Page 33 - Life is a Fight for Territory
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right there, and only then for a fleeting second.
Bruce Lipton talks about the effects of fear on the body and its ability to perform in a state of stress in his series on Conscious Parenting. He discusses the three key things that happen when we are in a state of fear:
First, the cells of the body move from growth into protection. Blood moves from the viscera at the core of the body out to the extremities (muscles of the arms and legs) in order to engage in fight or to get ready for flight.
Second, the immune system shuts down because there is no point using energy fighting a virus that may kill you in ten days if this lion could eat you in the next ten seconds.
And third, the blood moves away from the fore brain to the hind brain so that instead of reason and logic you are better able to engage in reflexive behaviors. You lose your ability to think rationally when you are stressed.
Estimates put the figure at well over 90% for the things we fear but never actually happen. I once heard worry described as chewing gum for the mind – it just gives it something to do but produces no meaningful results.
If a fear of loud noises or a fear of falling is holding you back from reaching your dreams, then you can take comfort in the fact that they’ve been there all along. But if it’s a fear of anything else, then that’s something you’ve picked up along the way. It’s something you’ve learned to see in a certain way and that means it’s something you can unlearn and relearn in a more helpful and healthy way.
Put another way, there are beliefs about the world that you have
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