essential inner work for the pandemic: Deepest Fear Inventory
Awhile back I started talking about essential practices to help us rise to the rather dramatic occasion of this strange, uncertain pandemic time.
Below, you'll find instructions on the third practice in my list, Deepest Fear Inventory. You can also find me giving a video explanation of it right here.
I love Deepest Fear Inventory because it helps to make unconscious fears, conscious - so they can be released. When our psyche is all mucked up with unconscious fears, we can't be fully present for our purpose or our loved ones.
I consider Deepest Fear Inventory to be a solve practice (from the Latin alchemical phrase "solve et coagula" which means "dissolve and recombine").
Solve practices help us to dissolve old patterns and liberate the energies stuck within them...
... so that we can then take that liberated energy and create something new and more wondrous with it.
As we discussed yesterday, this pandemic is a giant societal solve time, so it's an excellent occasion to do this kind of liberating inner work, also.
(soon I'll discuss other essential practices for a time like this -- Hot Seats, Tarot, Astrological observation, and Planetary Magic - stay tuned).
3. Deepest Fear Inventory
This is one of my favorite practices of all time -- I give these instructions for it also in my Existential Kink book - it's inspired by the Marianne Williamson quote, "our deepest fear is not that we're inadequate; our deepest fear is that we're powerful beyond all measure."
To do Deepest Fear Inventory, you take a sheet of paper (and yes, it has to be paper and not a computer document because you'll need to rip it up later)...
... at the top of the sheet of paper you write,
"Dear God [or Universe, or Hecate, or Hermes - however you like to address divinity],
I hate and resent _________ [fill in the blank with something you think you really want]....
... because I have deep fear that I _____________ [fill in the blank]
... because I have deep fear that I ______________
... because I have deep fear that I _______________
(write at least 20 deep fears, quick as you can)
At the bottom of the sheet of paper, write the following prayer:
"God, I ask that you remove these fears. I pray only for knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry it out. Amen."
Next, find a trusted person to read your Deepest Fear Inventory aloud to. The person should just hear your Deepest Fear Inventory and say "thank you for your honesty" with no further discussion.
Then, you rip up your Deepest Fear Inventory sheet and say to your listener, "Thank you for listening," then you throw away your little shreds of paper.
No holding onto an inventory "to remember what my fears are" or any nonsense like that -- tear it up! Throw it away! It's a banishing spell!
And if you're wondering - yes, the "reading aloud" part is very essential.
There's potent magic in being witnessed by another human consciousness as you acknowledge your fears and other emotional "stuff."
Since you're stuck at home, what better time than to dive into the most profound layers of your unconscious blocks in life?
Here's an example Deepest Fear Inventory:
Dear God, I hate and resent receiving wealth easily and effortlessly [[something I think I want]]
... because I have deep fear that I find the need to hustle more exciting
... because I have deep fear that I don't deserve it
... because I have deep fear that wealth has something to do with deservingness
... because I have deep fear that my old friends will resent me and envy me the more easily I receive wealth
... because I have deep fear that my ego will be unimportant if I receive easily and effortlessly
... because I have deep fear that I get a sense of importance and superiority from my work ethic
... because I have deep fear that I will lose touch with a sense of immediacy and gratitude
... because I have deep fear that I will be complacent
.... (etc., up to 20)
Dear God, I ask that you remove these fears. I pray only for knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry it out. Amen.
You can of course write multiple inventories surrounding one topic.
So after doing the above inventory, you could also write about "I hate and resent feeling highly valued and desired by other people" / "I hate and resent magnetizing all good things" / "I hate and resent always having much more than I need".... and so on.
Deepest Fear Inventory is one of our core practices in the WEALTH alchemical community. People find DFI partners and they call each other up via phone or Zoom and read aloud to each other.
When done as a daily practice over a period of weeks or months, Deepest Fear Inventory works wonders -- it strips off layers of fear and doubt like layers of old paint.
Deepest Fear Inventory also can really help to create connection and intimacy between people.
If you're living with a romantic partner or a room mate, now is a great time to enlist them to do a Deepest Fear Inventory practice with you.
Remember, after you hear the other person read, you just say "Thank you for your honesty" and they say "Thank you for listening"-- no prolonged psychoanalysis of the fears is needed. The sheet gets ripped up and thrown away.
Try it, you'll like it ;)
best,
Carolyn Elliott
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