you know in your heart that you're meant to be. It's just not that easy...which brings us to a great liberating truth, an insight you must prove to yourself before you can know its power to dismantle any fear. When it comes to the fearless life, the Divine gives nothing freely . . . save to those who freely give themselves to discovering the truth about their own fearless Self. The good news is that this supreme confidence and calm already lives within you, needing only your realization of its unshakable presence to empower you with the fearlessness you seek.

The following seven laws are like a golden invitation to your own coronation. To "open" each one, and receive its royal instruction about how to live free of fear, you need do only one thing: ask sincerely that you might understand its secret message and then, when the answer comes, welcome those insights as long lost Friends...for that is exactly what they are. They will do the rest for you.

Why do you fear connecting to others? Have you noticed that your life is more enjoyable when you stay in your comfort zone and never put yourself out there? I know you might be wondering how to overcome your fear of connecting to others. 

I'm here to help! First, let's start by defining this fear and what it means for your life.

Fear is a natural human emotion that can protect us from danger or hurt. It helps us avoid situations where we feel vulnerable and unsafe, but sometimes it tends to go hand in hand with anxiety.

Fear can be defined as a "powerful emotion that makes you afraid or anxious about something harmful, unpleasant, or threatening." When we feel fear, our heart rate increases and adrenaline flows through our bodies. This feeling in the body is a natural response to danger. 

The problem with fear is when it becomes an overused reaction to situations. Because of this, many people have developed post-traumatic stress disorder. They are being exposed to too many trauma-related stimuli without time to process their feelings about them. 

I've Been Thinking...

Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays. When my kids were young, I loved dressing up with them and going trick-or-treating. I enjoyed watching the looks of amazement on their faces as they ran from house to house in our neighborhood. They alternated between looks of terror when they encountered scary decorations, and then looks of thrill beyond belief when they scored a Kit Kat or Reese's peanut butter cup. 

Fear and joy all in one night! That’s what Halloween represented for our family.

I thought about that this week as we approached this holiday. I experienced great joy a few days ago as I got to watch my granddaughter dress up as a daisy for her very first Halloween. It was beyond adorable. I felt so much joy getting to share this experience with her.

Breaking free from negative thinking isn’t about techniques. It’s a revolution. You are literally going to walk in a different world. Because negative thinking, is just a mistaken idea about what’s possible and who you really are. And you have no idea what this kind of cruel perspective is costing you.

You may be unconsciously sabotaging your own life with negative thinking and fear. Your thoughts can create anxiety, frustration, and pain. A negative mindset can weaken your marriage, career, health, or more.

But likewise, you can shift into well-being and possibility. You can restore your connection to peace, sanity and even infinite creativity.

How? Here are five ways I’ve used with clients to stop negative thinking:

We are living in intense times.

It’s easy to let external circumstances hijack our ability to be present and instead live in fear.

During these times, you, yourself, or you might have friends, who seem to be stuck in fear-based thinking and living.

This can be very challenging, especially if you’re someone who is committed to living with an open heart and boldly.

I was recently asked the question, ‘How do I help my friends around me who seem stuck living in fear?’ So I decided to share my response in a video blog. I hope you’ll find it valuable and share it with all of those love.

What is behind the fear of unwanted change? The uninvestigated mind says that I’m going to sustain a loss: "he's going away," "the business is slipping," etc. The fear of loss is connected in our mind with the image of what had previously given us the feeling of succeeding. So now here’s reality, and it's pretty different than our image of what should be, and we’d rather live with the image than look at reality. But the fact of the matter is, we can see clearly now that something "bad" has happened to us and there is this sense of loss.

Why is that loss so traumatic to us? Because that loss, if it's real, means that we’re going to have to literally reorient ourselves to life. That's why we don't want the loss. It’s because the present relationship that we have imagined defines us in our world. We are defined by our relationships, and if a relationship starts to change, the way we’re defined in life and the way we know ourselves starts to change. And we don't want that. We don't want anything we have imagined to be real to show us that it's not, because the super-structure of our self as it stands is rooted in this imagined life from which we derive these feelings of security as we imagine ourselves in it.

If you were empowered to change life -- in order to give yourself whatever is always good and true for you to know and have -- would you ever make any other kind of changes? For example, would you fear unexpected events, such as a loss of any kind? No! Even though they may come as a surprise, you already know that they herald a new beginning of something better.

Would you resist the passage of time and the slow changes that grow out of it like branches on a tree? No! You already know that patience and willingness to persist through what is being revealed -- even if momentarily bitter -- will bring only sweeter fruits.

In this life, we have one of two choices when it comes to painful events, past or present. We can either go on hating and fearing what we think life has done to us (or others), and let these negative reactions create our experience for us ... or we can learn to use these same dark reactions to free ourselves from them. But just wanting to learn the truth isn't enough; we have to be willing to see the truth if we want its liberating touch.

Hating the past and blaming it for the pain we're in now seems to justify our continuing suffering. But whatever justifies blame and hatred is, itself, a part of – in league with – these negative states. 

We must recognize the almost endless cycle of pressure, anxiety, anger, and regret that always appears with the promise that if we follow some branch of negativity, it will lead us back to the source of understanding where we’ll be free at last. In fact, that branch we’re tempted to follow belongs to something that can never complete itself, and that requires our energy to sustain it.

Instead of trying to complete the moment through what anxiety, fear, or anger tell us to do, we must be completely present to those thoughts, completely present to that pain – a pain that promises freedom in a time to come, but is really the continuation of the consciousness that is pain itself because it lives apart from the true Vine and the true life. 

Instead of trying to untie all this experience that seems to be the product of unwanted conditions we try to control, our real task is to sever our relationship on the spot with anything in us that wants to continue trying to free itself in time.

This may sound impossible. We’re concerned about what will happen to us if we don’t serve that master.  We feel stress and anxiety, we wonder what will happen if we don’t do again what has never freed us in the past, but hope may work this time.