26

CHAPTER 26

OUR GUT BUDDY
vs.
THE FEAR FLEA

Hey! I haven't told you about Nanny, the name I gave my conscience that first visualized for me as a beam of light hovering above my beingness since my second year on this journey. She spoke as my Little Voice within. And, since my mind was my soul conversation peace, I learned to trust her and felt she merited a loving name.

Nanny was my guide, my advisor, and my gab fest friend forever leading me safely through the one-derland of my youth. With no outside counsel on what was right or wrong, Nanny counseled me on every level of survival, from moral decisions to which route would be safest for me when I safaried through the city's concrete caverns.

Nanny kept me on a sane track and showed me just be-cause NOW is all that seems to exist, that does not mean I could waste NOW. Nor live for the moment without thought for how my current NOW shall effect my upcoming NOW.

In later years I became less formal and renamed Nanny to my GUT Buddy. I appreciated my soul and conscience and her guidance, and the fact that my GUT — my God U Trust — was keeping me focused upon my spiritual path.

Though I speak of her in private terms, we all have access to our own GUT Buddy, that Little Voice within that desires the best for us, that warns us of danger, and is ever ready to counsel us when we feel downest, the most lost or confused.

I later came to realize that we are all vulnerable to being bugged by internal annoyances to our serenity. I called this buggy pest the Fear Flea as it needles us with anxieties often based upon no actual fact. It seeks to retard our spiritual growth by urging us to pay emotional mortgage payments on worry houses we have no need to occupy.

The simplest way to distinguish our Gut Buddy from the Fear Flea is through the energy and tone by which they each chat within our inner ear.

Our Gut Buddy speaks with a calming voice. Messages are always sent to uplift our spirits, to jazz our betterment and to give us confidence to be Godian Gold Diggers.

MEANING:

To dig for the gold within our potential.

Our GUT Buddy is our spiritual, personal cheerleader, ever inspiring our finest strengths.

Conversely, the Fear Flea blabbers in a voice reeking with anxious panic. It seeks to agitate our lowest energies so as to lock us into the pits of despair. It is eager to devalue our abilities, to emphasize and exaggerate all possible perils that might appear if we dare to expand our lives.

The Fear Flea wants to thwart our potential for happiness and evolution by rapidly barfing out every worry we might harbor, consciously or unconsciously, whether we once lived it or just saw it on TV.

Our GUT Buddy is our ally. The Fear Flea is our enemy.

GOOD NEWS!

We are in control of the channel changer so as to pick which inner voice we allow into our thinking process. And since our GUT Buddy and the Fear Flea never speak at the exact same time, once we learn to distinguish their voices it becomes easier to choose the one we communicate with.

Our GUT Buddy speaks in loving spiritual assurance.

The Fear Flea badgers us with panic and seeks to negate our worth and accomplishments, to limit our confidence and deny us possible friendships, to discourage us from bettering our lifestyle and beingness.

Our GUT Buddy encourages solutions.

The Fear Flea wants to keep us mired in the toxic quick-sand of problems and denial that we even have problems so as to trick us into believing we are the problem.

Our GUT Buddy highlights our ability to succeed.

The Fear Flea highlights the inevitability of failure within any vision we have. It wants us to tunnel our potency toward our weaknesses, real, imagined, or implied by others who, for their own motives, want to retard our progress and limit our happiness.

Next time you're at a crossroad (and crossroads constantly intersect our pathway to spiritual progress), begin to listen to the inner voice that speaks to you. Learn to discern which energy you're tuning into and allowing to guide your journey. Discernment is simple when we remember:

Our GUT Buddy jazzes journeys toward solutions.

The Fear Flea paralyzes us in hopeless pits of problems.

Our GUT Buddy believes in our lovability.

The Fear Flea pushes its opinion that we're not worthy of being loved — not even by ourselves.

You may have heard these opposites debating on your mental radio as The Calm versus The Panic when you are at one of those familiar crossroads we all encounter. As in:

EXAMPLE #1:

Setup: You're being abused by another, be it a family member, mate, boss, kids, or whoever. You pace the back allies of your mind for advice on what to do, where to go.
Fear Flea: Don't make waves. You know you're a mess. You know (s)he's right in telling you how horrible you are, what a failure you are, how you asked to be abused. You can't leave 'cause where can you go? Who would love you? Why should they? And, talent? Potential for success? Well, you've got none! You can't even make your relationships work. And, you know it's all your fault! So, if you leave, you'll be lonelier than you are now. You cannot risk that!
GUT Buddy: C'mon, you don't deserve this abuse. You were not born to be a target for some angry person. You're here to love and be loved. To share your ideas and talents and savor the feedback. You know this harassment is wrong or you wouldn't question it. Since no one can be your slave driver unless you give them a license to use their whips, stop endorsing their actions by letting them get away with it.

No one can abuse you, unless you let them. You're worth more. The abuser wants you to believe you're worthless because (s)he's afraid of you, afraid you'll realize that you're strong enough to leave them. Ergo! You have a choice. Either live your abuser's version of your life, or live your heart's hope for a finer life. It's up to you. So, c'mon! Do it!

Better to escape a broken relationship, than to die in one.

EXAMPLE #2:

Setup: A call for success rings for you, it's an opportunity for possibly the perfect career move. You pause to question yourself as to whether you should advance, whether you can trust your abilities and the reality of this dream come true.
Fear Flea: Are you crazy? You wanna be laughed at? No one cares about you, why should they give you a chance to be happy? It's got to be a trick. You're worthless. Make that call and you're just asking to be hung up on. Why ask for the pain? Face it, you're a failure!
GUT Buddy: Go for it! Pick up the phone. Make the call. Accept the prospect for a better life. You can do it. You deserve it. And it will be so jazzing. Hey! Even if it doesn't work out exactly as planned, you'll have succeeded by giving it a try, by investing in your knowledge bank, and who knows where it may lead. At any rate, it's better to grow with the flow than shrivel in the dribble of doubt.

EXAMPLE #3:

Setup: The chance for a loving relationship arises, but memories of a past situation haunts you and stalls you in the Intersection of Frustrating Indecision, what do you do?
Fear Flea: So, what's new, all partnerships are bad. All men (or women) are suspect, just out to hurt you. And what makes you think you have the ability to love or be loved? You never were before, so you better play it safe and don't trust this tease. Heck! You don't even trust yourself, so how can you trust someone else?
GUT Buddy: Enjoy. You feel good, and you're happy with this genuine giving and receiving. This is not that past rela-tionship that was maybe meant as an education in How-Not-To-Love. This is now. Why make your loving future pay for the harsh happenings of the past. Why let the shadow of the one who hurt you in the past continue to darken your life, your lovingness? Continue to control your spirit? You've grown. So, believe in your ability to make you and another happy. Enjoy it!

You see? It's truly quite simple to discern which energy is advising us. Being that we have been gifted with the Godian tool of Free Will, it's up to us to choose which voice will be our partner. Do we want a Cheerleader or Antagonist?

BOTTOM LINE:

Hate isn't the antithesis of love — fear is.

Abuse and all of the negative emotions upon our planet stem from that one corrupting energy of fear. If in doubt, consider the multiplicity of venues in which the Fear Flea seeks to pester us with downcast irritations, to downbeat our thoughts, to discourage us from spiritual progress, and cause us to rationalize delusions that kill hope and block love. The Fear Flea does not discriminate, as it seeks company with the abused, self-abused, the abuser or the denier.

The Abused and Self-Abused:

Fear of facing the horror of not being right regarding the wrongness of past abuse, causes us to get mired in a victim role by making the validation of our innocence contingent upon the abuser admitting their crime and accepting their punishment.
Fear of believing one is unworthy of dreaming a beautiful dream causes many to activate and live nightmares.
Fear of being able to create a fulfilling future causes many to cling to a past of unresolved anger and pain.
Fear that the self-appointed judger in one's life might be right regarding our worthlessness causes many to accept another's arbitrary depreciation.
Fear of being alone causes many to stay in loveless setups that reek with loneliness.
Fear of being as inferior as they are told by their partner causes many to stay stuck in the murk of hellacious unions.
Fear causes many to mistake a soul-hate for a soul-mate.
Fear of being rated as stupid by others causes many to accept the unacceptable.
Fear of being told by the faceless society that the abuse they endured was “All your fault! You asked for it” causes many to avoid addressing their pain. Thus, diminishing their personal bank of Love Notes to be cashed and enjoyed.

The Abusers:

Fear of being unable to live a worthwhile life causes many to enjoy making others feel worthless.
Fear of social repercussions from admitting an aversion to monogamy and a hunger for non-committal trysts causes many to live double lives. Publicly appearing as favorably traditional, while privately activating a lust for looseness, as with the exposed politicians and mates who hide dangerous liaisons beneath public propriety. Fear of revealing true desires causes many to justify affairs as harmless and justify secrecy as a loving desire not to hurt their mate.
Fear of being forced to take soul responsibility for an evil seed within causes many molesters to blackmail their child victims into becoming their partners via threatening them into silence. Even using fear to program their victims into believing they would be an abuser of family harmony if they told others they were molested and who was the villain.
Fear of the consequences within admitting they truly enjoy molesting defenseless others, causes many to fake remorse when caught so as to minimize punishment and insure a quick release back into their discomfort zone, so as to repeat their cycle.
Fear of having no personal worth or specialness causes many to prioritize skin worth over soul worth by racing for cover and mock strength under racial and warring umbrellas, such as the KKKers, Neo-Nazis, Homophobics, or any group that chooses hate over love and communication.
Fear of the unknown within self, others and our Creator causes many to forget we are all one family, thus allowing fear to centurially finance inter-specie warring.
Fear of not meriting sincere attention, nor being worthy of notice as-is, causes many to force attention from others via abuse and threatening control, to bully and embarrass others into noticing them, even agreeing with them so as not to become the bully's next target, as with many who are known for simply having a pig mouth — celebrity or not.
Fear of not deserving the title and respect of Boss causes many to browbeat employees into ulcer-feeding servility.
Fear of lack causes many to rationalize greed.

The Deniers:

Fear that all the financial horror stories accelerated by the media as sensational copy causes many to feed the national anxiety of being a powerless victim of an uncontrollable recession and spiritual depression.
Fear causes many to retreat into the Low Lands of Lack, thus feeding the closed-fisted and closed-hearted cycle of impoverishment. Fear causes us to forget:

When we all give – we all live

Fear of looking foolish causes many to never explore and share their talents which escalates the sorrow of hidden talents — hidden from others and self.
Fear of having no spiritual wealth causes many to accept personal poverty.
Fear of being replaced, or of not being a responsible decision maker causes many to fear delegation, personally or professionally.
Fear of being unable, or unworthy, to personally connect with God, or of being too insignificant to accomplish this simple re-uniting without a group, causes many to believe their only course toward spirituality is via a cult or religious club that promises God approval and Heavenly reservations in exchange for lifestyle obedience and material allegiance.
Fear of addressing all the promised commitments and overwhelming confrontations that have been self-heaped upon one's duty plate, causes many to give themselves the common cold — the common alibi for exiting the assignment arena without genuinely explaining the true desire to say: “Enough! I don't want to do this. I want out.”
Fear of the truth causes the desperation to lie.
Fear of being unworthy of joy causes many to deny themselves fun, thus turning many into workaholics or addicts to house-aerobics with nonstop stuff cleaning, or becoming their own warden by restricting their enjoyment of God's gift of giggles. These prohibitions are often furthered by making others feel guilty if they don't dedicate their time to the Dementia of Dullness.
Fear of taking responsibility for one's thoughts and actions causes many to dance the Scapegoat Shuffle by blaming others for all their troubles.
Fear of being unable to cope with the consequences of stating that a family member is an abuser or molester causes many victims to play ostrich, which only furthers the abuse via validating the abuser.
Fear of not having birthed the perfect child causes many parents to ignore the flags of serious waywardness. Flags that are flapping wildly for constructive discipline.
Fear of not being a perfect parent, of not being able to gain a grown child's undemanded time and loving attention cause parents to try to control the every thought, action and choice of their adult child's life, which only furthers their most dreaded fear: Additional alienation.
Fear of being as good a decision maker as a dominating parent wants them to be, causes many to later relinquish marital harmony and giant peaces of their mind and heart.
Fear of admitting they miscalculated their mate, for fear of what others may have thought, causes many to lock themselves into lightless tunnels.
Fear of being ill-thought of by others causes many to let their false guilt send obligatory cards and buy unaffordable gifts on holidays without exploring the true meaning of the season or quality of the alliance. One major stress stemming from the lost memory that the true meaning of Christmas includes a global birthday party for all God's Children that often results in the hysteria I call: Santa Claustrophobia.

BOTTOM, BOTTOM LINE:

Fear is the cancer of Love
The more we fear, the less likely we are to love.
The more we love, the less likely we are to fear,
or hang out with its nasty cohorts.

I've been chatting about inner voices and choices, but life is more intriguing when we see the choice made by those in our lives concerning which energy they choose to be their Emotional Master: the Fear Flea selling exacerbation via animosity, or the GUT Buddy alleviating strife via amenity.

We can easily detect which energy our friends, family or co workers hang with. We know who cheerleads with hope, or antagonizes with doubt. But, when it comes to an un-related other, I've noticed a relative of the Fear Flea which I call the Ego Beaver.

The Ego Beaver builds intricate obstructions so as to dam up our dreams with self-doubt or fear of losing control over others and self.

The Ego Beaver believes the most jazzing job is to tell others how to live, work, marry, raise kids, or whatever.

The Ego Beaver thinks that by controlling the lives of others, the spotlight of accomplishment will shift from their own life and evolution. I doubt if it does. It just delays it while bugging the hell out of others who are simultaneously relinquishing the control panel of their lives, and using the Ego Beaver as a scapegoat for not seeming responsible for their personal choices.

A Lose-Lose Deal. But, a popular one.

Having sat for many years in classrooms at this Earthian academy of HARD KNOCKS R U, I'm still fascinated by how many people excuse their resistance for being all they can be by using the alibi that they just following the Ego Beaver's program of not making waves by obeying others' orders so as to be loved.

Best way to detect an Ego Beaver is to listen to the fabric that weaves their advice. Ask yourself:

Is what they want you to do, what they wanted to do but didn't because they possibly listened to their Fear Flea?

Are they weakening your confidence to progress, so you can stagnate and thus be kept as a continuing member of their dread league where they douse your spirits with doubt? 'Tis a Thot.

A LAST SCENARIO:

You're pacing your first steps toward your dream, toward your quantum leap in life. You're nervous and jazzed. You share your hopes, wishes, anxieties and aspirations. I bet the probable responses from the main three energies would be:
GUT Buddy: “Way to go. Give it your all. Life's to live.”
Fear Flea: “What if you fail? What if you fall on your face?” Ego Beaver: “You can't be serious! It can't work! You gotta be crazy! And don't figure you can crawl back to me when you blow it!”

Experience has shared these thoughts:

Those who want to control the lives of others are those who lead lives which are most outstandingly out of control.
Those who encourage you to be the best you can be are those who are joyously living their own soular potential.

Only ask for feedback from those who energize the level of success, happiness and spirituality you are aiming toward. Especially, if you know they have nothing to gain from the outcome of your venture except joy for your achievement.

Fear is the only wall that blocks
the have-nots from having.
Love has no need for walls.

A Postscript WOW!

Imagine how brilliantly the inner lights upon the planet would shine if our specie were all to unilaterally experience a global amnesia of fear.

If, in the twinkle of an eye, no one was handicapped by the fear of the unknown, the fear of those with different skin color, sexual preference, nationality, or name for God.
If no one energized the fear of seeming foolish to explore their talents.
If no one lacked knowledge of their own lovability or of their capacity to love.
If no one feared truth or confrontation with self or others so as to achieve soular communication.
If no one feared lose, we might all have.
If no one feared tricks, we might all treat ourselves and others with truer relationships.
If no one feared their own sexuality, there might be less chauvinism targeted toward the opposite sex.
If no one feared honesty, there might be less false need for deception and ulterior motivation.
If no one feared the misconception that sharing might cause personal poverty, there might be more mutual wealth, spiritually and materially.
If no one feared weakness, there might be less desire to retreat into the dark caverns of cowardice.
If no one feared ridicule there might be more bravery.
If no one feared letting go of logic and skepticism, there might be more trust in God and in ourselves as being worthy of love as a Child of God.
If no one feared death, life might be more thoroughly enjoyed and savored.

Without fear of death,
life might be less stressful to live.
Without fear of failure,
success might be more RISK-able.
Without fear of success,
failure might be less attractive.
Without fear of God,
God might have better access to our hearts.

True and indeed, there is no possibility for Fear Amnesia to permeate our mortal systems. Suggesting that we all have been sent to this Cosmic College simply to activate our Free Will's power and ability to exterminate from our spirits the floozy Fear Flea which is the only enemy we have to battle.

'Tis a Thot.