The 3 Types of Fear & How to Experience Maximum Aliveness

Feeling one’s Aliveness is a peak experience, and it’s one of the privileges that come with being in a physical body. To better understand that privilege, let’s consider a different, albeit related, subject: fear.

For fear is also something that comes with being in a physical body, and it can sometimes distract you from what you truly want to experience. Let’s explore this in more detail.

*This post contains an optional recorded meditation (at the end) and is cross-posted to my Substack. For more content like this, follow me there.*

The 3 Types of Fear

There’s actually an indicator for whether your fear is helpful in any given moment—the extent to which you are fully in the present moment while experiencing the fear.

We can broadly categorize fear into 3 groups:

1. Past-oriented fear:

Fear that doesn’t seem to have a specific cause (such as worried thoughts or acute danger) is an indicator of deeper underlying issues. This type of fear could be seen as a past-oriented fear. It can come from unhealed ancestral issues, issues from another lifetime, or even from the collective/mass consciousness. In some ways, it’s not actually your fear, it’s just fear that’s stuck in your body.

With this type of fear, the key is to look (and resolve) the underlying cause. Doing so can feel extremely liberating.

2. Future-oriented fear

Fear that is caused by your (escalating) thoughts is the most common type of fear. This type of fear could be seen as a future-oriented fear, where you feel some fear about something that might happen, which then creates a cycle where you experience more worrisome thoughts. This fear can be very detrimental to your well-being, for it can be hard to find a resolution. The key here is to stop the thoughts that are causing the worry, either by distracting yourself with another topic, or by “softening” your thoughts to something that feels better. This article also contains helpful suggestions about overcoming one’s fears.

3. Present-focused fear

Lastly, there’s what we could call “Pure Fear”. Pure Fear is a state of maximum alertness and clarity. It’s when you achieve a state of Absolute Presence. As the only present-focused fear, Pure Fear is pretty rare and often occurs in the face of acute danger. To help you deal with such an intense situation, Pure Fear draws your entire attention to the Eternal Now Moment. This type of fear is extremely beneficial, both in making it more likely that you once again reach a state of safety, and in how it can increase your consciousness and presence.

Consciousness and Presence

As you can see, there is a scale of consciousness to these fears that correlates to the past/future/present-orientation:

• The first type of fear (fear without intense thoughts and without acute danger that would warrant that fear) is unconscious fear. Your unconsciousness is concerned with the past and holds a repertoire of previous experiences.
• Fear with intense thoughts is conscious fear. However, it’s your small c-consciousness that drives the show. Your consciousness is concerned with the future and has worries about what might happen.
• Pure Fear—fear in the face of actual, present danger—is Conscious fear, where your capital C-Consciousness gets to take the wheel. Your Consciousness is concerned with Being Here Now (to paraphrase Ram Dass).

Experiencing Absolute Aliveness

Pure Fear doesn’t contain the negativity that’s associated with other types of fears. That’s because Pure Fear is in the present moment and gets you in a state of Maximum Aliveness.

Absolute Presence = Absolute Aliveness

If you wonder why there is a market for bungee-jumping, this is why. It helps people experience Pure Fear in a controlled environment. (To some extent, scary movies do the same, although the fear is more mediated/muted.)

Personally, I’m not interested in going bungee-jumping. Thankfully, that’s not necessary at all, for we can experience Absolute Aliveness in many other ways. And while extreme experiences can instantly put you into a state of Absolute Aliveness, they don’t teach you how to stay there or to generate that experience at will.

Here’s a meditative experience, created by Niv and channeled by me, that can help you get used to experiencing more Aliveness.

Only listen to this if it’s safe for you to close your eyes and give it your full attention. 🙂

Since all peak emotions connect you with Absolute Presence, you can also listen to any other of our meditations to gain the same benefits. Here’s one to get you started.

Transcript:

The first thing we would like for you to know about Absolute Presence is that it's already always here and you just need to tune into it like you tune into a radio station.

There are no interruptions to Absolute Presence. In fact, as we were recording the first version of this, we got interrupted. And perhaps we should have just kept that recording going as a reminder that everything is just experience and everything is happening now and there is no effort involved in getting to the state of Absolute Presence and Absolute Aliveness.

Notice how it feels to be in a body right now and how there's a joy in that, in just being and existing, a joy that doesn't need anything else to be complete. That joy is the perspective of your soul, and it is unconditional.

If you notice yourself thinking that you need a reason to be joyous, that is your smaller self talking, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not the bigger reality.

So see if there's a bodily sensation right now that draws your attention. And just feel that and notice how the moment is both still and humming with aliveness. How it's both stillness and movement, stillness and movement.

And often in life, when you get off center, it's because you're picking one of the two poles. More often, in the world you live in, it’s frantic movement. Aliveness is about both, about the stillness and the movement at the same time, about the reconciliation of what seemed to be opposites to you.

For in truth, there's only One. And these are but different expressions of that same Oneness. And when you experience that Oneness, you can feel this Aliveness.

I'll give you a few moments more to soak this in. And then, as you're feeling the state of Aliveness, see if there's anything that comes up for you as an insight or an inspiration. For if you are in a state of joy right now, it's an excellent time to consider your desires and what you would like to do.

Now, you're acting from a state of being first. Not doing first, no. You get into the state of Aliveness and of Being, and then you act. And that action would probably be much more joyful than if you hadn't taken the time to first align with your true self.

And with that, my friend, I wish you a wonderful day and I look forward to talking very, very soon.