Fear is the most limiting force for a human being. It not only curbs one’s true expression (thus withholding the manifestation of one’s desire and aspiration) but also attracts circumstances that are debilitating to one’s sense of self-respect, character and well-being.
A fear based state of existence is fraught with suffering owing to the constant stress of living each day and the depression of not being able to live the life one wants. Fear causes you to undermine your potential, it causes you to become a people pleaser, it makes you shun responsibility, keeps you from standing up against oppression (or wrong doing) and can push you into a state of inactivity or over-activity both of which are harmful to your body.
Quotes for living without fear
The following is a collection of quotes contain all the wisdom you need to start living a life free of fear. So let’s take a look at these quotes and deeply understand the profound message contained within.
1. “Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.” – Rumi
Your mind has a proclivity towards fear owing to its obsession with the future, its insecurity regarding a present challenge, its obsession with self-image, its interpretations regarding past failures, its need for approval and its inclination to be starkly influenced by negative events happening to others.
The mind can be highly restless with its addiction to negative thinking thoughts stemming from its proclivity towards fear.
To still the mind is akin to being free of fear because there is nothing in you that is afraid other than the mind (your spirit is free of fear inherently).
There is something in you that’s free of fear, which is the life force inside you (which is also the ground of silence that resides below the noise of your mind). Connecting with your inner silence is akin to connecting with this life force, it’s “still” but intelligent and free of fear. But to move from this place of silence, you need to let go of being identified with your mind’s chatter.
In his quote, Rumi points to this truth – he asks you to still your mind (which he implies by “live in silence”) and operate from the space of silence within you, which is also the space through which life can supply its wisdom.
To still the mind is to become conscious of your mind’s chatter. Once you are conscious you are no longer lost to your mind’s chatter. Instead a space of separation is created between you and your mind. You become the observer rather than the participant.
As an analogy, imagine playing a sport (participant) as opposed to watching a sport being played (as an audience/observer). An observer is not lost in the game, he is separate from the game as he watches it being played.
Once you become the observer, you become free of the mind and your mind begins to settle down to eventually become still. This is because, your unconscious attention is what fuels your thoughts. Once you become conscious and remove your attention from these thoughts by merely becoming an observer, the thoughts die down and you experience stillness.
Also Read: 45 Profound Quotes By Rumi That Will Change Your Life.
2. “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
This again is a strong pointer towards finding freedom from your mind’s preoccupation with the outside, and the fear based interpretations that it comes to.
You can’t control what happens outside you, but you can control your attention from being lost to your mind’s negativity. If you can consciously let go of being lost to the mind’s pull towards negative, or fear-based, thinking you will essentially find the power to exist in a state of openness and positivity that’s inherent to your spirit.
Don’t let your mind control your state of being, rather being rooted in your state of calmness by withdrawing attention from the mind’s pull. Over time you will have developed enough strength in your “awareness” to the point of thinking what you want to think rather than thinking obsessively from a place of fear.
Mastery over your mind first requires you to be free of the mind’s pull, after which you can truly exercise focused thinking, where you focus on what you desire to manifest rather than focusing on the negativity in a situation.
And as discussed in the earlier point, the only thing that is required to gain mastery over the mind is to become conscious of the mind.
Two practices that can help you become conscious is to make it a habit to live in the present moment whenever possible and also focused meditation.
3. “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change” – Wayne D Dyer
Our external reality is always a reflection of our inner state of being, it’s a mirror that shows you what’s going on within you – it’s a reality that manifests based on the energy that you are carrying within you.
Instead of blaming the outside, focus on freeing yourself from looking through the fear based lens of your mind – whatever you see from a place of fear within you will appear colored with negativity outside you.
You may feel that the outside events trigger fear inside you, but in actuality it’s not the events rather your mind’s inability to be free of the outside influence that causes the fear. Once you become rooted in a state of fear, whatever you look at appears to trigger fear in you – we start blaming the outside without realizing that it’s our own fear-based “looking” that’s causing the cycle of fear to continue in us.
When you look at events from a place of silence, without logging into the mind’s interpretations, you will sense an openness that’s not afraid and in this openness you will see the truth in an event very objectively, and then if a certain action is required it will come forth but without the pressure of fear.
In fact as you continue to look at things from a place of awareness rather than the place of mind-based negativity, you will see that life has the intelligence, and benevolence, to bring forth solutions and the clarity that enables you to be at peace.
You will also see that your reality is no longer manifesting negative circumstances, rather it seems to be aligned with a sense of well-being.
The change in your vibration (from fear-based to calm-based) will change the things that manifest in your life.
4. “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less” – Marie Curie
Ignorance directly leads to the susceptibility towards fear. The truth, when seen completely, will always free you of fear.
Anything that you understand deeply will free you of fear – this is true for any aspect of life.
To understand something deeply you need to make yourself open to it, if you close down your awareness through being lost to fear you will not be able to see the truth that liberates you.
For example, the more you understand about the mechanics of life, the less you fear it, you will see it as a force that simply reflects your inner vibration – so all you need to do is shift your inner vibration from a place of fear to a place of calm and you will see life working out peacefully for you. In fact, you can apply this to any element in your life – be it relationship, finances, health or work.
When you seek to understand something, in its fullness, you will stop being afraid of it – for example, if your work causes a lot of stress for you, you may want to understand if it’s because you are not equipping yourself with the necessary knowledge to perform the work (may be because you are afraid of effort) or if it’s because you don’t have the required resources to perform it (may be you need to bring it to the attention of your seniors), may be you are afraid of your colleagues in which case you need to address your mind’s fears (find a rootedness in stillness within you).
If something sparks a sense of fear in you, it’s very likely because you have a limited understanding (or no understanding) of the dynamics involved in that events or circumstance – make yourself open to “understanding” rather than closing down in a state of fear.
Also Read: 59 Calming Quotes For Anger.
5. “Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless.” – Lao Tzu
To master oneself is to master the mind. And because fear only exists within your mind, by mastering your mind, you can gain control over your fears.
The one and only way to master something is to study and understanding it as deeply as possible. To understand your mind, you need to become conscious of your mind or in other words, conscious of the thoughts your mind produces and the core beliefs that drive these thoughts.
To two practices that can help you understand your mind are mindfulness and meditation. Meditation helps you get control over your attention and mindfulness will help you stay aware of the thoughts in your mind.
By staying aware of and understanding your thoughts (and the subsequent feelings of fear they create in your body), you can start to become free from your fears as the great Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu rightly points out.
6. “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” – Anthony Robbins
Gratitude helps shift your perspective from one of scarcity to one of abundance. And when you feel abundance, you automatically attract thoughts of positivity that vibrate at a higher frequency and become free from thoughts of fear and negativity that vibrate at a lower frequency.
Fear based thinking is a habit and the best way to get rid of this habit is to substitute it with another habit which is to feel gratitude. Every time you have a fearful thought, instead of paying attention to that thought and engaging with it, shift your attention to thoughts of gratitude. This will be difficult in the beginning, but as you do this for a few weeks, it will become automatic.
7. “You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.” – Dale Carnegie
As discussed earlier, fear only exists on a mind level. And your mind is simply a machine that words on past data; it does not know any better. It tries to predict the future based on past data, and in most cases these predictions are completely wrong.
So make a firm resolve not to fall for the fears of the mind. Do not feed the negative thoughts with your attention and make a conscious attempt to shift your attention to empowering thoughts. Once you remove your attention from these thoughts and stop believing in them, these thoughts will starve and die down.
8. “Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.” – Rudyard Kipling
Your mind produces thoughts of fear based on past experiences and memory. And most of them are purely imaginary in nature.
For example, you watch a scary movie and your mind holds on to those sounds and images and starts churning out thoughts of fear based on the memory of the movie.
By simply acknowledging the fact that your thoughts are imaginary and have no basis in reality, you can start to become free from them.
In Conclusion
All of these quotes point to one important secret, that in order to live a life without fear, you need to become free from the control of your mind. You need to become conscious rather than living unconsciously, lost in your mind’s endless chatter.
One of the most powerful ways to become conscious of your mind is to practice living in the present moment. Living in the present moment is akin to becoming conscious of what is out there.
For example, for a moment, close your eyes and become conscious of all the sounds around you. You would be surprised to hear many sounds that you were previously unaware of. This is because, previously, your attention was only focused on your thoughts and hence these sounds were tuned out.
Another exercise would be to become conscious of your breathing – an activity that happens almost unconsciously every second. Feel your lungs drawing in air and the life energy that it supplies your body with.
These are just a couple of examples of how you can start to become conscious of things. In other words, start using your conscious mind rather than your default which is the subconscious (or unconscious) mind.
To understand this more, do check out this article on living in the present moment and this one about Eckhart Tolle’s – Power of Now.
Another way to strengthen your conscious mind is to practice focused meditation. This technique involves focusing your attention to your breathing and keeping it focused for as long as possible. As thoughts arise in the background, you simply keep refocusing your attention to your breath.
As you keep doing this, you strengthen your conscious mind which will further help you practice living in the present moment and reaching the state of stillness.
To know more about focused meditation, check out this article on meditation for beginners.
Also Read: 20 Powerful Songs to Help You Overcome Fear
