Fear and anxiety have physical consequences--and metaphysical ones! In Part One of this series on fear, learn the three steps to take when you find yourself feeling anxious or afraid. Read the Full Episode I’m okay now. I might not be okay later today. I might not be okay tomorrow. I might not be okay next Thursday. I’m pretty certain I won’t be okay if this thing I’m worried about happens. It’s possible that I might not be okay by the end of the month. Even if I make it through this month, what about next month? I’m thinking things will be really difficult this summer, so I am concerned. Sounds kind of ludicrous when I write it out like that, doesn’t it? But this is the way fear—or it’s lesser relative, anxiety—often operates in our heads. The worry and the anxious thoughts go around and around in our heads. If the fear just stayed in our heads, it might be okay, but it doesn’t work like that. This kind of anxiety permeates our entire being. Our muscles get tense, our breathing gets shallow, there is a clenching, constricting energy in the pit of our stomachs. If the fear gets intense enough, it becomes a kind of panic attack—a wave of desperation that we just have to grit our teeth and breathe through until we come out the other side. And those are just the physical and emotional effects of fear. Fear and anxiety have well known physical and physiological side effects, but fear has significant energetic impacts as well. Fear is an energy constrictor. Just as fear tightens your muscles and raises your blood pressure, it also constricts the energy channels that allow your chi, or life force energy, to run through your body. That life force energy is actually Source energy. Those of us who are highly conscious are aware that we can pull Source energy down from the heavens and into our bodies, where we can use it to manifest what we need and desire. Source energy is the gasoline we use to power the engines of our lives—our lives work well when we are open to and able to embody the flow of Source, and our lives start to get rocky or sticky when we can’t fully and freely receive the flow of Source. This energetic constriction can produce a downward spiral. We are tense and anxious because something is not working in our lives. It could be a relationship issue, a health issue, or a money issue—it doesn’t matter what is making us anxious, the effect is the same. Because we are anxious, the flow of Source into our bodies and our energies fields gets constricted—partially shut down. So we are trying to cocreate the solution to our problem, but our fear isn’t allowing us to do that— our cosmic fuel lines are clogged, and not enough Source is getting through. When we don’t get the results we need, we get more anxious, and that shuts down the flow of Source even further, so we are even less able to manifest the solution we need. If the cycle goes on long enough, we can get really stuck in this negative feedback loop, and our life circumstances can go from bad to worse. Luckily, it is possible to learn to work through your fear, to change your energetic channel to a different energy that allows you to find relief and once more open to receiving the flow of Source. In a recent episode, I talked about the energies of empowerment, disconnection, and soothing. As a reminder, power energies help us to connect to and embody Source energy, challenge energies show us where are are disconnected from Source, and soothers help us to manage the anxiety and intensity of the soul growth process. When faced with fear, therefore, you can reach for a power energy that allows you to reconnect to Source, and/or you can reach for a soother that will enable you to calm down and breathe through the panic. Either way, once you are relaxed, regrounded, and reconnected to Source, you can then tackle the p