Overcoming Worry and Fear at Night

Some call it the hour of the wolf, where your deepest fears surface and pounce just when you’re the most vulnerable. Maybe you cogitate on these worries in the daylight, too, or maybe they only find you when you’re under the cloak of darkness, drifting innocently in and out of sleep. Today we’ll shed new insight on your nighttime (and waking) fears and worries, and give you some tools on how to reroute your awareness back to peace.

 

No Shame

First off, let me say there is no shame in waking with unreasonable fears in the night, nor is there any shame in worrying in general. This is true no matter your level of awareness, even if you think you should “know better.” If you are reading this, you are among the consciously awakening on this planet, which means there is a good deal you already know.

Your awakening awareness may include wisdom such as:

  • All is serving your highest good
  • You are a co-creator of your reality
  • Worry is just FEAR, i.e False Evidence Appearing Real.
  • Energy flows where you place your attention, and this energy is creative whether the point of attention is fear, love or anything in between.
  • And so on and so on. 

With all of this awareness that you have and are, you may be wondering how it is possible you can find yourself lying awake in the dark with your mind spinning and going down rabbit holes so far that you begin to feel a bit crazy, where you imagine crisis scenarios that build on other crisis scenarios until you are either paralyzed by fear or ready to throw in the towel on any hope of resolution of your issue.

Let me say it again. There is no shame or failure in waking up worried. Nor, while we’re at it, is there a consciousness fail in having a disease or physical pain, or relationship or money issues. These circumstances are not a reflection of your awakening, but of the great wisdom of your soul and the path you are walking as a human. That is the only thing ever going on: your brilliance. It’s baffling at times, isn’t it?! I mean, how could your brilliance possibly appear as paralyzing fear in the night? Answer? As long as you are in a body, you will still encounter what we call the human aspects of your divinity. You are not failing. You are having it all. And apparently you are also interested in honing your menu choices!

 

What You Can Do

So here’s what I do when this happens to me. Yes, this happens to me, and more and more it flummoxes and bewilders me, how I can (and do!) entertain thoughts in the middle of the night that would never gain traction in the day. I simply wouldn’t think or indulge in them, because my awareness wouldn’t allow room for them. The fears might pop into my mind, but they simply wouldn’t take hold, root, or expand in the company of my Presence.

So what is going on at night? (we’ll get to those daytime worries in a minute).

Well, first of all, consider that you may be fairly absent from your body during some of these episodes. Your infinite being may be out playing in other dimensions, time-traveling, or stopping in on old friends that live far away (since time and space don’t exist in our nocturnal adventures). It makes sense that if you are not “all here,” something else has more room to play. Enter the fear-based mind, which is simply a reflexive part of the human program (at least thus far for most of us). As we awaken, this program doesn’t so much cease to exist as our relationship with it changes, as does the proportion of our attention that it occupies. We begin unsubscribing from the channels that run the fear. This includes the news, collective perspectives, and our own beliefs and their offspring – reflexive thoughts.

 

Your Nighttime Tool Box

Here is my go-to list for staving the flow of nighttime worry (which works equally well when you are fielding daytime demons, btw):

  1. Re-collect your awareness, i.e Presence. Voice an invocation such as “I call all of my Presence back to my body in this now moment: clear, conscious and complete.” You may have to rally into a bit more wakefulness to do this, but it will be worth it in the long run in terms of getting rest and finding peace.
  2. Focus on your breath. 15-second breathing works great for this. 7 seconds in, pause 1, 7 seconds out. This allows your physiology to begin releasing the fight-flight-freeze response connected to shallow breathing and the nerve receptors in the top of the lungs. Encouraging the breath to move slowly and deeply stimulates the nerve receptors in the lower parts of the lungs associated with peace, well-being and relaxation.
  3. Ask yourself, “Is this happening right now?” The answer will invariably be no, even if you are in physical pain, as whatever you are “worrying” about in that moment is guaranteed to be a future, imagined scenario.
  4. Follow this with, “What is happening right now?” and then take stock of everything you can notice – all of the things that are provided for in this moment.

To be clear, everything running fear in us is learned, conditioned and programmed. I find it fascinating that when our conscious presence is absent, whether in the day or night, the auto-pilot program will take over. Look at it this way. When you are not fully present with your body and fear-based worries or thoughts come in, the “unsubscribe” button doesn’t seem to appear on the thought-page. The tools and awareness you usually embody are MIA.

You can take heart knowing that this auto-pilot program is not and has never been you, i.e. the truth of your presence, but rather a learned way that literally runs in the air around us like radio signals or wifi. You can’t see it, but it definitely makes itself known, like mischievous mice when the awareness of your inner cat is away!

When we are awake and aware, we can intentionally unsubscribe from the mailing lists of these programs that deliver the content of fear to our mind. The more we unsubscribe, the less susceptible we are to unwanted spam. These tools work equally well in our waking hours. It’s worth noting, however, that when our worries hijack our thoughts in the daytime, we may be invited to deeper awareness of what lies beneath them.

 

The “Unsubscribe from All Lists” Option

Here are some further options for unsubscribing from the program of worry and fear:

  1. Give  your particular fear or worry program a name.
  2. Visualize a delete button for the program.
  3. Click the button.
  4. Take a deep breath, and let go of any and all unwanted programming and anything associated with it.
  5. Say, “I fully release this program and any and all auxilliary programs connected to it. I restore the original blueprint of my conscious awareness to my mind, body, and emotions.”
  6. Empty the trash (you may even want to “clear your cache” of your mental browsing history).
  7. Scan your “hard drive” (body and emotional field) for any residual pieces.

 

Residual fears? You Have Options

If the delete button hasn’t cleared it all, you likely running one of two scenarios:

  1. You are allowing someone else’s consciousness (or the collective’s) to run your system, almost like a computer virus that has taken over. There is a short video HERE with guidance on how to reclaim and strengthen your sovereignty.
  2. There is a hook left in your system, the root of an emotional competent born of identification with those thoughts or experiences. This may be where you look for help with a guide who offers facilitation consciousness facilitation, as it can be a bit difficult to navigate from inside your own perspective. Feel free to check out my Coaching and Facilitation Offerings HERE.

 

Be Encouraged

Both of these scenarios are wonderful invitations into greater freedom and awakening, because they bring us to a choice point. This is how awakening often happens, on choice at a time, over and over until it simply chooses us.

Much love to you on the journey –

Christine

 

Photo: Bleeding Heart, with your Awakened Awareness having your back!