Marcia’s Meanderings – Overcoming the Fear Funk

Hello Dear Ones!

Ever find yourself in a rut where fear has talons hooked deeply into your psyche and won’t release it’s hold? Ya, me too!

Fortunately it happens less often and for shorter and shorter periods of time. Blessings be! Yet when it does surface – showing me a perspective I don’t want to see or address or acknowledge in any way shape or form – I feel frozen into immobility. Everything in my world takes on a gray pallor and I see the fear, missing out on the beauty and sparkle of all else around me. So sad.

My most recent Fear Funk stopped me from writing anything positive. No poetry. No journaling in the front of my binder. I record all negative energy entries in the back of my journal book to at least keep up my writing habit, as well to separate the negative from the more upbeat positive energies. Also, it means I can tear up those negative pages when I’ve moved beyond and through the challenge they revealed to me.

Believe it or not, fear is a gift to us – one that reveals a challenge we need to address within ourselves. Next time you’re in a Fear Funk, when you can get to the point of appreciating the gift it is giving you, you’ll know you are on your way to a solution and the joyous release of its hold on you.

One of the keys to removing those nasty talons that have dug deep into your soul, is to name the fear. Once the Fear Funk is named – give it a label or make a statement about what hold it has over you – then you can more easily address the challenge and more freely side-step your way out of its strangle-hold.

Most often the plain and simple truth of the matter, the bottom line of it all, is that there is no trust in the value of self. No value in self means no value in Self and certainly no trust in the Divine.

When the Fear Funk has a hold of you and the feeling of optimism or any potential thoughts of hope are so far removed they don’t even show up in your vocabulary let alone in your dreams, it’s time to do three things:

1. define and name the Fear Funk.
2. force your mouth into a smile. Curl the edges of your mouth into a grin. Even if the smile doesn’t reach your eyes and your heart in the moment but merely adds to the wrinkles on your face – smile.
3. think of the happiest, silliest, most joyously and memorable time you ever had as a child … and then *g*i*g*g*l*e* about it! *G*i*g*g*l*e* until you feel a wee spark of joy within you. That little feeling of joy is one or more talons gone from your solar plexus. *G*i*g*g*l*e* more, letting it take on a life of its own and filling you to overflowing! The Fear Funk hates laughter with a passion – it can’t keep its hold on you when you’re laughing!

When you are ready you can add one more phrase to the statement or the name you’ve given this ‘gift’: one that reflects the trust you are more likely to be feeling – that all will, in fact, work out perfectly – if you can only have enough faith that the Divine Universe will conspire on your behalf to bring the necessary solution into your reality. It may arrive just in the nick of time (depending upon how open you are to receiving it) yet it is there for you! Can you feel it?

With the Divine conspiring on my behalf,  I can …. !

Be gone, Fear Funk!

In Light and Laughter,

Marcia

Poetry Corner – Opening of the Soul

Hello Dear Ones!

For those of you following me regularly, you’ll know that I am doing a daily journaling under the guidance of a book that arrived in my life with inspiration and laughter. The book is by Iyanla Vanzant and is called “One Day My Soul Just Opened Up“. At the time of this writing I am on Day 13 of a 40 day journey into Self. Such an amazing journey it is!

When I first encountered this book I was enthralled with the poem presented at the beginning – an honouring and dedication of Vanzant’s book to her daughter Gemmia. It is Gemmia’s poem that I am offering to you here for both your enjoyment and for whatever wise gems and enlightenment might arise for you from this young woman’s insight. Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings – Food: a Love/Hate Relationship

Hello Dear Ones!

My weeks are always so full of adventures and learnings, joy and creativity! This week past was no exception: mountain hiking to view the amazing wildflowers in our area; extensive work on the 4th draft of my upcoming novel; copious micro & haiku poems written (check them out here: Poetry Corner); and my daily journaling as guided by Iyanla Vanzant‘s book: ‘One Day My Soul Just Opened Up’.

There is one more thing that has begun to occupy my time and focus the past two weeks. I mentioned in last week’s post Trusting the Divine to having had a love/hate relationship with food over the course of my lifetime. My weight has fluctuated and varied over the years with the comings and goings of happy, sad and stressful times. I have been as slim as a size 5 and as stout as a 22 1/2. Recently I’ve been registering in at a modest size 15/16, and yet … this is still not a satisfactory comfort zone for me. Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings – Trusting the Divine

Hello Dear Ones!

What a whirlwind Easter weekend! Fun, occasionally emotional and deeply enlightening. AHA moments all over the place. Check out one of them in my She Says – The Sandbox post.

The other major AHA moment is the one I’ve chosen for this post. Yes, the subject line – Trusting the Divine – tells you the potential intensity of the topic. Intense, yet powerfully uplifting!

It was my Day 3 of the 40 day and 40 night guided inner journey with Iyanla Vanzant’s book: One Day My Soul Just Opened Up that set all of this expansion into action. It is my writings from that particular exercise that I wish to share with you. That and the unique happenings that arose the next morning. Continue Reading →