Guy Finley is the bestselling author of The Secret of Letting Go; The Essential Laws of Fearless Living; and and 40 other works that have sold millions of copies in 18 languages worldwide. They’ve also been featured on countless radio and TV networks, including NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR and PBS.

He lives and teaches in Merlin, Oregon, where he serves as director of the non-profit organization Life of Learning Foundation.

Ric Thompson: Well then let’s just jump right in because obviously being fearless here is a pretty hot topic I’d have to think nowadays you know, a lot of turbulence going on, a lot of changing times right now going on. I’d have to think that fear would be a pretty big impact. That’s what I’m hearing. That’s what I’m seeing and you’re talking about getting people to be fearless. So it seems like with everything going on it’s a natural reaction,
sort of like the only reaction, the only response to what’s going on is fear. Can you talk about that?

Guy Finley: Well I think we’ll start with a real positive idea and then use our time together to gradually prove the truth of it but I think it’s critical to lay it out there so individuals understand. We’re not talking about here’s seven steps to step out of the mess of fear. I mean we will talk about some practices and ways in which we can understand the way in which we can let go of these things that are limiting us, but I think the first thing I want to make abundantly clear is that it’s our right as a human being to live without crippling fear. It’s not like it’s some advantage that someone gets that they find how to be fearless.

The real problem is that we have forgotten individually and certainly as a race of beings that we are created, endowed with, certain characteristics, features, wisdom that gives us in a moment that we now fear, a way to look at the event and to transcend it in such a way that we don’t have to suddenly look around for powers by which we can overcome what is an imagined adversary. Instead we are given the light, the understanding that these imagined adversaries, these problems that we’re facing, are actually just that, and that fearlessness is the fruit, the sweet fruit I’ll add of understanding that we are created to overcome moments that frighten us by recognizing the nature within us that reacts the way it does. So I think the first thing is we’re going to prove that fearlessness is our right. How old were you when you first learned to ride a bicycle?

Ric Thompson: Good question.

Guy Finley: It would be funny if you said just last week.

Ric Thompson: No, probably around seven or eight years old without the training wheel type thing.

Guy Finley: Yeah now I can remember back for myself. I had a kind of bad experience. My older brother I think who wanted to kill me, took me to the top of a hill and set me on a bike and said Go! and pushed me down. But you know I made it to the bottom, to the tree that I hit without falling over, but the point being here is that the balance that it
takes to ride a bicycle. We don’t create that, do we? We gradually discover it.

Ric Thompson: Oh.

Guy Finley: Well fearlessness is much the same way. It’s part of who we are. It’s part of a real interior balance to use the metaphor that we’ve been set out if you will in to this life stuff with, conditioned with beliefs that on one hand when they’re first given to us seem to be the path to a fearless life, the powers we need, but as we’ll examine, these beliefs that we all are born with and that we’re inculcated through and as we grow up they’re really the source of our fears. They can’t make us fearless. So I think the short answer to this business about fear is that we’re going to prove that fear is the possibility stealer, not the power giver.

Ric Thompson: Nice. So what’s kind of the first step here in discovering that new balance shall we say?

Guy Finley: Well believe it or not and I suppose it’s going to take a little dialog on our part to get this across. We have to actually recognize that we’ve been in kind of a conspiracy within ourselves, within an order of our own thinking that produces the very thing that we don’t want. If you had a friend let’s say Ric, listeners, if you knew somebody and they were your friend, but then one day seemingly not connected to your friendship, you began to realize that every time a piece of silverware was missing from your house was related within 24 hours to the time your friend was over. Now you’d think to yourself, oh that’s impossible. I’ve known William or Mary. I’ve known them for

15, 20, 30 years but the evidence mounts. Every time I spend time with this friend of mine, I’m missing something. Gradually you’d have to suspect even though it seems unthinkable that your pal was pinching your good stuff. And then if you found out for sure that someone you were trusting was not trustworthy, how long would you remain a friend with someone that you discovered was betraying you?

Ric Thompson: It would take a shift there but obviously yeah the realization came to dawn. Changes would have to be made.

Guy Finley: Yeah and it would be tough, wouldn’t it?

Ric Thompson: Yeah, yeah.

Guy Finley: Well because this was your pal and you shared wine and coffee and conversation. And always they seemed to be on your side, but the evidence mounts that this friend isn’t on your side. Well that’s exactly – you asked me where do we start to
find fearlessness. We have to start with recognizing that fear always appears in our life in a moment in which we have met something that seems greater than we are capable of dealing with. Can we agree that’s a fair definition?

Ric Thompson: Yeah, okay.

Guy Finley: Right, someone says something I don’t know how to deal with it. The economic news, something about my health; maybe I suspect someone has betrayed me and in that moment I’m filled with all kinds of negativity but the main one is fear because it looks to me in that moment as I’m looking at my life that this event is threatening something valuable about my life. And that’s where fear comes in, doesn’t it? Fear appears when my mind looks at an event – and this is key – and then tells me what the event means to me. And it’s always a negative projection. How you ever had a fear tell you everything’s going to work out okay?

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