Peace of Mind
Why do we hold on? By Anna Marie Frank
» OUR GLASS CAGE. Life is funny. More often than not, we go about life “playing it safe,” which means, repressing your fears. You really give up a lot because you’re handcuffed to your fears that are paralyzing you, all in order to avoid facing those fears. I used to “play it safe” too, and only recently began to grasp the fact that by doing so, I’d put myself in a glass cage. I can see outward but can only go so far. I realize that so many others do the same thing and I wonder: Why do we do this? I guess we think that if we don’t go to certain “dark” or “uncomfortable” places where the fear resides in our own minds, everything will be OK. We just have to stay in the glass cage and not cross certain boundaries. Wrong! The glass cage we have put ourselves in is a false safety zone and we are really not OK. Press too hard on the glass and it will break, and we all know how dangerous cut glass is. But what if we leave the glass cage behind? Maybe we’ll have greater success ... even fly! The fact is that the glass cage doesn’t serve us well. As we become wiser, we realize that the very things we do to “play it safe” and “protect” ourselves are often the very things that harm us! The mechanisms of protection we layer ourselves with are varied. Repressing our fear is one way we try to protect ourselves. Think of how you may have held on to a relationship that no longer served you. Why did you hold on to it? Maybe because you feared the alternative of loss and being alone? But what if by letting go, you soon find yourself in a healthier, more compatible relationship? Interestingly, the truth is that holding on to fear creates blockages in your energy field. It also lowers your vibration, your frequency! Releasing negative energies (toxic people, things, thoughts, emotions) opens you up to receiving people, things, thoughts, emotions and opportunities that vibrate at a higher frequency. We all vibrate at a specific frequency. The lower the frequency, the more heavy and dense the vibration is. The higher the frequency, the lighter and more energetic we feel. The good news is that we actually get to choose our frequency with our thoughts. Positive thoughts create a higher vibration. Negative thoughts and fearful thoughts create a denser, heavier frequency that weighs us down. So, it is no wonder we get stuck in the glass cage. The not-so-good-news is that the longer we stay in the glass cage, the lower our frequency becomes and the heavier we feel. It’s what makes us feel stuck. But we never are really stuck; we just need to start thinking positive thoughts. That will raise our vibration and lighten us up so that we move forward. Let’s take a simple example. Say you trip and fall. (I hope not!) You immediately start complaining. You tell everyone you know, “I started off the morning with a fall. What a crappy day! And I still hurt.” Chances are that as your day continues, it will unfold in the worst way. “I had the worst day today. PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNA MARIE FRANK
The entire day was crap and everything was yucky! It started when I fell.” Soon your coworker is complaining about all the negative things in her life, too. Uhhhhh!!!! Now imagine that you fall and immediately get yourself back up, dust yourself off, grab some ice for your knee, maybe laugh at how clumsy you are. Then you go on with your day grateful that you’re OK and your injury wasn’t worse! This latter thought pattern keeps you vibrating at a higher frequency, which in turn attracts high vibrational energy. After all, like attracts like. If we can all set our fear aside and realize that fear exists at a very low vibration that prevents us from flying high, we can start to break free from the glass cage we have put ourselves in. Over the last two decades I had put myself in a glass cage. I told myself, “Just play it safe; get a job, get insurance, and blah-blah-blah.” But what if instead of just playing it safe, I had told myself, “Do what you love, help others, follow your purpose. Be who you are meant to be and be proud of who you are!” Wowzers! If there had been a class we all could have taken as a kid that taught us to be free of our fears and fly … can you imagine? Instead, what we got was the fears of others projected onto us. So, from a very young age we are all programmed to be safe. “Play it safe, get a job, get insurance, and, by the way, government jobs are really super secure.” That’s the stuff that was programmed into us. It’s what was programmed into me as far back as I remember. Why? Because my parents’ fears were being projected onto me. They feared not having enough, not having job security, not having insurance, and their fear became my fear. “Avoid doing what you love if it doesn’t include all these things!” Barf! Well, I allowed my parents’ fears to drive me all of my adult life — until a few months ago. Now I actively remind myself that working for myself, doing what I love to do, and making a difference in the world, is OK! I mean — geez! — I have to remind myself and give myself permission to be the amazing human I was meant to be! Reprogramming yourself takes time and work! It doesn’t happen overnight but it starts changing as soon as you recognize your glass cage and the programing that has been downloaded into you and your mind. So, please, use this as a reminder to be you, follow your passions, and break through that glass cage. The world deserves to have the true you. To free yourself you must find out who you truly are! The opinions expressed in this column are those of Anna Marie Frank.
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