[Knowing that true power lies with our Higher Self.]

Both our outer world and our inner worlds can be fraught with fears and insecurities. At times, these can feel overwhelming. Our most primal instinct is to seek reassurance from a friend, a family member, a religious leader, or through the political process. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between our personal, inner fears and those stimulated by the threats that are broadcast all around us. It appears that fear SELLS. Underlying most marketing is the notion that we will not be secure without a particular brand of car, soap, medication or political doctrine. When the car breaks down, the scent of the soap does not attract the partner we want, the medication fails to alleviate our symptoms, or the political doctrine for which we voted fails to produce freedom from threat, we feel betrayed.

Who can we trust?

The first and most important step is to identify what is coming from inside, and what is being incited from the outside. Outside stimuli have different effects on us at different times. When we are in a situation where our job, our relationships and our neighborhood feel secure, news of domestic or international threats are less likely to produce a sense of immediate discomfort or to be experienced as immanent than at times when our livelihood, relationships or living situation are in tenuous circumstances.

 I had a vivid experience of the juxtaposition of outer and inner events in Chicago, in the 1960s. I was living in an integrated neighborhood when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Overnight, it was no longer safe in the streets of my neighborhood. That triggered a childhood memory of the occupation of my hometown, Vienna, by the Nazis. Then, too, it had been unsafe, overnight, for a person of Jewish origin to walk the streets of the hitherto friendly neighborhood. My awareness of the memory and a good therapist helped to heal the childhood trauma, so that threats of terrorism no longer trigger childlike fear, insecurity, a wish to hide or to flee.

The key is, in the words of Socrates, to “know thyself.” Whenever you are feeling overwhelmed with insecurity, before you turn outside for help, ask yourself, “what does this feeling remind me of?” Find out what memories are associated with the feeling. If it is a childhood memory, ask yourself whether, at the time, you had resources to deal with it yourself. What were those inner resources and were they effective? If you did not have inner resources to deal with your insecurity, to whom did you turn? Did that person prove trustworthy? Most importantly, if you were in that situation now, how would you handle it?

By answering these questions, you create a working template with which to assess the outside situation. We tend to repeat the response patterns we learned earlier in life. Understanding our response patterns and re-framing them in the present is a vital tool for coping in a public world full of lies, deceptions and distortions. Ultimately, we can only trust ourselves.

When we read about the political, business, sports and business leaders that lie and deceive us, it frequently triggers memory of family members, friends, teachers or partners who deceived us or treated us unfairly in the past. If we do not recognize and deal with our pattern of response from an adult perspective, we may become innocent pawns of the next “man on a white horse” to promise us revenge, restitution and/or security.

As we get to know ourselves more deeply we begin to tap into our Higher Self, or Inner Healer, that part of ourselves which is of, and in tune with, the Creation, or God. Knowing that true power lies in our connection with our Higher Self, and through that, with the power in the universe is called faith. And faith is the ultimate trust of all.

Lisa Raphael is a transformational holistic healer, spiritual mentor, licensed mental health counselor and author. (727) 822-048. www.lisaraphael.com