Episode 26:Transform Fear Into Power: Insights from Dennis Merritt Jones

Author Dennis Merritt Jones discusses how to transform fear into a powerful teacher, offering insights on embracing fear, mindfulness, and personal growth from his book When Fear Speaks, Listen.

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Hello world and welcome to Choices, Books and Gifts, where you always have choices. Today's, guest is an author. He's written a plethora of books. They're all fantastic. We're going to go over one in particular today. And. then we're going to ask him some questions. I'm going to read a bio so you understand a little bit more about Dennis and who we're dealing with.

So I'm going to read that bio now folks. Dennis Merritt Jones is a sought after author, speaker, and spiritual mentor with over 30 years of experience in exploring mindfulness, self-awareness, and personal growth. His teachings focus on the art of living, intentionally embracing the present moment and discovering inner peace amidst the challenges of modern life.

He is the author of several books, including the Art of uncertainty, the Art of Being and When Fear Speaks, listen, the seven Message is of Fear, which guide readers toward a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. Through his work, Dennis empowers individuals to face fear, cultivate mindfulness, and live a more spiritual aligned and fulfilling life. His approach blends ancient wisdom with practical tools for everyday living. Offering insights into how to thrive in a fast paced, ever changing world.

You can always, go to Dennis Merritt jones.com. You can learn more about this wonderful man, and you can see all of his other books there that we're hoping to do a series with Dennis where we cover all seven of his books.

All right. I have to say good morning to this wonderful author. How are you, sir? Hi my friend I’m good. Thank you for having me on your program. Absolutely. It is our pleasure having you on our program. So, if you don't mind, Dennis, I'd like to go right into some questions. Is that cool? Sure. Fire away. All right.

So, number one, what inspired you to write When Fear Speaks, listen and explore fear as a messenger rather than an enemy.

But you know, Jay. I had no plans of writing this book. It's  kind of like an accumulation of all my other books and that my lifestyle and how I, my life unfolded over the last 75 years.

I wrote the book I knew it was important to write when I got the idea because I wrote a book in 90 days, which is 90 days. That's very fast, normally takes a year to write a book. And I was like, I couldn't type fast enough. The download was just there. And you know why? It's because I realized as I was writing the book this was my life story.

Yeah the book is not about my life story, although I include stories about my life. This fear is has been one of the prominent issues in my life that I've had to deal with, and I've worked hard to learn how to

deal with it. What I came to realize is. Yeah. Can Defeat, fear. Yeah. All God's creatures have god fear. And there is there for a reason. And then, you know, if intelligence put fear in all of living creatures for a reason, why that's what the book is about, is understanding that all fear, if you can learn how to deal with it, you can use it as a catapult to move you to what's next, rather than let it defeat to pull you down.

Excellent, excellent. You know, and I, I think I mentioned this earlier while we

were getting to know one another. I think fear is one of the largest subjects we can cover because every has it. And you know, I know you're going to talk about it not being debilitating, but it's so debilitating unless we learn how to deal with it.

Okay. Number two, sir, can you explain the concept of fear as a messenger and why it's important to listen to fear rather than to avoid it? Yeah. Fear. I love the acronym of fear. You know, a lot of people think you've heard the old acronym. False evidence appearing real, right? And then there's another one. Forget everything and run right, which is what most of us do.

And when anything scary pops up, we turn spin, literally spinning on our heels. We run to the medicine cabinet, the liquor cabinet, the store, whatever it is to the method of avoidance with it. Right? And so what the acronym I use now in this book is Face everything and rethink.

Oh I like it. Face everything and rethink it. So if fear pops up rather than run from it, you face it, you death. In the. In the book I introduce the concept of learning how to dance with your fears and the only way you can answer the fears is bring in close and see it as a friend rather than an enemy. And you pull through close into your into your embrace.

And yet, whatever the fear is that you're going through, as you're leaning forward, whisper, it's here. Teach me well, master teacher of this moment. What do I need to know about you so I can transcend you? And that's where most people don't. What they don't do is ask inner that conversation of the fear because they're too scared of it.

but all fear has a message for us if we're willing to engage with it and listen to it. And as you know, there's a number of different messengers of fear that they all wear different disguises. But at the end of the day, all fear boils down to one thing the concern of loss or death of something.

Yeah, I love it. And I love the next few questions because we're going to start to learn how to deal with it, which I think is the most important thing. Number three, what are the seven messages of fear you discuss in the book? And how did you identify these specific messages?

Well again. there are a plethora of fears that people experienced. What I did is I categorized it by the number, the top seven fears of my own experience in life. And what I determined is that each fear has descendants or lingering characteristics about it that are different than the fear itself. But I'll explain that as I read them to you. Anger is the first fear, and then all fear is attached to a concern of loss or something.

So an anger pops up. You have to ask yourself, what am I fearful of in this moment? The fearful being, fear of losing control of something or someone. The descendants of fear are rage and reserve a rage and resentment rages outward. Expressive anger exploded, gone on steroids, and resentment is pointed inward where we internalize that fear. And both of those are very destructive.

The second is worried, the second messenger is worried. And the, of course, who doesn't have worry in their lives. Right. What is worry? Do it cast us out of the present moment into the future and worry has to send us anxiety and regret? Anxiety pushes you into the future and regret attaching you to the past.

Living in fear of what you did or didn't do right or should have done didn't do you know, we all are heaping lots of should on ourselves. We're shooting ourselves all the time and that's not healthy. And most of those are attached to regret or worry of some sort.

The third messenger of fear is judgment. And that's again,

a lot of people don't think of judgment as fear, but it is when we're judging what are we doing? Or driving a wedge between ourselves and something or someone. Right. We're labeling something and the set the descendants of judgment or superiority, inferiority and hate and, you know, we see a lot of that going on in our culture right now.

It's one of the reasons I leaned on my publisher to get this book published sooner than later was with the elections coming up. There's a lot of energy of superiority and inferiority and hate and judgment going on. And when we start to learn to categorize judgment as a fear, we're able to transcend what we're judging and see it through new eyes. That's what the book is bringing to that conversation.

Fourth messenger. Selfishness. Fear of not enough self. And that spills over into many different areas of our lives. Ugly, jealousy, envy those are all aspects of the fear of selfishness. The fourth fear is shame. And I think we live in a shame based culture. And I really delve into this in the book because I was raised in a shame based home. So I really understand how shame can be so immobilizing and so crippling to our daily lives, as well as the longevity of what we're taking our lives. The descendants of shame or guilt, embarrassment and perfectionism.

Think about that guilt, embarrassment and perfectionism. Perfectionism is one of the ways that we cover our shame. If I can just hold everything up and make it look perfect enough, but nobody will see that I really don't feel good about it. So shame is a feeling of of not being enough, right? I in the book I clarify the difference between, between shame and guilt. So it helps people put it in context. Guilt is a feeling. You've made a mistake about something. Shame is a feeling or belief that you are a mistake. Think about that.

 

And If we live in a world where we believe we. a mistake, we shouldn't be here where we live by default, you know, a state of it's crippling when we, when we live in from a place of I'm not enough. Which is what shame is. How can we ever create enough of anything good in our lives with that belief system?

I was raised in the same base home, so understand that that concept very well. The sixth messenger is loneliness. People are afraid of being alone. That's why in this chapter I delineate the difference between aloneness and loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling of separation from everything else. Aloneness is feeling alone and one in the all that's a concept that probably needs a little more discussion. We can go to that if you'd like, to the descendants of loneliness or vulnerability and pride. Pride separates us from. So sometimes we isolate out of pride. Sometimes it's because we're afraid. We're  feeling vulnerable in our lives, in the world of relationships. And so we seclude ourselves. We go into loneliness, and that's unnecessary. We don't. There's ways we can learn to transcend loneliness by cherishing aloneness, which is, it's so wonderful to be alone. That's why meditation and mindfulness are so important.

seventh message refers uncertainty. I actually wrote a book on this called the Art of uncertainty. Yep. The uncertainty is a huge fear because it it's that fear that lives in us that is through fearful of change. It lives on. Doubt thrives on doubt and procrastination. If we're uncertain, we're going to continue to put off things. Procrastination is a real

For sleeping. So. And in the book I address each of them they each were different. faces of fear. But at the end of the day, all of them the one common element that all fear has is a concern of death or loss of something or someone .

And that was great. That was great. You know, as you were speaking, I was thinking of some of my own fears. and you know, how you said sort of what I heard was play the tape all the way through. Why are you having that fear? What's starting is that it's shame is that you're going to I mean, it could be I could lose my temper. As simple as playing pickle ball. And the fear is shame. I'm not good enough.

Right. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And if we could see that in that moment, if you see that fear as a messenger, if we're willing to pull it and close and and dance with it and say, whisper it's here. Tell me what I need to know about you so I can trust you. It will tell you. It will tell you not to defeat it. You can hear it going away. It's not supposed to go. It's. It's got implanted in us for a reason. But it's for us to increase our ability to survive in the world with peace, inner peace and joy.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Here. All righty. How can people Will begin to differentiate between irrational fear and fear that is generally trying to protect them? How can we tell the difference?

All fear is irrational if we let it curious away. it's if it's in our power to change something that we fear, then we should do it. We can do it if it's in our power to change something. If it's not, we have to embrace it and accept it for what it is and understand that that,

The irrational fear doesn't have to have its way with us if we're willing to take. To have an Example. Well, yeah. I'm afraid of Well, I live on the 15th story of a 30 story building. I don't lean over the balcony too far. What, because I'm fearful. I'm not fearful of it. But I could fall over, and that would be the bad thing. That's irrational fear, right? I'm getting in my elevator to go down safely.

I may have a fear of closed spaces, but that's a fear that I can control away. Being present, being mindful, being open to realizing that I'm not alone in that. All right. The only thing is, it isn't sometimes, like you say, you know, fear is good and looking over but not going over too far is telling you yes, you can't go over too far. You got to sort of take it back because. Right. Yeah. And that's where self-awareness comes up. Yep. Aware awareness is, is that intelligence within us? It tells us, okay, lean over, but don't lean over too far if we're aware, monitoring our own actions and thoughts and beliefs, we'll be able to mitigate irrational fears and put them in a category by themselves.

 

 

Cool, cool. One of the messages of fear you mentioned is the fear of failure. How can someone use the fear constructively rather than letting it paralyze them? This is about perspective and perception. Okay, okay. Perspective is the angle at which we see something. Perception is the lens through which we interpret what we see, okay? And when it comes to failure, you have to realize there's no such thing as failure.

Take a deep breath and I tell people to freeze a lot right when I work with them in class and what not, because breathing is what anchors you to the present moment. But there's no such thing as failure. Think about it. If you fail at something, you're succeeding at failing at it. The universe is hardwired to help us succeed in everything, including what we perceive as failure, until we perceive it in a new light.

Does that make sense to you? Yeah, yeah, it's sort of like, I don't know. My father used to say this. He's the jokester and used to say, I'm a successful failure. Yeah, that's exactly you're succeeding. If you're succeeding to failing, there's no such thing as a real failure. You're succeeding at one thing. Now, if you succeed, it is failing. You can also succeed in succeeding.

Good. Very, very good. What role does self -compassion play with listening to fear and how can it transform one's relationship with fear?

Well, again I said earlier Jay. All and all God's creatures got fear. Every living thing is hardwired to experience fear. There's a reason for it's good fear though, correct? Yeah, yeah, of course it's there to help us survive and to thrive and we can't.

If we're experiencing fear, we condemn ourselves or we feel self-critical because of that fear. When I allow ourselves to be teachable, and this is one of the key things in this book, is we have to remain teachable, be open to new ideas, new input from those things, that abstract things that we think. And some categories are as a fear.

You know, that's so interesting because when I started my own journey here, that was it. Be open to change, looking at things differently because I was so close minded and it was my way or the highway and I suffered for that. Yeah, I had to get over it and I had to grasp the concepts you just mentioned the open look at it a different way. You know, much differently

Being teachable is an art form. We have to learn how to get our egos out of the way. Yeah, yeah, egos do not. They want to think that we know everything right? And the reality is, when we think we know everything, we know nothing. Yeah, absolutely. The older I get and the more wisdom I get, I realize I know so little, which is why it's important to allow every experience we have to be a teacher. So, you know, whether it's failure or success or a fear of one nature thing or nature or another, we have to realize that what's in front of us is our teacher. If we perceive it as our teacher.

All right, all right, all right. How can you? I mean, can you discuss the concept of the inner critic, how it connects to fear? How can we quiet this voice

Again and then circle back around the shame the inner critic comes from shame not being enough, not doing enough. You know, perfectionists are wonderful examples of people. And I hope anybody who's watching this is a perfectionist. Please hear this in the right perspective. What I'm hearing, it's not to put you down. It's to tell you that, there's a belief somewhere inside of you that says you're not enough. The way you are is you have to cover it over. And the inner critic is the CEO of trying to keep us down, to keep us from being successful in a positive way.

Got it negative thoughts and we gotten push them out of our head. I think I skipped one, so then I go back to one. You mentioned the fear of uncertainty is a major messenger. So how can individuals embrace uncertainty in their lives without being consumed by anxiety?

Again, I wrote a full book on, uncertainty to address that issue. And I kind of capitalize it in this, the, this, this book, the fear book. What it comes down to is faith. You speak in my language. If you don't have faith and some power greater than you, I, the don't read the book because the book circles around to understanding the way to to transcend every fear in our lives is by understanding there's something bigger, something larger in our lives that if we're willing to allow to move into our lives in a way where we use it for guidance, for protection. It does In your lifestyle, in yourself is what is spirituality mean? I mean, could it be different for everyone or. Yeah, sure it is. It's different for a lot of people. I think the important thing is to differentiate religion or religiosity from spirituality. Yeah. And I know this is a common thing. Spirituality, religion, religiosity is separates people. The word religion comes from religion, which means to separate or divide. So whereas spirituality is not about opinions, you're right, I'm wrong. Spirituality is about simply practicing the awareness of the presence of a higher power.

Yeah. Love it, love it. Very, very true. Many people face the fear of rejection. What strategies can help people navigate this fear in relationships and social settings? That's a great. Yeah it is If we're living in fear of rejection, then maybe we're hanging out with the wrong people

or we can choose to perceive how the rejection affects us differently. If we're attached to the approval and love of other people, we're always going to suffer. The fear will always loom in a negative way. Rejection is something that

you're going to be, you know, as an author. I learned that real quick. You know, my first publisher told me, you know, I was telling her about I was upset because people were criticizing me. On Amazon, I put in some negative reviews and she said, honey, watch your analyzes. The higher the monkey climbs up the flagpole, the more of his ass is exposed.

In other words, if you want to be a successful author and be, you know, seen by the world, you have to be willing to take the blows that come with it. There'll always be people who are the naysayers or the trolls who want to bring you down. Yes,. And you have to learn that if you're if you're defining yourself as enough because you know, you were one or something larger than yourself, and no criticism can ever dampen you, through enthusiasm.

So I lie that rejection we should reject if someone is talking about us. Yeah. You know, we have to look at it differently and say, you know, you're welcome to your opinion, but it's not going to affect me. Yes, my friend, her coworker wrote a book called What you Think of Me is None of my business. Yeah, I know it.

How can someone identify the hidden wisdom behind the fears? And what steps can we take to integrate the wisdom into their decision making process? Well, there's an acronym I use, ABC awareness builds consciousness. And awareness is the is the gift that, you know, God gave us the ability to think of thought, think about this. What are the living creatures on the planet?

Can think of thought, then experience a feeling and step outside of the thought and analyze it. Yeah, to look at it, just products. Touch it, smell, taste it, see if it works for us, if not to discard it. No other creature on the planet can do that, but we can't. Awareness. Self-awareness is  really the, the practice of understanding the wisdom, the that lives within us can be access if we're willing to look at the thought or feeling that we're having and realize that there's something bigger than it behind it.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Love it. Number 11, you mentioned that fear can sometimes be a signal of growth. How can individuals tell when their fear is a sign of progress rather than a warning to retreat?

That's again, their emotional awareness is huge. That's why. That's why even intelligence imbued us with emotional awareness. So we can, our bodies are messengers.

What's going on in our mind that we're willing to pay attention to? Our emotions will realize if it's been stimulated by something that is manageable or irrational and, moving. You know, the big question, when I work with my mentoring clients that they say they don't feel like they're  just moving forward enough, I ask them this question, are you do you feel like you're further ahead and what's your the direction you want to go in today than you were a week ago? Yeah. Measurable results are what key is what. And if you feel like you're moving forward in that regard, if your life is just 1% better than it was a week or month ago and you move in the right direction, right? I love it, I love it, you know, it's it sounds like, you know, you're saying live in the moment. Don't go here to the future of the past. Live right here, define it and then move forward after you analyze it and are able to put it in one of the categories you discussed. I think so that's why mindfulness is so important, right? Mindfulness brings us to the present moment. You know that's what mindfulness is. You know, you realize that your bodies, our bodies are always present moment.

 

 

 

They can't be any place else right where our minds a lot of the time, the hips, position in front of us or dragging the past behind us. Right. So mindfulness is the gift that we've been given to when we learn mindfulness practices. What are in the book? We learn how to bring our  mind back into our body in the present moment, which is the only place of life and bestows precious gifts upon us, or willing to be present to receive.

Certainly, certainly, certainly. Number 12, what are some practical tools for exercises from the book that people can use to listen to their fear and respond with clarity? That's a good question. Again, mindfulness is the practice. At the end of this chapter, there's a mindfulness practice that addresses to the issues brought forward in that chapter. Each messenger has its own mindfulness practices.

If you want to practice mindfully the conversations that you're having with those fears, you'll learn what you need to learn. But you have to be mindful, present moment to receive. And again, this is the problem too many of us. When fears pop up in front of us, we spin. And once when we deny them, we try to not another ties them.

We do things to to cover over that fear or to get away from it. You. You can run, but you can't hide. You're always going to be with us. So it's a matter of learning how to identify it and embrace it, and invited to be our teacher rather than to of scolder of it.

Yep How does fear of the unknown hold people back? And what techniques do you recommend to help embrace the unknown with confidence?

Well, again, all fear is a test or concern of loss or something. Loss or death of something. And so we have to ask ourselves the logical question is what I'm fearing real is what I'm fearing attached to a, legitimate concern of loss or death?

Or is am I am I dramatizing or over emphasizing the concern that I've lost? So you have to be willing to come to the edge. You know, I love Guillermo Polin’s great Poems He said come to the edge. This, they said, no, we're afraid. He said, come to the edge. They came and he pushed them and they threw.

That's the were afraid to come to the edge. This is a metaphor that I don't want anybody going to the edge of a cliff and jumping off the edge of your comfort zone and lean over a little bit and trust and know there's something within you that knows how to get you to what's next. If you want to trust.

Yeah, I heard somewhere along the way in my life, 90% of the fear we fear never even, you know, comes to fruition. Oh, yeah. So it's all fear. We create the scenario up here, and then it moves into the heart and then it becomes real. Yep yep yep. All right. How does fear show Up in the body and what role does mindfulness or meditation play in addressing physical manifestations of fear.

Well fear can show up in the body in a number of ways. So this is number one. Yeah, I think the fear is embrace or has its way with us for years and years and years. We can spend energy within our bodies that makes it on wellness. And so the first thing is to learn how to again identify your fears and dance with them, and to understand that emotional awareness is huge.

The body will always tell us what's going on in the mind if we're willing to listen to it. And but emotional awareness will help us realize that what the mind is trying to tell us with, because every emotion carries with it a message that a lot of times of work in our heads, but not our bodies. We don't get the message.

The head sends the message to the body. The body responds with emotional awareness. This is what triggers our ability to enter into rational, observations of what we're fearing for, what's real, what's not real. Right? And that's what I'm hearing here. I'm hearing, you know, the most important thing I'm taking away from this conversation with you is that, you know, you got to identify that seer and then figure out what I can do to move forward. Is it false? Is it real? And then maybe talk to somebody like yourself to say, okay, maybe you can't see it, but I'm on the outside looking in and this is what I see. So I think that's so important, what you've been saying about mindfulness and living in the moment and defining what that fear is, I think that's just fantastic.

And once we define that, we we have to learn how to transcend it, not make it go away. This is never going to go away. But when we transcend something, we don't let it affect us anymore. That's it. You okay? Okay.

What advice would you give to someone struggling with chronic fear? And how can you provide them with the roadmap to move forward?

Do some mindfulness practices and meditations to reveal where in your life there is a concern of loss or You know, I mean some. So we all live in rational fears of loss and irrational fears of loss. I'm trying to think of an example. Where? Ask yourself where am I live? Is the fear of loss dwelling in is it real or is it not real?

Right? It's like, you know, it's real. Then you have to learn how to deal with it and to address it in a positive, proactive way. If not really just have learning how to let it go. And transcendent. That's what the book gives you tools to do to. And that's what I was going to say. I was going to say, you know, a lot of this when we talk about it, I have an understanding, to utilize it and practice it.

I think the best thing to do would be to read the book. So I'm going to ask you if that's okay to hold up the book, because I want people to know what we discussed today about what we are. So that's beautiful right there. So you'll see when seer speaks. Listen, that's the book. You can get it on choice you can get it on Amazon. You can go to a Dennis website anywhere. And you should purchase this book and really start to get rid of some of that fear. I might also add that if you go to my website, there's I've created study guides for all my books and they're like in-home study guides for small groups.

If people want to host a discussion group around the book, think a lot. Download the study guide and use the study guide as a as a guide to move through the conversations. It includes workshops too.

Perfect. Perfect. That is so wonderful, Dennis, and I hope that, this is the beginning of a long relationship. I'd like to discuss all your books with you. I love that, and I think you did a fantastic job. And you really,help me. At the very least, you help me. And, I look forward to, you know, doing this in the future. So we're coming to the end of the podcast right now, and, as I always say, welcome to choices, books and gifts, where you always have choices.

I hope that Dennis and I helped, you know, improve somebody’s life out there and, continue the good fight and know, may I say that that your, your website choices is a beautiful website and there's so many opportunities for people to enhance their experience in life. So go download or buy some of the tools you are offering.

Thank you so much for that, Dennis. Listen. God bless you. Have a wonderful day and I'll be in touch. Okay, sir. Love it. Namaste.