Our ego has created “The Big One” in our brains: the idea that there might be one event in our life that happens that proves once and for all that we are not worthy of all the love we want.
Our ego has spent our entire life trying to avoid this event but it seems like it is always there in the background and could show up at any moment.
For some of us it shows up as uncertainty about the question “How will I be/do or have enough to survive?” For others it’s uncertainty about the question “How will I be/do or have enough to mate?” And for others, it’s uncertainty about the question “How will I be/do or have enough to secure my place in the eyes of others or the world?”
Our brain views this made up idea of “The Big One” as the biggest threat to our existence and it is constantly monitoring what’s happening in our life to see how close or far it might be. Even when things are going well, our ego never lets us feel completely at ease, unconsciously thinking that “The Big One” could show up any minute.
When we experience a change in our circumstances and we interpret it as creating more uncertainty about our brain’s main question, all or most of our attention becomes absorbed by thoughts about how to avoid “The Big One”.
Our only three choices become:
Change the situation (this is always only temporary and we still have the fear)
Live with the fear (this always sucks) or
Transform the fear into more awareness enough to see through the illusion of “The Big One” and live beyond it
Number three is really how we’ve gotten past any fear in our lives isn’t it? It starts out as appearing to be a major threat but then after you get completely beyond it, you realize it wasn’t the threat you thought it was - it wasn’t really “The Big One”.
To transform the fear of “The Big One” requires focusing on the awareness of the thoughts and feelings that make it up whenever they are here without trying to avoid the FEELINGS for enough times and for long enough each time that the neural connections that keep the pattern running can be dissolved.
What we usually do when faced with the threat of “The Big One” is anything to avoid the feelings, which might include among other things: freezing, distracting yourself, getting angry, feeling self pity, trying to control the situation, trying to figure it out, trying to fix the situation fast, giving up, etc.
All these types of actions are your ego trying to avoid the feelings that the idea of “The Big One” creates. The key is to not try to avoid them at all and simply focus only on the awareness of the feelings being here without following any of the thoughts about “The Big One” or adding any more thoughts about it to the experience.
Try asking these two questions for as long as it takes whenever the threat of “The Big One” shows up:
“How much awareness is here now?”
“How is it feeling now?”