If you have tried to change your life but still struggle with getting results, you may be trying to create with fear. You have unlimited potential but there are fears that interfere with your power.
Podcast Episode 59: Overcoming Fear and Living Your True Potential
In this episode, we help you understand how to create from your true nature.
- Learn the four basic human fears (fear of loss of money, fear of loss of love, fear of loss of health, and fear of loss of life)
- Why we falsely believe we are the ego and feel separate from our real self
- The reason why you keep repeating patterns and seeing the same results
- How to burst the bubble of misperception and start creating as if your success was inevitable
TRANSCRIPT
Debi: Episode number 59.
Dr. Rob: All right, we’re finally at close to 60.
Debi: Close to 60, 0 to 60. Today’s my favorite topic. It’s called Fear. Well, it’s not a laughing matter, but it’s something that we should take a little more lightly than we have in our lives. Fear is something that we’re all familiar with. We’re born with it, and today we’re going to talk about how you can overcome fear. The four basic human fears, if you didn’t know what they were, and how to really create with power based on the wisdom of Eastern philosophy.
Dr. Rob: Yes, I think the way to approach it is this really cool model that Patanjali, the great Yogi puts forth. He says, “Essentially, we all start off in ignorance. Not in a bad way.” Meaning it’s just that we don’t know our true nature. We don’t know what we had to do. We start off as questioning where are we? What are we doing here? All that.
Debi: We basically learn about the world through the people around us.
Dr. Rob: Absolutely, and then this questioning, this observing the world around us creates the sense of I, as separate from the world.
Debi: The I maker.
Dr. Rob: Yes, the ego in psychology. Now, this ego again, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s caught up in this ignorance. It doesn’t know who it is in essence. We don’t know who we are when we’re starting out in this world.
Debi: When you say who we really are, is limitless potential. We’re connected to everything that we can imagine and things that we even aren’t conscious of knowing. The idea that we are more than just the ego that we’re a spiritual being.
Dr. Rob: Yes, so we have this ignorance, this lack of wisdom about our nature. Then we have the sense of isolation as ego, as ourselves are separate from this incredible universe. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough or complicated enough, then we’re subject to conditioning because of our aversion and attachment. Meaning we like certain things, we want certain things, and we are repelled by other things. That push and pull then of the environment, has a conditioning effect on us, on that I that we are caught up in. That’s the ground floor where everyone experiences.
Debi: Regardless of your childhood, good or bad people, where you were born into, rich family, poor family, middle-class family, everyone deals with this.
Dr. Rob: Yes. That’s the ground of our existence, in essence, our biological existence. Then we get into what prevents us from knowing that deeper knowledge about ourselves. Some people talk about blocks, but well the Kleshas translates as hindrances. What are the hindrances to our awakening? One of them is that fear. The basic fear that we have of losing our life, and we cling to it. We think if something happens to this little ego, I, I’m done for.
Debi: Well, you had said to me, and you mentioned this many times, “As long as you have a body, you’re going to have an ego. You’re going to see yourself physically separate from everything else in the world, and the material or what appears to be material world. It’ll feel separate and that we have our perspective, is coming from within the body that we are trying to protect.” We’re trying to look good. We’re trying to feel good. We’re trying to survive.
We have four basic fears that the ego creates, and everyone has this. Some people have it at certain degrees than others, and it really doesn’t matter, again, what your background is. We all have it. The first fear is the loss of money in a modern world. We had it in ancient times, but it wasn’t money we used. It was bartering or resources or-
Dr. Rob: Yes, I think in ancient times, it would translate as the loss of face. It’s in some cultures, it’s still very prevalent where-
Debi: A status.
Dr. Rob: Yes, status. You don’t want to lose face, because it takes you down a few notches on the ladder.
Debi: Yes, that’s interesting that you say that because a lot of people think they’re really worried about money. When they’re trying to attract money or make more money or be successful, that they think it’s the money that they want, but what they’re really looking for is to look good and have a higher status, and have people respect them or not look bad upon them. Money has a lot entangled in it. The loss of money is one of them.
Dr. Rob: Big time.
Debi: The second one is the loss of health. Again, preserving the body. The weight loss industry is a billion, multi-billion dollar industry. There are so many people that want to have, look good again from a physical standpoint. Also there’s people that suffer from ill health, cancer, a disease, also mental health. We have a lot of this fear of that loss of health.
Dr. Rob: Yes, and the context of this, what it’s implying is that these fears then, prevent us from seeing our true nature, because we’re caught up in them and we think, “Well, if I could only avoid this fear, then I will be fine.”
Debi: Let’s clear our fear.
Dr. Rob: Yes, and so we spend all our psychological, and emotional energy trying to avoid these things.
Debi: There’s another one, there’s the loss of love.
Dr. Rob: Fear of the loss.
Debi: Fear of loss of love. We are afraid of people leaving us, withdrawal of love. That’s how our parents typically disciplined us as children, is they were stern. Even as a baby, they would give us a look that a baby could read that, “You did a bad thing. You’re a bad child.” We want that approval of that authority figure in the home. Then we end up going in relationships. It’s the same thing. Even if someone dies. That loss that that other person gave us something that we didn’t have. With that withdrawal, they’re taking away of what love is.
Then the last one ultimately is the loss of health– I mean life, which is related to health, or dying. The fear of death.
Dr. Rob: Yes, it’s the clinging to the I again. It goes back at full circle. It goes back to the only reason that we have these fears, is because we believe we are the ego, the I. To lose the I for the, let’s say for the mind that is an ignorance of its true nature, is equal to death. It clings to the illusions that the I creates, of separateness, of the world is out there and love, money. Health is out there. I need to chase after it.
Debi: Let’s just review the four fears. The four basic fears are the fear of the loss of money, the fear of the loss of health, the fear of the loss of love, and the fear of the loss of life. I think health and life overlap a little, but I think they are different because there’s a different mechanism that wants us to be healthy and look good and stay young, versus that mechanism that wants based clearly to just not die. To really put ourselves in danger. These fears are on us. If we are, like you said, if we think we’re the ego, they will always be in charge. Why are these fears in the way of us getting what we want?
Dr. Rob: Yes, I think because they lead us in a downward spiral. If you think, “If I’m starting off with ignorance, that is, not knowing my true nature, and then I’m caught up in this delusion that I am separate from everything, which is the I, then the conditioning has its power over me.” In other words, the things that happen to me, are going to determine how I’m going to behave. What am I going to do? How I’m going to defend myself and see the world. That’s a downward spiral into deeper levels of ignorance in a sense. I’m not
understanding, I’m not gaining knowledge, awareness of who I am. The true nature of my mind and the true nature of reality.
Debi: Well, it’s like that idea that our parents had these same fears, and they all have the ignorance. Most parents didn’t grow up in an ashram and with enlightenment, so we have a parent that teaches us this is the way the world is too. We, like you said, the parent doesn’t have to directly say these things. It’s implied. We learn through just watching them and watching how they respond. Then we basically follow their lead of, this is just how to function in the world. Then we end up repeating the fears in our mind, and really repeating the same actions and the way they work.
This is a very common phrase, is they’re playing not to lose, so they’re not playing to win. You’re playing to survive, and the ego’s job is really survival. It’s not, “Let’s be born in this world and create something really outrageous and incredible that breaks the boundaries of life. Go through fear and do something different.” No, the ego’s tendency is to, “How can I make the least amount of waves, and get fed every day and look good, and not make a fool of myself and survive the day?”
I would think our ancestors probably that’s all they thought about, was survival end of the day. They weren’t thinking of some grandiose path in life and purpose, except survival. Most of us on this planet maybe people not listening to the show, but we have been programmed to think like our ancestors, that are just surviving the day. There’s so much more to us than that. How do we change it? How do we go through and-
Dr. Rob: Right. We want to play to win, not just play to not lose, like you said. It is a subtle difference that most people miss, because they’re caught up in that game of life, and they’re always out to defend because of the fears, the underlying fears. Now, these fears are unconscious, because conditioning we know has a powerful effect on us. By the time we know that it’s running the show and we think we’re making free choices, but we’re really acting out of conditioning.
Debi: Let’s look at examining one of the fears, how it shows up. The fear of the loss of money. What you’re saying is that we have a pattern unconsciously that we’re operating under. A very simple example of that would be you have a fear of a loss of money, so you are overly focused on not losing. Your mind is putting all of its energy in not losing. Imagine if your mind is consumed with, how do I not lose? It can’t think in possibility, it can’t think of how do I win? How do I make more money? It’s more like how do I not lose money?
Most of us, that’s how we’re conditioned, is that the loss of money is really the scary thing. That’s why we get triggered when we get a bill that’s way too high than we expected, we lose a job, we try to build a business, but it’s not working. That fear is reflected out in our reality, and unconsciously what we’re doing is I think we’re just giving too much energy to it. That energy is giving us our result.
Dr. Rob: Yes, absolutely. It is a mind shift that happens. If you’re thinking, in let’s say accepting these challenges that we are born into. The first one is ignorance. In Sanskrit, it’s a VGo. Meaning there’s no knowledge, no light, no understanding. The first part of, let’s say, the first challenge we have is to gain knowledge. If it’s the fear of money, well, what is money? What is its purpose? Because if we just buy into the conditioning, again, we’re thinking that money’s out there. That wealth comes from the outside. When it’s a mindset. It’s the ability to think clearly and understand the nature of this reality that allows us to generate abundance.
Debi: When I refer to it as a bubble that we’re in, that we see our mind when we’re looking out in the world. If we’re not conscious of our divine self and we think we’re just, this ignorance of who we really are, we are going to see a delusion basically. This delusion of limitation. It’s almost like we’re caught up in it, and the more we do, we feel, “Okay, look, I tried to make more money, it didn’t work. That’s just the way it is. The economy’s bad, or no one wants this product, or I’m not good enough yet. Maybe I need more experience, or I don’t have the qualifications.” But we’re really just seeing our mind. We’re seeing the bubble. That’s where the bubble of ignorance and the ego is actually creating it versus it’s actually a real possibility out there. We have to find a way to move beyond that.
Dr. Rob: Right, and it applies to the other fears as well. The fear of loss of death– I’m sorry, the fear of loss of health is the same principle, because when you’re caught up in thinking that health comes from just exercises, just dieting or just at nutrition, you’re externalizing the, let’s say the will towards health.
Debi: Or even just surgeries and working on the physical body, removing parts and-
Dr. Rob: Right, depending on medication and surgery to keep you healthy. You’re missing the point that it’s a mind body that you’re dealing with, and that health originates from within the mind. The same with love, because if you understand that love is arising from within you not from without, then you’re misperceiving things.
Debi: I think very specifically, the fear of loss of love, very similar to fear of loss of money, is that most people are going out looking for a relationship or being in a relationship, with that playing not to lose mentality. That, “I better protect my heart because people can’t be trusted. I don’t know if I’m getting my heart broken again, and so I better play not to lose versus really open up and go forward with it.” What happens is that the fear of loss of love. There are times where maybe when we were younger, someone let us down and wasn’t there for us when we needed them, and we felt that abandonment. We all have, in some way.
We are trying to defend that still, and what happens is that we think it’s gone and we’re rationalizing that we’re beyond that, but it’s still operating. If we keep repeating and getting the same relationships, like, “Why do people keep leaving me? Why are relationships not lasting? It’s like maybe I’m doing something. Maybe I just need to change my dating profile, or move to a different city or get a makeover and all these physical things that we’re trying to change, or change our behavior in a relationship so people won’t leave.” It’s still going to play out the same way. If you’re fearing the loss of love, you will create the loss of love.
If you’re fearing the loss of money, you will create the loss of money. If you’re fearing the loss of health, you will create a loss of health. People try to do those diets, those crash diets, and they all say, “They don’t work.” Because your mind is pushing away a disease or overweightness. It’s like you’re rejecting it, and you’re giving it a lot of energy. You’re judging it. You’re judging yourself because of it. You’re judging yourself because you’re single. You’re judging yourself because you’re overweight, and you’re judging yourself because you don’t have any money. It’s like you’re creating your own trap. You’re not doing this on purpose. This is not a judgment at all. This is what happens when we get caught up in the bubble. We try to get out and we think, “If I just think positive or I do a vision board, then I’ll escape this bubble.” Rob, you’re going to tell us how we escape the bubble. Are we going to pop the bubble?
Dr. Rob: [chuckles] Well, actually again, Patanjali gives us the answer. He says, in essence, not in these words. I’m paraphrasing, but he says something like this, if you ask, “Well, who is the one that’s conditioned by these external forces?” The only one that’s conditioned is the I, that sense of ego, the ego. Now, if you ask, “What is the nature of the ego?” It’s not existent. It doesn’t exist. It’s simply like a construct that we hold in our mind, to operate in the world to survive now. There’s nothing wrong because it helps us survive, but it’s not who we really are and what we really are.
It’s like, if you think about the body has a homeostasis to it, it doesn’t have– You can’t find the homeostasis in the body, but there is a mechanism that balances the body and helps it stay at a certain temperature. Sweat when we get too hot, shiver when we get too cold, so we keep that body temperature move. Regulate all the chemicals as we feed our body and distribute everything. It has a balancing function. Think of the ego as our psychological mechanism for homeostasis.
The difference is, we don’t personalize homeostasis in the body. We don’t say, “That’s my homeostasis. My body’s sweating right now. I must be a bad person.” No, or, “I’m cold right now. I’m a bad person. I’m doing something wrong.” When psychologically, when we’re facing an adversity, the psyche, the ego has a way to bring us back into balance based on the information it learned before. What happens is that we personalize it. We say, “That’s me, that’s my resistance. That’s my pattern of not being able to have money, or not being able to have love.” We tend to look at our psychological patterns as related to some I.
Dr. Rob: Yes, so because ignorance is the root of all these fears. It is also, let’s say that knowledge, higher knowledge of the true nature of ourselves. Our consciousness is the solution, as we gain this deeper knowledge of who we are, what our mind is capable of, and how it creates this apparent universe for us. That clarifies the state of our being, that we were never really bound. We were never really subject to conditioning. The only reason we were, let’s say, caught up in that, was because we thought we were the ego.
Debi: If we’re not the ego, who are we? Back to that idea too of the ego not having a personality. It’s really a function. That what happens is that since we’re self-aware through our whole life, there’s this continuum of awareness of consciousness that when we remember things from childhood, what is that part of our mind that remembers all those things? It’s a continuum of beingness.
[silence]
Debi: If we aren’t the ego, what is that, Rob?
Dr. Rob: Right, the question is not so much who are we, but what are we, in a sense. Right, because what is the nature of our experience as human beings? It is that awareness and the [unintelligible 00:24:55], which is really the highest knowledge known to humankind, it says very clearly, “You are that consciousness of the universe. You are the awareness of the universe.” Meaning you’re not your individual self as you believe yourself to be. It’s an apparent reality that arises from the creation of the universe. We are participating and experiencing this universe, as separate individuals, but the reality, the fundamental reality, is that we are the universe, we are the self, we are the consciousness of this experience.
Debi: How I do this. I don’t even know if I ever shared with you how I, because I’m a very visual person. I picture the bubble of my conscious, like my pattern. I could see the pattern, I can see it show up externally. Something that I see showing up over and over again. The first step is recognizing the pattern, how much money are you making? How much love do you have in your life? What’s your health right now? What’s that pattern? Then I want you to imagine that that pattern is like a bubble, that you’re surrounded by this bubble, but the bubble isn’t the totality of what’s possible. I imagine myself, what is outside the bubble? What is the potential that’s unlimited outside this bubble?
If we could start to think and imagine ourselves outside of the bubble, outside of this conditioned bubble, we can really start to break free of that fear . The only reason we are in fear, is because we’re in that bubble, that the ego’s bubble that it created that I got to survive. Imagine how it would feel if you got the success or the love or the health that you wanted? First of all, what would that feel like? How would you feel if you knew it was inevitable?
If you didn’t have fear of, “Maybe it might not happen for me.” How do we move our mind from identifying with this ego and this ignorance of we think we’re limited, to this idea that you can have it all, like the great teachers teach all the time, is that anything’s possible. How do we do that? What’s a great step for you? That’s how I do it. I see myself outside the bubble, and start imagining something outside the bubble and I don’t believe the bubble.
Dr. Rob: Yes, it’s remembering to, or reminding yourself of what the nature of this experience is. Perceptually, when you wake up in the morning, your senses tell you, “You’re separate than the world you’re seeing, the objects of the world out there. If you’re observing an object, that means there’s a subject, meaning there’s someone observing you.” You think, “Well, that must be that ego I.” But it’s not really the ego I, it’s a higher witness within us that is the creator of the universe.
That witness is a higher self, the true self, or what some Eastern philosophies call higher consciousness, the cosmic consciousness. That consciousness within you is allowing you then, to observe the world and the universe, but it’s also the creator of that universe.
Debi: When you step outside and identify with that powerful part of yourself, and reading higher knowledge. We have a great course, The Power of the Keto, talking about the public I Keto that talks about the higher knowledge. When you see yourself outside of it, the key is that you don’t feel afraid anymore. You start acting like what would happen if you weren’t afraid of losing money? What would you do? What would what would you do different? Try something new this week that you feel, “I could take a chance on something.” That if I didn’t have the fear of losing money, what would I do? What bold move can I do?
If I didn’t fear losing love or someone abandoning me, or someone hurting me, what would I do? How would I be with people? Would I be clear with them and tell them how I really feel and be open and know who I am and not worry, “I hope they like me, and I better not say that. That will push them away.” Being fully in your power, and how would it feel that everything you put in your mouth is health and vitality and nourishing to you? Because I tell you, the other two fears are probably what creates the health problem. Is the fear of money and the fear of love, creates a lot of people imbalance in eating and not working out, or overworking out or over starving themselves and putting themselves in a dangerous physical condition. They all play together, and it all comes down to that one thing. We believe we’re the I, we believe that we’re limited and we forget who we really are.
A great show today. I know it’s a lot. It’s heavy. Again, I will ask you to think about, what is the pattern in your life? What’s the bubble you’re living in? What would it be like if you were outside of the bubble? What do you want that’s outside of this bubble? What do you really want? What would you do differently if you knew it was inevitable that you get everything you want? Play that I get everything I want the game, because that’s the truth. You get everything you want, and actually when you get what you want outside of the fears, it’s fully satisfying. If you get what you want inside fear, like I met someone from their fear of love, you’re going to be clinging to them, you’re going to be worried if they’re going to leave, you’re going to be stressed all the time. If you get money, you’re going to worry about losing it all. If there’s more coming in, you’re still trapped. The key to really free your mind is to free yourself from these fears as well.
Dr. Rob: Absolutely. Yes, we started off talking about this downward cycle. Keep in mind that the upward cycle begins with higher knowledge, meaning you start to understand your mind and working with your mind.
The [unintelligible 00:31:28] says that there are many paths, but they all lead to that higher self, the true– they all lead to that same conclusion that we are not our ego, that we are his higher self. It’s important to choose a path and stick to it, and we invite you to do some of our work if you’re interested, if this makes sense to you. We have courses, we have a coach training.
Debi: Yes, young and life coach training. I also want to mention too that you’ve heard a lot of this probably before that anything is possible. What most people don’t– they leave out the idea that you have to drop the ego to actually really create. A lot of people are trying to use spiritual laws, the law of attraction, law of polarities and all these things. They’re still operating an ego that if you’re an ego, those fears are still at play. Again, I’m going to use visualization in the law of attraction to attract this ideal partner. If I’m an ego, it’s going to be a hot mess because you’re going to be stressed out all the time if they’re going to call you are not.
Tthe same thing with money or you’re going out and you’re going to use the law of attraction and visualize myself on a yacht and the bit of big mansion. You’ve seen all those videos people do. If you’re coming, they don’t teach you how to get outside of the ego. They teach you basically the good news, but they don’t teach you how to really do it.
Dr. Rob: How to polish up the ego.
Debi: How to make it all shiny. I call it the South help makeover, just a superficial makeover. You’re really still not free until you escape from those fears. It’s normal. It’s not something happened to you in the past that created these fears. We’ve all been conditioned this way, and we all have the power to choose and create something else. Hope you enjoyed today, and don’t forget to subscribe to us on our podcast, on iTunes, on Google play, on Spotify, check out our YouTube channel.
Dr. Rob: Come to see us at our live events.
Debi: Yes, we’re having a two right now, live events for the public. One is in January in LA called Alchemy, and we’re also doing a version in Prague in May next year. We hope to see you there. If you are interested, go to our website, Debi and Dr. Rob, go to events and apply today. It’s by application only to get a ticket to these very exclusive high-end events that are going to transform your mind and free you to create what you want.
Dr. Rob: Awesome.
Debi: Have a great day, everyone. Enjoy the holidays and we’ll see you next time on the Debi and Dr. Rob Show.
Dr. Rob: Much love.
[00:34:19] [END OF AUDIO]
