Fears that paralyze us — Spotify from the CEC Library

A listener asks: "I have been terrified of water since childhood. I would not go to the beach even if you killed me, and I stay far away from swimming pools, wells, lakes, and everything else. It is a terrible situation because people do not understand my terror. It is a very strong phobia; I have to leave the place immediately. I always dream of enormous ocean waves coming toward me. I am already 47 years old and have not been able to resolve this. My wife always says that I should seek treatment from a specialist in the subject. Could you please guide me in some way?" What you are afraid of is not water, but what it represents to you. You truly need therapy to discover what it means. Otherwise, you will spend all your time running away from water. You are afraid of swimming pools and seawater, something children are not afraid of. You are 47 years old.

Your wife is right: you should seek a therapist, a competent person who works in some school of psychology, such as psychoanalysis. Fear of something is always connected to what the thing represents to you, to its meaning. If you are in this situation, the fear is internal, an emotional process, not a real process. You imagine that if there is a shallow pool, you can stand in it, but you panic because of what water represents to you. Therefore, this is an emotional process that requires therapy.

A listener asks: "I am afraid of public speaking, even when the audience is small and familiar, as is the case with my classroom. I get very nervous when presenting an assignment. Is this a phobia?" There are people who truly cannot speak in public, even in small groups. Sometimes there are three or four people, and the individual cannot join the group and say something. In the classroom, the situation is even more complicated. You stand at the front, everyone waits, and there is an expectation about what you will say. You will certainly be evaluated.

There are some truly very funny teachers. I remember one from the time I was taking a college entrance preparatory course. The teacher was short, very agitated and playful; he would pick up the chalk and hit whomever he wanted with it. He was very funny: he jumped around at the front, shouted, tap-danced, made declarations of love, and did everything imaginable. He was very uninhibited. This is a matter of inner work. You are afraid of public speaking, but you can resolve this. Do not think you cannot. By reversing the situation, you will begin to enjoy speaking. When you see the audience waiting, you realize that you are capable of conveying knowledge and discernment, making people laugh, and easing everyone's tension. That is nice and good; you only need to work on the issue and, if necessary, seek someone who can help.

If you realize that the difficulty is very great, that you cannot overcome it through the will of your ego, you need to seek someone to guide you or attend some therapy sessions to discover whether the situation is even worse or whether it is concealing another difficulty. Fear of public speaking manifests as somatization. You may feel pain in your foot, leg, back, or throat; when a person has this fear, they often lose their voice. Before beginning, they already notice the loss of their voice. Some problem may arise the day before. You are very nervous. Thus, the psychological process prevents public speaking. In therapy situations, the person may arrive late or be unable to attend because of internal resistance.

They arrive late, do not come that day, and confuse the dates; all of this will indeed happen. These are internal things from our unconscious that keep you from suffering or entering a state of anguish when doing something frightening. I believe this can be treated: seek someone to help and guide you. This situation has a solution. I have difficulty talking about myself. This is an old case. With my boyfriend, the conversation revolves around external subjects; everything is great, but I completely freeze when the conversation turns to me, to aspects of myself. I would like to know why this happens and whether there is a way to change it, because it has already caused a great deal of discomfort between my boyfriend and me.

You need to observe what you are hiding and what you are afraid others will discover about you. This is normally related to the first stage of life, when we are children from zero to twelve or thirteen years old. At that age, situations may occur in which the child is unable to defend themselves because they do not yet understand life. An eleven- or twelve-year-old boy may be mistreated, have someone shout at him, be molested, or experience various situations, and he does not know what to do; he is unable to. Later, this remains inside him as something very bad, because imagine being in a group of people and thinking they know what happened to you. It does not need to be something very serious. For example, if you were assaulted by your father, that remains as an ugly mark, something dirty.

If you are taking a shower and leave the bathroom door open, your father comes in and says, "You left the bathroom door open!" and scolds you severely. The result is that being naked becomes embarrassing. There are various situations that can happen. We do not realize how delicate this is and how our parents, especially, and the people around us affect our lives and our continuity.

Think about what you fear others might learn about you. Perhaps you will remember, or a difficult situation will come to mind. Reflect on what it could be. I have something to tell, because I think many people do not know it. My first experience occurred when I was seven years old. I left the body and saw my body in a hammock; my brother was beside it. I moved through the house floating, completely calm, with no problem at all. When I tried to speak with my father and mother, they did not respond; this did not frighten me. I went back, passed through the bedroom, went through the wall, and went outside, where there was a balcony.

Our house was made of wood. I went to the front of the house, where several people were talking, as usual. There are certain types of behavior in towns in the countryside; 50 or 40 years ago, things were very different from today. People used to talk at night, chatting after work. I observed that group talking and suddenly returned to my body.

I returned to the body, got up from the hammock, and looked for paper to write down what had happened. I recorded my first experience, which marked my life. Why did it mark my life? Because from then on, I began having astral projection experiences every night, and I wrote them down. At that time, I used pencils and fountain pens; it was different. I remember that there were compact-style pens. Every day, I made my notes in pencil on brown wrapping paper and hid them because no one could see what I wrote. As a result, throughout my life, I have had countless astral projection and mental body experiences. The Center for the Study of Consciousness was founded based on these experiences.