Making Use of Fear

It is a feeling that emerges when we sense danger or anticipate a threatening situation . Only time when the fear of the unseen is useful is when it is in regards to Allah swt , and even then when that fear is used to create corrective action and a life of irsan life of striving in the path of Allah .

Fear of the unseen is otherwise never useful and fear , just like any other emotion , has a spectrum from a low vibration to outright terror , low energy sensations in the body to very high energy vibrations . Interestingly , fear doesn't always show up in the way you might expect , like .

Instead of just feeling scared when you're afraid , you don't always run for the jungle . You might become angry , frustrated or even aggressive . You might become subdued or go in a free state . Imagine yourself getting overly angry at your child when you couldn't find them in a crowd for a good five minutes . Why did you go away from me ?

I told you to stay close Fear , the verdict is anger . Be mindful when your fear is showing up as another emotion , and in Islamic teachings , managing your reaction , specially reaction to anger , is so , so important , and recognition here is that fear might be manifesting as anger . Then you don't necessarily need anger management , you need fear management .

The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said the strong is not the one who overcomes the people by his strength , but the strong is the one who controls himself while in anger . Sahih Hadith , reported in Bukhari . Today's world is interpreted by our mind to be something to fear , something to be angry about .

Just keep in check how to take actions from these emotions , because we are accountable for our actions , not our emotions . In recognizing fear within yourself , the first tell-tale sign is that we become desperate . We try and control the circumstances , a situation that might be completely out of our control . A little muhassaba self-accountability .

You might find out that these controlling behaviors are being driven by underlying fears . This is the groundwork towards emotional health . It's human nature to sometimes avoid things that make you uncomfortable . Some people might pretend it's just fears that don't even exist , and they belittle them . But avoiding fear does not make it go away .

In fact , if you suppress your fear , they pop up unexpectedly , making you overreact in otherwise seemingly insignificant situations . That is the sign of a nervous system working very hard to suppress fear some other area , or it's otherwise busy running away from fear . That nervous system will always be on the edge .

It's running on overtime , it's borrowing from an energy while it's trying to deal with the mundane , and when the mundane shows up it has no reserve left to deal with it . If you avoid your fears of an illness , sheer panic might set in at the minor cough or cold . So you don't actually avoid fear .

And then there is this manifestation of obsession due to fear . An intense fear will fuel the fixation level of obsession , especially on an object that you are trying to avoid . In the world today . That will show up as an obsession of the news , politics , most recent updates . When you continuously seek validation for your fears , you are only amplifying that emotion .

Instead of finding peace , you become more anxious and afraid . An obsession of all of these is more and more gaining of an awareness recognizing fear . Sometimes just labeling it is enough . Recognizing fear isn't a sign of weakness .

It's the initial step towards understanding and managing it , because then you can learn to be compassionate to yourself , you can lean into compassionate processing .

Once you are aware of your fear and you are not judging yourself for having it , you can create a compassionate self-inquiry , as , no matter how irrational or baseless your fear might seem , once you come to recognize it , hold yourself in grace for having it . You are a human . Creating baseless fear is your primal brain's job .

Minimizing your irrational fear or judging yourself for having it is not going to help you recognize your future irrational fears , because your judgment of yourself will block this insight . Your brain will literally say I'm not going to make you aware of your irrational fears because every time I do that , I get hit by the pain of judgment and criticism .

Give yourself grace for having an irrational fear . Show yourself Rahma , compassion and mercy . Talk nicely to your lower brain . It's okay , brain , I got you . You're talking to your lower brain like it was a child , a child that needs attention .

And I always say without showing yourself mercy , it becomes hard for you to recognize Allah's mercy towards you and it becomes hard for you to recognize the resources you have around you to help you actually deal with the object of fear .

When we treat our feelings and emotions with compassion , we align ourselves with the divine attributes of Allah , because we open gates for ourselves , for being human , and that fear always originates from your thoughts and perceptions rather than from an object .

Majority of the time there is no actual impending danger , but fear serves you well when there is an actual danger . The advantage of fear being the mind's creation is that it serves a purpose . In threatening situations like war , fear serves to heighten the senses and prepare for action .

The same fear will render you incapable of action in a frozen state and immobile if you don't control what it's supposed to be doing and where it's coming from . The reason I emphasize that the fear is a creation of your mind is because in that case , authority to respond is within you .

You can check to see if fear is doing what it was supposed to do and serving you in that situation , or is it rendering you incapable of appropriate responses .

Because if you assigned your outside circumstances to be the source of your fear , then you are completely helpless because you don't have any control over war or any other threatening situation like a natural disaster . Fear is the mind's reaction to threats , mostly perceived threats , in which case it's just a thought error from your primal toddler brain .

But when it is in the face of real danger . I would invite you to create vigilance without fear , and there's a huge difference between the two .

If fear sharpens your focus , gives you sustainable energy and gives you access to your higher instincts , in any situation , you respond with either escaping the situation , facing it , playing dead or placating the fear has done its job . This is vigilance . This is what you want your brain to create .

This is why , again , I strongly emphasize the fear is the product of your mind , because if you can see how it works for your benefit , you can direct it at your will to create vigilance out of fear . Fear with vigilance is filled with survival benefit and is sustainable even at high energy levels .

With belief and faith , this long lasting energy is directly from Allah . May Allah SWT give infinite power of vigilance to the oppressed . There is a certain power in honoring your fears , just the acknowledgement Admitting I'm scared and that's okay . That's a powerful affirmation .

With this acknowledgement comes the insight to place your trust in Allah Without the realization that you're living in fear . You keep trying to escape it , without knowing what it is and what you're running away from .

Connection and prayers from a place of recognizing fear is more profound when you go into jude prostration or when you make dua , knowing that you have fear in your heart and Allah has the power over everything .

Without the recognition of fear , you will keep giving your power away to it and you will become distant in your worship , Respecting and recognizing your feelings , even if they seem insignificant when expressed . Every emotion and feeling has its place and believers are encouraged to seek understanding .

This , on a personal level , is a deep level of understanding that doesn't come from books or podcasts . It comes from looking inwards . Once the source of fear is identified , other , smaller worries often become easier to manage and might even dissolve on their own .

Recognition and labeling doesn't come easy if you don't know what to do once you find fear , once you're facing it , mind will not volunteer to present to you the most uncomfortable emotion of fear . It will keep diverting your attention to different emotions like helplessness , rage , overzealousness .

It will keep creating diversions if it doesn't know what to do with fear when it arrives at it . Because it is an uncomfortable emotion by design , it rings loud alarm bells to get your attention . So you educate yourself that if you do find fear living in your body , you will just digest it once you're able to isolate it as an emotion .

You experience the emotion , you open up to it . You don't become afraid of fear and you digest emotion by breaking it apart into component sensations . This is the compassionate engagement of fear and for the first time in the history of this podcast , I will go through a guided audio exercise for you to help digest your fear and to help you understand that .

What is it I actually mean by compassionate engagement of your fear ? So find yourself in a comfortable spot , relatively distraction free , where you can close your eyes and come back to this .

If you can't do that right now , because it's very important for you to be as distraction free as possible what we're going to be doing is breaking fear apart into its component sensations . This will give you an outlet of what to do once you discover it within yourself .

Please close your eyes , sit or stand upright with a straight spine and focus on your breathing Deep inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth . Focus on the sensations of breathing as air enters your nose and the sensation of long exhale . The mind will wander through thoughts and that's okay .

Bring it back to the sensations of breathing Now , with loving compassion .

Notice what is the location of the body where fear is the most dominant . Just notice the location and make note of it , continuing to breathe deep , relaxing breaths . After noticing the location , now notice what color the fear has . Don't second guess your answers with more thoughts . Just notice what comes up .

After noticing the location and the color , now find what shape it carries and trust the answer that comes up for you . Notice if the fear as a shape is well defined . Does it have sharp edges ? Is it soft ? Does it have a definite shape ? Is it a regular or irregular ? Give the sensations characteristics .

Continuing to trust your answers and finding compassion itself . Inquiry , see if you can figure out if it has movement to it . Is it holding still or is it moving ? Just notice you are collecting the features of the sensations of this emotion , breaking it apart into components . Just notice , Notice from a third person perspective . Like you are very curious .

What is it that you are finding within your body about fear ? Notice if you have any changes in it from the time you started . Just notice . Now move your attention back to the breathing deep inhale through the nose and long exhale out of the mouth . Great job , you can open your eyes when ready .

This is your first step to respecting and recognizing your feelings , especially if they seem insignificant in the beginning , no matter how small or how intense fear feels .

It's a skill to help you break it down into its components and becoming aware of it , because it is a lost design that everything created has its place , especially emotions , and especially difficult emotions like fear . And this is your avenue to seek understanding and resolution .

When we did this exercise of breaking the fear into its sensation components , you became masterful at it . If you notice change , or even if you didn't , just noticing it gives you authority over it . What we went over is your beginner's exercise of what to do when you engage in compassionate self-inquiry and you arrive at the conclusion that indeed you are afraid .

There it is your fear . You isolate it , you notice it with as much clarity and curiosity as humanly possible and that's how you master it . You recognize and you separate . You understand the difference between actual events and your perception of them . In Islam , believers are taught the concept of Qadr , divine decree , for instance .

While a hurricane is a physical event , our thoughts and feelings about it are subjective and vary from person to person . Making this distinction allows you to react appropriately . Human mind is very good at thought errors and illusions .

Otherwise , especially if you don't take control of it , it's prone to imagining worst case scenarios or events that might even never materialize , reproducing scenarios that it sees on social media or news outlets . When it creates fear that is superfluous , non-essential .

As higher order beings and as a student of your faith , a person who has belief , you just understand that it is created for a reason . You stay open to finding fear in yourself and you identify if it is an emotion that has overstayed its welcome or is it still trying to send you a message of protection that you haven't received yet .

This is the difference between animals and human beings . As higher order beings , we can decide when the fear is non-essential and superfluous and when it's actually still sending us safety messages . Human is digesting fear in its component parts . That gives you authority over it , rather than having the fear having authority over you .

This is all so you can master the fear of feeling afraid , because then you will find out what it is that your fear actually means . Once you've made peace with being in fear , you can successfully come out of it . When you remain afraid of fear is when you stay enslaved to it . After that , the next step is practicing peace .

This is something I like to do right alongside of fear , not as an effort to replace it , but as an effort to keep my mind calm . While you're witnessing yourself having an emotion , you can be at peace about it . Humans are capable of carrying many complex emotions at the same time , and it doesn't mean that you're forcefully trying to eliminate fear .

It just means you're recognizing what else exists alongside of fear . It's almost like these emotions are coexisting . So the process of this next step is to practice peace , and I do that by recognizing what is true in the moment . My approach is to ground myself in the present , truly engaging in only what the current moment is offering .

I use different thoughts and affirmations like in this moment , now I'm okay because there's no hurricane nearby . In this moment , I'm okay because there's no war zone , the sky is clear . In this moment , I'm comfortably seated in my chair at home . In this moment , at this very moment , nothing is harming me .

I can manage whatever comes my way right now , and I am doing just that in this moment , I am not ill . At this moment , I feel strength with me right now . In this moment , creating and repeating such affirmations is a powerful tool for self-assurance .

This practice doesn't ask us to ignore or discard the fear . It's entirely possible to feel fear yet remain at peace . And one of my favorite affirmations in regards to fear is that it's okay that I'm afraid in this moment . And it all brings me back to the present moment when I notice that I'm making future thought errors .

I just notice when I'm imagining worst case scenarios and that I won't be able to find peace until I come back to the present moment and I notice that in this moment I am okay . Even with fear I'm okay and I can recognize and digest fear and just notice it with compassion for myself and with the understanding of this design by Allah swt .

Dua'a that I ask of Allah for relief is Ya Hayyu , ya Qayyum Bi Rahmatika Astaghis O Living , o Sustaining in your mercy , I seek relief and with that continued dua'a I ask Allah swt . Ya Allah , grant me the clarity to recognize the challenges I face and the strength to overcome false challenges .

Guide my heart towards patience , understanding and fill it with your unwavering love . Let my worries be replaced by trust in your plan . Show me the path that aligns only with your wisdom and your approval . Grant me the courage to walk the straight path . Amin , ya Rabbal Alameen , please keep me in your Dua'a . I will talk to you guys next time .