Matt's Audio Letter of the Week

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this edition of the Feel Better Letter, the FBL.

This is Matt.

Today, I want to talk about one of the great paradoxes that I think every single person has to navigate in order to recover from fear.

It's probably the thing that I see preventing most people who stay stuck in fear from really experiencing recovery and experiencing higher states of peace and all of the things that are available.

But the reality is that just because something's available doesn't mean that everyone reaches it.

And I want to talk about what that is.

One of the traps about fear is that fear hijacks the mind.

And when you've lived in fear for so long, it becomes normal.

It's just like you assume that's how things are, that's how you are.

You develop these narratives about yourself, and they become subconscious, right?

They're just subconscious identities.

"I'm just anxious." "This is just my OCD."

We hear people say all this stuff all the time, and it's not you at all.

It's just a narrative that you've told yourself and adopted, accepted, and internalized.

And when you've lived in fear for a long time, you can forget that there's even another, entirely different way to live.

And what healing work, when it comes to recovery, is not about getting rid of a symptom you don't like.

The symptom you don't like is the very thing waking you up to the destructive state of consciousness that you're in.

The symptoms we experience, in my belief, whether they're physical, psychological, or emotional, get our attention, right?

When you think about it, if you step on a nail, the nail hurts. The pain is not the problem. It is the experience, the symptom, getting your attention to notify you of a problem, right?

So the ongoing pain of fear, the resistance to fear, the intrusive thoughts—all of that stuff—these are symptoms designed to get your attention, get your awareness, and kind of indicate to you, "Hey, there's something amiss here."

The reason we perceive them as painful to begin with is that they're not our normal state.

And when you're in fear, it hijacks the mind, and then we begin identifying with the mind.

So we think that because our mind says something, it's just who we are. It's just how things are. You know, it's just what it is.

And we just listen to the mind blindly, not realizing that we aren't the mind.

And when you're hijacked by fear, fear will always direct you toward more fear.

It will always prevent you from really escaping fear.

It wants to self-contain. It wants to stay. It wants to stay in control.

Hence why our program is called Taking Back Control.

And the paradox of fear is that people, when they're hijacked by fear, try to use their mind to think their way out of fear and think their way into the best way out of fear, while the mind is simultaneously hijacked by fear, while you're operating from a state of consciousness of fear.

And all that will ever do is lead you to a decision that's not going to get you out of fear.

Because the reality is, in order to take the jump out of fear, you have to go into foreign territory, and the mind is always going to initially appraise something foreign as dangerous.

You know, it's just the way our nervous system is programmed.

Familiar is always going to be perceived as safer than the unknown.

Now, this is what keeps people stuck in domestically violent relationships, terrible situations, jobs they hate, right? States of consciousness they don't want to be in.

It's because the mind will always convince you that taking a step that's unfamiliar is more dangerous because it's unknown than staying in what you already know.

And this trap right here, I watch it all the time.

Someone's on the brink of making a step, and they're about to step into foreign territory where they're going to learn all new things and really be able to implement new tools, learn how to process emotion, learn how to release, learn how to shift states of consciousness.

And that can open up a whole new existence for them.

An entirely new existence. An entirely new way of perceiving the world. An entirely new way of being in the world.

You know, again, actually living from—not just as an idea, but really experiencing—states of trust, states of peace, states of acceptance, states of love, states of joy.

All of that is available.

But fear will never lead you there.

And the trap that I just see so many people run into is using the mind when it's hijacked by fear and listening to its guidance, thinking that it will somehow get you out of fear.

The mind will always convince you that staying in fear is safer than attempting to challenge it, attempting to get better, attempting to get out, because it's more familiar.

And the familiarity—it's like, "Better the devil you know than the one you don't," metaphorically, right?

And the mind will create its own trap, its own ceiling, that the person can't get out of.

And this is why trying to think your way out of this doesn't work.

If you're trying to sit and think about when to do this, how to do this, you've already gone the wrong way, because thinking about it is the problem.

Fear is not overcome by thinking.

Fear is overcome by action.

Through the field of courage. Through taking steps even when they seem scary.

That is the only way that one can overcome fear.

So when you think about it, or you hear your mind say, "Oh, I'm gonna put it off. I'm gonna put it down the road. I'm gonna..."—this, that, and the other—that is the very fear you're wanting to overcome controlling your decision and ultimately stifling you, preventing you from escaping.

And I see this pattern happen so much, objectively.

And again, I've seen it in my own life. I experienced it firsthand.

This is why I want to call it out and talk about it, because if you're unaware of that, fear will always lead you right back into the loop and convince you that it's the safe play.

It's the smart play.

"Because I don't know if that's gonna work. I don't know if I can do that. I don't know XYZ."

Because I don't know it, and I'm not certain, and I can't control it, it's dangerous.

Therefore, I need to go back into my familiar fear loop, even though I hate it. Even though I don't want to be in it.

I'm gonna go back into that same thing that I don't want to be in, because fear will always tell you that a familiar situation is safer than an unfamiliar one.

And that trap right there is something I see take more people out than anything.

And so, if you see that in your life, the answer to overcoming it is recognizing what is happening.

And then taking decisive, aggressive action in opposition to fear.

And so, if that feels aligned with you, if that feels like something you're ready to do, we'd love to walk with you on this journey.

We still have a couple of spots open for TBC in the month of October, in our October enrollment.

So we have applications. I'll link them down below.

And with that, wishing you all a great day.

Talk to you soon.