Befriending Fear

WSC Intro/Outro: 00:00:04

This is when Spirit calls, and you on your journey are in the right place. This show is about magic miracles and meaning shared through stories, interviews and channeled messages. We have so much to share about who you are and your divine mission here on the earth. Let's get to it, when Spirit calls is right now.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:00:33

Hello, and welcome back, I am so happy to be back with all of you listening today. And today, we are going to be talking about a little bit about fear, actually, and how fear can actually be a call from spirit. And, you know, I think fears been kind of a theme of discussion, I have been talking about in other platforms, how there's a bit of a fear play going on. And I say a bit of a fear plague, there is a fear plague going on. And I think many of you will understand what that means. We get bombarded with, you know, the narrative that we need to be in fear that fear is a motivator. And so there's a lot of sales tactics, a lot of promotional tactics, a lot of PR tactics that, you know, they use fear to get something done or to guide people in decision making. And, and so, there's a lot of people that have been in this kind of constant state of fight or flight. And I have been one of those people, I I've spent most of my life in fear. But I've been very blessed in the sense that I've been able to use fear as a catalyst. And, you know, I'm not sure at the beginning that that was even conscious for me, I just started to recognize a fear showed up that maybe I should pay more attention. And maybe that's a path that I should push through and stretch myself in. Now that's not necessarily easy for all of us. And, and, and it's not comfortable, most certainly, but on the other side of fear is something really special. And so that's why I chose this topic as the the second piece of my podcast because I think it's an important conversation to be having right now.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:02:33

So let me start by sharing a bit of a tale a little bit of a story. I love this story. It's a fun story. And, and a really important one as it relates to fear. My partner and I down we're down in Mexico, nice to have a property there in a little village called moolah, hey, now, moolah, hey is about six hours north of Cabo San Lucas drive driving. So it's on the Baja Peninsula, but it's it's off the beaten trail. It's not a really touristy area. You know, a lot of lot of local experiences and culture experiences found in this little village. And we heard from one of the locals that there was a really incredible beach with seashells of all shapes and sizes. And these, this beach, we we were told we had to find this village on this road, and then you had to turn it this village and then you went down this like not really a road, but like sand trail, and then you kept going and you kept going and you kept going until you found the ocean and there would be this beach. And so we had this little makeshift map and off we went on this adventure. Now we had a vehicle, a truck down there. And so we're, you know, in the truck and, you know, finding this village and we find this like sand trail and we're on this adventure hoping we're going to the right place. And so we ultimately we drive this trail, we're you know, we're questioning whether or not we're on the right path. But sure enough, eventually, it opens up to the ocean. And here in front of us is this incredible beach with all these seashells. And so we parked the truck and you get out and it is plus 4042 degrees Celsius.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:04:33

Okay, so for the American listeners, I don't know what the conversion is on that but plus 42 is hot, especially for us Canadians who are used to a little bit cooler weather, you know, usually our max is like plus 30 degrees Celsius. So anyway, needless to say, it's cooking. And we collect these shells and we're already sweating. So we decided let's hop in the ocean before we get back in the truck to go home because you know coolest down. So we hop in, grab our shells, load up the truck, and we go to leave. And we are stuck. Our wheels keep spinning, and the more we try to get out, the deeper, we're sinking into the sand. So that's okay. You know, we think, Okay, we've got our phones, it's, you know, let's call and see if we can get some help out here, you know, no service. And so as soon as I realized we had, neither of us had service, you know, I'm looking up and down the beach, and there is not a soul in sight like it is, is barren. There's nobody nearby, the last time we saw any sign of, of human life was 20 miles down the sand road in the village that we had turned at. And so panic starts to set in fear starts to set in. And so as soon as fear sets, in my mind is going all sorts of places, this is what happens. And you you can probably relate if you've ever been in a situation. First, it's like denial like this can't be happening, like this isn't, you know, that seems to be the first phase, the next phase goes completely into a space of irrational thinking. Now, I had watched Narcos, Mexico, the whole flight down to Mexico, so my mind goes straight to the cartel, the cartel surely is going to find us or on our walk through the desert, we're going to come cross paths with some sort of grow off, or some sort of drug, the operation, we're going to be dead. So that's where my mind goes, of course, you know, and then it goes to the silly stuff, like Oh, my God, my jeans are wet, my legs are gonna be so changed by the time we get to this little village, you know. So all these things are running through my head. And of course, I'm laughing at myself at the ridiculousness of some of the thoughts that I'm having. But Dan is panicking, my partner's panicking and he's trying everything he can. He's underneath the truck, and, you know, all the things that he can think of that can help us get out of the situation. And the again, the harder we try, the deeper we seem to sink.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:07:10

And I took a bit deep breath, and I heard a voice inside my head, I paused long enough to take that deep breath. And that was the best thing I could have done. So I take this deep breath after laughing at myself for thinking about shape chafing, because the reality is, is that I don't know that we have enough water, I don't know that we can make it 20 miles and plus 42. That's, that's the we're in this dire situation. And that's the reality that really starts to sink in. So I take this deep breath, and I hear the voice and it says, Start walking. Now, I've got to get through mountainous desert to get to this village too. And I'm thinking, Okay, what supplies do I need? If I need to start walking? What do I need? So I'm grabbing whatever water we have, finding a bag, you know, getting together a towel just in case I can protect myself from the sun. I don't know what supplies I need in the desert. But I'm putting whatever I can together. And I hear the voice again, and it says start walking. And so I said to dad, I said we need to start walking. And he says no, I just I need to try a few more things, you know? And I said, Well, I'm going to start walking. I know we need to start walking. So I start walking. And as I'm walking, I can feel this, like nudge to pray. And that's what I started to do. I said, Okay, angels, I said, we need you to come down and get us out of the situation, I'm feeling really scared, I can tell that down is feeling scared and feeling, you know, responsible for getting us in this situation. And so, you know, we're really starting to get to this place of real okay, you know, we need to we need to start doing something moving. And I'm and I'm praying about it as I'm walking. And I said, Okay, come and help us out. And so I walked down the path and I get to the to the what I would call a road to sand road. And and I start to turn towards where we came in. And about this time. I've probably been praying for just a couple minutes now. And by this time Dan is running to catch up to me because he's decided, yeah, there's no way I can get out of this. So So here I come. And Dan catches up to me. And I sit down. I've been praying for an angel. And he says, oh, yeah, let's let's hope that comes into play here. This isn't this is not good. And we kind of gave each other that look like yeah, it's not good.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:09:40

And I don't think we walked more than maybe five steps and over the horizon. Driving over the hill comes a white, white, one ton dually pickup truck with a wind On the front, okay, people, if you've been to Mexico, you know, there's not a whole lot of one ton trucks with winches on the front. And this was precisely what we needed to get out of our situation. And so I run up to the gentleman and, and he says, Oh, you guys are lucky. He said, there's nobody out this way. He said, I just happened to be down here, year round now, but most people are not, not around. And, and apparently, he lived quite a ways further down the beach. But nonetheless, this gentleman helped us out. And he pulled us out of there, and he got us out and sent us on our way. And I remember feeling so grateful, we actually went back and brought him food and you know, a bunch of stuff to say, thank you. But nonetheless, you know, he was our saving grace that day, and he was our first angel, if you will, in that situation. And so, I share this story with you. Because, you know, I'm sure you've had stories like this before, I'm sure you have had experiences where, you know, something really sideways was going on. And all of a sudden, it just took one one person or one experience or, or one moment for that to shift.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:11:23

And I think very oftentimes, we kind of get in this snowball, right? The snowball of fear, right? And it's this snowball of fear, and just allowing the fear to keep percolating, that keeps us really stock or keeps us from hearing what we really need to hear. And so my big invitation in today's conversation, is for you to look at fear as the opportunity. You know, I thought fear was this big, ugly beast that I had to stay away from. And, you know, the truth of the matter is that is that fear comes up for us for a reason, fear comes up for us to show us something. You see, at the beginning of time, we've got this conscious aspect of our mind, you know, some people call it the ego mind, I do reference it as the ego mind. And so we have this ego mind to this part of ourselves, that keeps us from the predators that keeps us alive, that keeps us safe. And we need that eagle mind to keep us safe, so that we're not jumping off, you know, cliffs, and we're not, you know, staring in the eyes of, you know, lions and tigers and bears, right. And so that eagle mind has a role to play. However, over time, and this is hundreds of years of time. Over time that ego mind has lost its place. And what happens is that ego mind comes in, and it starts to tell us these stories or these beliefs that have been anchored in from previous experiences, because that's what it knows to do. That's its survival mechanism. However, what we have forgotten is that as human beings, we have a choice. We are not servants to our ego selves. In fact, we control our ego mind. And yet, so many people are living in a way that allows their ego mind to rule the roost, so to speak, the ego mind controls their decision making it controls a lot of their livelihood.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:13:34

And so my invitation is to build a relationship with your ego mind. And nurture that ego mind so that it can show up when it needs to, but not overstep its boundaries. So the opportunity here is for us to listen into the ego mind because it can be a compass for us, but also to recognize that there's more pieces to the puzzle that are required for moving forward and decision making and all those things. And so in this scenario, but being in Mexico, and stranded, my ego mind was running rampant, it was creating all these scenarios that were just feeding the fear until I pause to take that breath. And then I remembered, oh, wait, I have control over this narrative, I can decide what this situation is going to look like and what the outcome could be. And so I used that fear as a leveraging tool to ask for help, to pause long enough to pay attention, right and to listen. But oftentimes, we bypass that and we get stuck in the creating of the video reels inside of our head or the narrative inside of our head. And I'm sure many of you can relate you know, you have an upcoming meeting that's maybe going to be an important meeting and then you play the scenario though in your head houses meeting going to go What's up going to look like. And oftentimes we go into the default of fear, you know, this is going to happen. And then I'm going to respond like this, and we play all these scenarios. But what we're doing is we're allowing ourselves to, again, feed that fear and feed into the fight or flight. And we know that when we are in fight or flight, our bodies are almost working in overdrive. And so we don't give them a chance to restore to recharge to regroup. And then we stay in this like hyper state of like fight or flight, you know, survival kind of mode. And in that space, it's very hard to hear spirit calling, it's very difficult to allow ourselves to receive the messages, the divine messages that are meant for us. And so this is kind of what we're seeing in the world is this fear, plague and getting stuck in this fight or flight. And we wonder why people's health and mental states are declining. And so this is just one possibility to consider is that part of this is because we are conditioned to be in a fear state. And so again, reminding you that the invitation is to put the ego mind in check and build relationship to it. And you might be wondering, well, how the heck do I do that?

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:16:15

Well, it starts with, first of all, having a conversation with that ego mind, you've already acknowledged that you've got this ego aspect of your mind. Now some people give it a name, okay, I have a friend and she calls it her itty bitty shitty committee, I have another friend, and she's decided that hers is called George. So you can certainly give your ego mind a name, if you wish to. And that sometimes can help to bridge the gap between the relationship as well. And then the next step, of course, is to start having that conversation, right, you know, and so what is it that we can be sharing with our ego mind, one quick phrase that I use often is thanks, ego mind, but I've got this. So when I noticed my ego mind coming in, and this might be say, I'll give you an example, you know, I have a new idea. And I'm excited about it. And my ego mind comes in, and it says, Oh, that's a silly idea. Or you can't do that, no one else is doing that, right. And so these inner voices of the ego mind come into play. And so it allows me an ability to say, thanks to you mind, I've got this and lead with my heart a bit. And that's one of the big things that I really encourage is that leading with the heart, I'm not saying don't, you know, ignore the mind completely, we still have to make, you know, our human lives easier. And we do require the ego mind to, you know, make logical decisions that are going to help us move forward in a way that's going to support our livelihood. But most certainly, there's an opportunity here where we can, you know, where we can allow the heart to lead a little bit by asking that ego mind to step aside. And so that's one of the ways to build relationship with the ego mind. Okay.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:18:00

The other piece of it is continuing to have a relationship with the ego mind. And, you know, I really do believe that fundamentally, everything is about relationship, relationship to myself relationship to others relationship to this thing to that thing to that experience. And so this is another opportunity to build relationship. And we can do that with our ego mind, we don't have to let the ego mind run the show. And in fact, I strongly encourage you to not let it run the show, because it keeps us playing small and it keeps us stuck. And it doesn't allow us to reach your vibrational frequency that will attract all the things that we wish to attract. And so when I build relationship as I continue to do so in my day to day, that means having conversation if my mind pipes up about something, I have a conversation about it, like what do you really think about this? Is that really that important? You know, is it going to impact you and a year from now a day from now, whatever that conversation might be. And so I start to engage in conversation. I am curious about why the mind might think that way, and I actually ask the mind of that. Okay, ego, why do you really think that that's such a bad idea? Do you really believe that to be true? Is this old stuff coming up? And I challenged my ego mind. And before I know it, what happens is that ego mind softens. And it tells me things and it gives me information that is valuable, instead of getting caught up in that kind of fight or flight kind of almost panic mode or fear mode, right? So that is, that's my process. And you might find a different way to build relationships, your ego mind, but it's really about being curious and asking questions of it. So there's going to be times in your life where fear will come up again and again and again. And so I invite you, are you using that fear? Are you befriending that fear Are you using it as an opportunity for you to, to grow to learn to expand? Or are you using it as an opportunity to contract to restrict, which so many of us are doing in our day to day, so. So that's the conversation in terms of ego, mind and fear that's happening in the world. And I just want to wrap up by sharing another another little story here. Because I've had some very interesting moments in my life.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:20:32

This is another scenario that you know, it kind of a once in a lifetime experience. I was, I was flying home from, from BC from British Columbia is just a province over from where I live in Alberta, Canada. And I was I was on the coast and British Columbia, visiting some friends and having a little bit of a holiday, and got on the flight to come home and everything seemed really smooth. And we take off. And I mean, we're, we're accelerating, and we're starting to get air. And now we're kind of flying through the air. And all of a sudden, we hear this like, bang, bang, bang, loud, very loud noise, like, you know, something is not right with his airplane, something's happening. And then all of a sudden, as we continue to ascend higher and higher, we start to see almost like these explosions of flames coming from the right side of the plane, and I have perfect view, I'm window seat, and I'm right behind the wing. Where this the big, you know, engine, I guess is. And so all of a sudden flames start bursting out of this engine. And let me tell you, it didn't take very long before people in the airplane started, you could hear the wrestling and you could hear people talking and people were like, Oh my God, oh, my god, is that is there a fire is that a fire. And we kept getting this burst of flame that would come out of this engine. And so eventually, the cabin started to smell smoke as well. And my you know, of course, at this point, my heart is now in my stomach. And I'm thinking oh my gosh, like this plane is on fire, you know, we're in trouble, like what is going on. And as per usual, you know, fear comes in. And my first thought is I need to message my children. And I'm just taking a moment there because that just really hit my heart. And I remember thinking like that was it like this was this was how it was going to be. And I need to say goodbye to them, I surely got a few minutes in the air left before the plane crashes. And I took a deep breath at that thought because my you know, it was just almost seemed like too much for me to even do. I took a deep breath. And once again, in that one deep breath. I heard a voice that said we are carrying you. And that message was so profound, because right away, I could take that second deep breath. And I knew that it was going to be okay. I don't know how I knew that. But Spirit let me know. The angels God again, whatever your release system might be. I was told I was being carried and I was going to be carried through this. So everyone on the plane beginsto stir and they're getting quite worked up. And by this time the attendants are moving around the cabin looking at things trying to figure out what's happening. They're asking us to be calm. And, and meanwhile, there's still flames and fire coming out of this engine. And I just continued to go into a space of prayer that everything was okay. And it seemed like a really, really long time before the pilot came on. But eventually the pilot is heard and she's letting us know that we've hit an airstrike. It sounded really intense, but I guess an airstrike is simply when you hit a flock of birds. And in this case, it was a Canadian geese. So those are not small birds by any means. But we hit a family of geese. And it was the geese that were getting caught in the engines and, you know, flames and all the things going up. So she explains that they're still a fully operational engine, and, but we do have to turn around and we have to land. And so you can feel the sense of calm kind of coming over everybody, as soon as the pilot comes on the intercom and starts to speak, and let us know that this does happen. And it's, you know, it's going to be okay. But for most people in that plane, you can, you can, you could feel, you could feel the fear. And I can only imagine how many people stayed in a deep state of fear even after. And I know, I did even notice in flights that I would get on after that, that always that that experience always pops into my mind, of course, I don't think that ever leaves.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:26:03

But nonetheless, it was just an interesting experience for me, and having done some of the work around fear, and yet still getting caught up a bit in that fear, right out of the gates. And so, I want you to know that this is a practice that this is not something that, you know, we snap our fingers, and abracadabra, all of a sudden, you know, we're you know, we're moving through fear very quickly. Or we're not getting stuck in fear, I still get stuck in fear. Even in this experience. On the flight, I had all this knowledge around fear. And yet I still went to fear. Oh, my God, I need to get a hold of my kids. What am I gonna? What do I say as my last words, you know, I went into that scenario. And I think that that's probably pretty normal for us, the opportunity for you is to consider helping yourself to look at fear as an opportunity. Okay, this experience is showing up, showing up for a reason. What can I learn? What do I know? What can I do to, to support the people around me, and we shift the energy of that fear. So the fear is not that ugly beast, but the fear is this welcoming compass that can show us more. And so what I learned in that experience in those few moments, was one the power that I held, to navigate to shift the energy even for the people around me, because again, if if one person begins to panic, then it can create this ripple. And reminding us of this ripple is important. Because I was able to keep myself calm, and not get other people worked up in the process, I was able to calmly talk to the flight attendant and tell her what I was seeing and witnessing when she when she came over. And rather than getting all worked up and panicked. I kept that calm. And I really felt like that made a difference. But even more than that, even more I reflect back on that experience, and what a gift, we have to be alive. And so even going through that process, and cherishing every moment, I most certainly squeezed my hit kids a little tighter when I came home from that trip, and really found myself being more present with them. And so the ripple continues of this gift of that experience. If we allow ourselves to look at that experience through a different lens or to see it as opportunity, we change everything about every experience that we ever have had and ever will have.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:29:02

And so really wanting to remind you of your own personal power, to help yourself to to shift the energy. And although I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about alchemy today that might come up in later sessions. The idea of being an alchemist is the ability to change to shift energy. Whether you're doing that through chemical compounds and in chemistry or whether you're doing that through metal smithing. I want to invite you to find the alchemist within you to be able to take something like a fear energy and turn that into compassion or turn that into gratitude or turn that into awareness. And so you have the ability to do that you have the power to do that we all do. It's just that we have forgotten. And so I feel like part of my role in this podcast of when Spirit calls is to invite you to participate in the unfolding of your divine destiny. And we can start by becoming aware, or more aware of the energies that are coming up, to see that we can look at those energies through a different lens, see that we can actually shift and change that energy, that we can leverage that energy. Even if it seems like a low vibration, energy, like fear, there's opportunity in that still. And so sharing this idea, that fear is not so much a block, but a doorway to something greater. At doorway to something greater. Let me finish with a quick little story. Because so often, we have this very narrow lens. So for example, in my airplane experience, the only information I had was that there was an engine that was on fire, this was very, very bad. I didn't have all the information that there were still three other engines that were working, of course, as most people, so had a very narrow lens of the situation, and made a choice in that situation to decide, oh, this is really, really bad, I'm going to die. But I didn't have all the information. And we do this a lot in our lives where we have a very limited scope of information, but we decide that it's this way or that way. And in doing so, we rob ourselves of being able to see the full picture and then we do get caught up in this fear, fear space. So let me share you a quick little story. This story has been around for a really long time. It's a story about a farmer and his force. And there's a few variations of the story but this is the one that I know. So this this farmer has this horse and it is his prized stallion. This is his bread and butter. And one day his stallion goes missing. He gets the neighborhood looking the villages looking everyone's looking for the price stallion they can't find the price down. They can't find the stallion anywhere. The stallion is long gone. And so after a day of searching, they decide that's it, the stallions gone. We just need to move on. And the neighbors come over to the farmer and they said, Oh, this is the worst news ever. This is horrible. We feel so bad for you. How are you going to make ends meet? Oh, this is so bad. And the farmer shrugs and he says, Who knows what's good or bad? We'll have to wait and see. And so of course the next day comes along and guess what? The stallion comes back. But not alone. The stallion now comes back with a herd of wild horses. And so now the farmer doesn't just have a stallion, he also has this herd of horses as well. And so the neighbors come over and they say all rejoice and celebrate this is the best news ever. Congratulations. And the farmer shrugs. And he says, Well, who knows what's good or bad? We'll have to wait and see. And so the next day comes along and the farmer has his son working on the horses, getting them all ready to go, guess what? He gets bucked off, breaks the lake. And of course, the neighbors come over and they say, Oh, what are you going to do without your son to help break these horses. This is the worst news. And the farmer shrugs and says, Who knows what's good or bad? We'll have to wait and see. And so the next day comes along. And today the army comes to town and the army is taking all the Fit soldiers away to the war.

DeeAnne Riendeau: 00:33:56

Well, guess what? They can't take the son. He's got a broken leg. And of course, the farmers too old. And so the neighbors come over and they say rejoice and celebrate. And of course, the farmer shrugs and says Who knows what's good or bad? We'll have to wait and see. So the point of the story is that oftentimes we decide something is bad. And we get stuck in that note low vibration scenario of it being bad and how bad it is. If only we allow ourselves to recognize there's so much more to the story, and it's not finished yet. We would save ourselves a whole heck of a lot of suffering. Yeah. And so the opportunity, again, is to recognize you can look at that fear that might come up with like, Oh, no like that. This experience happened and this isn't good. We can stay there for a moment. But then there's this beautiful opportunity to open up that doorway of fear to see that there are so much more possibilities. on it and allow ourselves to not get swept into that undercurrent to get swept into that space of fear. I am so glad that I can share this message with you today. I hope that you take so much out of it and know that I am wrapping you in my love until we meet again. This is deanery and of signing off of when Spirit calls.