When you hear your voice shaking, see your hands tremble, or feel the rise of fear in your belly, breathe deeply and ask love to flow in. Focus on a white light above your head and imagine a ribbon of light flowing down into your mind and body. Each time you do this, you magnify the cosmic light of love that surrounds and interpenetrates you. Remember that you are not alone and never will be.

Whether a fear is real or imagined, it causes the ancient "reptilian" unconscious mind (the oldest, bottom layer of brain cells) to seize control of the conscious, thinking mind in order to stimulate the fight, flight or freeze response for the sake of self-preservation.

Can you remember experiencing a reptilian response? You know that you have, if you walked away from an event or confrontation shaking your head and wondering why you reacted with such mindless violence. You can also recognize a reptilian response by the way it left you feeling: your heart racing, your breath shallow and panting, your mind diffracted and frazzled.

One way to gain control over your inner reptile—either before or after a fear response—is to practice the Buddhist art of "stopping." Try these mindfulness affirmations taught by the Vietnamese Buddhist peacemaker, Thich Nhat Hahn, in his superb little book, Touching Peace. Repeat to yourself, with feeling:

"Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.

Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.
Breathing out, I feel fresh.

Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain.
Breathing out, I feel solid."

After a few moments, reflect on what made you fearful. Bringing to conscious awareness what was unconscious unites the conscious and unconscious mind in the Awakened Mind pattern, and lessens the reptile's devastating control over your mind and body. It wants to cooperate! Help it do so.

If your thinking mind blocks your attempt to reason through your fears, go below the conscious mind to a deeper state of awareness. The two easiest ways to do this are to slow your breath and relax the back of your tongue.

Just slow down your rate of breathing until your body relaxes. Bring your awareness to the back, or root, of your tongue and relax your tongue until it is no longer "pulling" with movement.

You will feel the positive effects of these mind-calming techniques as your awareness centers in the relaxed, diffused "alpha" state (8-14 hertz in brainwave frequencies). Daydream until your answers emerge. If no insights emerge, allow your mind to wander. Or ask for an enlightening dream.

If your fear is a deeply rooted thought or belief, dig it up and use life-giving affirmations to plant new seeds.

In the 1960s, Eileen and Peter Caddy, living on the northeast coast of Scotland, planted seeds in sand that grew only briars. Meditative listening, faith in what they heard, and trust in their inner perfection drew every known trace mineral to their doorstep. They shoveled love into their sand-garden, which produced 40-pound broccoli plants and the famous Findhorn Community, a center of light that sparked the New Age movement across our planet.

A simple affirmation like "I am fearless, strong and peaceful" plants seeds that will produce the same wonders for you. Positive affirmations reprogram the subconscious mind and rewire brain circuitry to process thoughts and emotions in the left prefrontal cortex of love, joy, peace, and happiness. Here we experience of the higher nature that heals the mind and changes our life into what we want it to be.

Make note of what fear feels like so you can recognize it quickly enough to stop the reptilian brain from seizing control of your ability to reason. Use meditation techniques to calm your body-mind. Brain scans show that meditation slows the reptilian response and draws the unconscious reptilian, subconscious mammalian, and conscious human levels of the mind into cooperation.

The balanced and integrated unconscious instinct, subconscious intuition, and conscious intellect together form what we call the higher, or Awakened, mind. The brain's reticular activating system (RAS), located at the top of the spinal column, expands our perceptions of reality by opening up to receive more than what we already believe is true.

No longer does the mind look for things to fear; instead, it seeks reasons to love.

Become aware of the sensations in your body. If you feel fear in your heart or throat, check to see if the source is an instinctual unconscious memory or a warning from your higher self about real danger. How can you tell the difference? Simply notice what is happening in your stomach, where your gut instinct lives. What does your gut instinct feel and say?

Feeling is our strongest delta intuitive sense, so gently bring your awareness to your solar plexus, the area just above your navel, and allow your intuition to speak to you. If you are picking up negative vibrations from elsewhere, psychic feeling will identify the source.

To shut off an external source of fear, draw in your delta radar and, at the same time, the boundaries of your body's energy field. We search for understanding by receiving and transmitting energy and information through our empathetic (and resonating) delta. Since you know what it feels like to be open and you know what it feels like to be closed, you know intuitively how to draw in your radar.

Once you've done that, ask to know your next best step. If you are picking up another person's chaos, you can beam back love or leave the area. Ask which is best, both for yourself and the other person.

If you cannot or do not wish to leave the vicinity, you can remain present and protect yourself by pressing together the thumb and forefinger of each hand to close your body's energy circuit. Then expand your awareness outward as far as you can, as if you are separating the atoms and molecules of your mind and body. Anna Wise taught that the other person's thoughts and emotions will flow through the open spaces in your energy field and past you without attachment.

Even during a deliberate psychic attack, you can stay calm, centered and present. This enables you to draw insight and intuition from the depths of your inner being, no matter what occurs.

Remember to seek insight from higher dimensions, whether you conceive of those beings as angels, spirits, your own higher self, or Universal Awareness. Each of these draws information from the same repository of love and light, so it doesn't matter which you call on. Ask and you will receive, if not immediately, then soon by way of inner knowing and/or outer synchronicity.

Fear is a choice and so is love, as illustrated in this beloved Native American story.

"I feel like I have two wolves fighting in my heart," the grandson confesses to his grandfather. "One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one."

The grandson asks, "Which wolf will win the fight in my heart?"

The grandfather replies, "The one you feed."

Since we are human, we are likely to feed both wolves. But all is well. We can bring our animal and higher natures into harmony through daily meditation, attunement to beauty and truth, and service to others in thought, word and deed, as time and opportunity allow. Spiritual practice satisfies our inherent need to love ourselves, others, and the spirit of love itself.

This is how to evolve fear into love, the lower nature into the higher. Conscious evolution is not a matter of feeding one nature or the other, but rising above duality. Only the fearlessness of love can carry us into unity and our highest and best: pure spirit aware of its own perfection.