Need help with a fear of hell

[joyfirst]

Originally Posted by mesmerist

Thank you everyone for your words of encouragement! I hope that I can keep fighting this fear and update you all. First, I need a good night's sleep. :)

Do not fight it - this way you will never win. Resistance creates more of it.
Every time fear comes, surrender it to the God. Just say - " I surrender this to you, help me to surrender it. I am willing to let it go. I lay this burden into your hands. I don't know HOW or WHEN, but I know that you will take care of this for me. Thank you.”
And then you probably want to nurture personal relationship with God, and Miss Hepburn can help you with that much more than I can, since I am just starting out.

[mesmerist]

Hi all!

So today I started to focus on thinking positively and reassuring myself that God's love is open to anyone! It's helped! I had a shaky start to the day, but I did my best to spend time with loving friends and laughing, and it's been really great! Right now is the clearest I've felt all week! I hope to be able to carry this hope and positive attitude with me into tomorrow and continue to let my hope triumph over fear!

Thanks again to all of you! You are truly a Godsend
:)

[shoni7510]

The soul is eternal and predates the human being. When we die it is just a separation of body and soul and we go back to the spirit world and continue with life as spirits. There is no hell anywhere and therefore no need to fear it; you were just conditioned that way.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by mesmerist

I hope to be able to carry this hope and positive attitude
with me into tomorrow and continue to let my hope triumph over fear!

Thanks again to all of you! You are truly a Godsend
:)

Yes, the people here are Godsends....very wise people!

Now, what will you do if tomorrow you do not carry this hope and positive
attitude?
Say, you wake up and immediately doubt, fear, worry begin to attack you?!

You must be prepared. How? Well, you could write/print out verses that
are irrefutable;
Absolute Truths the ego-mind can not find fault with...verses from the Bible or a Christian mystic...
whatever you dearly know is the Truth.
(I have a bundle I turn to!)

Be prepared to place yourself back in a groove of clarity and peace of mind...first thing every morning.

Soon, this 'groove' will be the norm for your mind and thoughts to
dwell in....life will become as it should..happy and filled with
contentment...knowledge, confidence, power, beauty, wisdom
and loving kindnesses....
doubts and worries will be a thing of the past.

[Chrysalis]

You have very good advice from the others and am glad to see you're doing well.

I don't know if you work on your chakras. I use my chakras as a means to improve my health physically, emotionally and spiritually. I would like to add that you can work on them, especially the heart chakra because once it gets going you can feel really happy for no reason at all. As it gets clearer and full of light it simply has no room for such negativity. That is how I experience the heart chakra.

If you're new to chakras, begin with the root chakra to keep yourself grounded as you work your way up to the crown chakra. There are others here who can help and there are many sites with a lot of information on chakras.

I too believe that there is no such thing as Hell. I have studied the KJV Bible and I haven't found any passage mentioning it. In case I missed it, I'd like to know where the passage is. The church had adopted beliefs from various pagan cultures and adapted it to suit their purposes. Such is the case for their concept of Hell. Reading the history of the church may be of interest to you as it might help you sift out the nonsense they taught you. Also keep studying the scriptures for more help.

Blessings to you on your journey.
Chrysalis

[mesmerist]

Hi all,

Just checking in once more. Today my emotions are interesting. I feel less of an anxious indecision and more of a melancholy. Teetering on hopelessness, but I've had much, much worse, and I suspect it will be a passing feeling.

One thing I would like to clarify - I don't really think it was my Catholic upbringing that got me so afraid like this. In fact, in recent years, I've grown to respect their opinions more. I don't associate with the Catholic Church anymore on account of their stance on homosexuals, contraceptives, etc., but at least Pope John Paul II alluded to the fact that Hell was simply a state of mind and Pope Francis has said that Heaven was open to nonbelievers. My Catholic upbringing may not have helped, but I don't think it did the most harm.

No, what I think did the most harm was when I started going to the website of this fundamentalist end-times ministry called Unleavened Bread Ministries. It happened in my sophomore year of college after my first hospitalization due to depression. At the time, I was afraid of the notion of nothingness after death (still am to an extent) and even a month after I got out of the hospital and still felt dispairing, I got desperate and went to talk to another student in my dorm who was a creationist and claimed to KNOW that his hardcore Christian faith was the truth. Therefore, when he showed me the website and what it had to say - that God was speaking to their leader, that the world was ending soon, that all other nations and organized religion including Christian denominations were perversions of God's truth, that Hell was eternal, the numerics of Ivan Panin, the Bible Code, etc. - I took it as proof of absolute truth, as I was desperate and very succeptable to what I was being taught.

It makes sense that between this and my father's sometimes inpatient and intolerant tendencies that I am simply letting my own fears run away from me (on a note about the thing with my dad, I know that studies have shown that our perception of our parents growing up often parallels our perception of God, and in my indecisive moments, my fear is as much about angering or dissapointing God as it is about the pain of hell fire).

I just need more help reversing these negative tendencies I have. I'm taking meds and will soon be starting therapy again. I've also tried different forms of meditation when I am able to convince myself that I should, and it helps, if relatively briefly.

Originally Posted by chrysalis

I don't know if you work on your chakras. I use my chakras as a means to improve my health physically, emotionally and spiritually. I would like to add that you can work on them, especially the heart chakra because once it gets going you can feel really happy for no reason at all. As it gets clearer and full of light it simply has no room for such negativity. That is how I experience the heart chakra.

If you're new to chakras, begin with the root chakra to keep yourself grounded as you work your way up to the crown chakra. There are others here who can help and there are many sites with a lot of information on chakras.

I actually have attempted chakra cleansing many times and have had mixed results. I used to listen to guided meditations on chakra cleansing on YouTube when I was anxious and indecisive and although it was difficult to clear my mind and focus on the meditation, it did tend to bring relief, if temporary. The past couple nights I've listened to a three hour chakra cleansing sleep meditation audio track on YouTube as I went to bed. I'm not quite sure how well that went, to be honest, but I haven't had as much crazy chatter in my head so there's that? Let me know if I should be doing something differently.

I've also attempted astral projection a few times using YouTube videos although I have yet to have success with it, either because I don't understand it well enough or can't focus enough or the statements from Christian groups that Astral Projection is of the devil discourage me. I haven't attempted an astral projection in months but maybe I'll try again someday.

Also, I was wondering, and this is purely curiosity - should I try to hold off on mastturbating? It feels good but sometimes I feel guilty doing it and I'm not sure if it's because Christian groups have conditioned me to think that it's evil or if it's actually damaging me spiritually.

Anyways, that's my update. I'm pretty sure I'm improving, thanks in large part to my family, friends, and all of you!

Thank you!

-Chris/Mez

[mesmerist]

Ugh, it's like, how do I know I can trust you and not the people at that ministry? How do I know which is God and b which is deceit? This is the snare I continue to find myself in...

Is it something I just have to do by feeling? If I'm calm, how do I know I'm not just being put into a false sense of security?

*sigh* At this rate, I feel like I will need God or a therapist or a Spirit Guide or someone to show me the truth from inside for me to calm down. At the very least I'm not quite as depressed as I was last week. Maybe I'm slowly making strides back towards the light...

[Sarian]

My boyfriend used to be a pastor. He is now an atheist. He was raised a fundamentalist Christian. He listened to an audio book I gave him once (more than once) and he truly was bothered and began questioning things. He is pretty upset that he believed his entire lifetime up until maybe 5 years ago. He feels as though he wasted his life believing lives, having fear instilled in him, he could have had a totally different and guilt-free life. He listens to atheist podcasts and books. There are so many out there and some are by ex-Christians.

I will tell you my mother tried to raise me a Christian but I had a very hard time with it, even at a young, young age. At one point in my 30s, I revisited it but then I had to leave it. It made no sense, I felt great oppression and sadness and even a screaming within that this was ALL wrong. When I gave it up it honestly was the most liberating feeling and still is. it sounds like that fear has a grip on you. My boyfriend was very confused at first and fearful, but he no longer has that and he also feels extremely liberated from the lie and fear of hell.

Reading your last post, who do you trust. You are questioning and that's good, but I want to share something with you. I once belonged to a certain church and the pastor and the higher ups that hired him were very concerned about head counts...getting in more sheep and keeping them. It was money in their pockets. You have to instill fear as well to control people and honestly, I believe churches just control people and use fear. I remember being swarmed by people showering love on me to get me to stay...it was nice but unsettling, but no sooner did I think it was rather nice, they began pushing fear down my throat and also asking if not demanding, then using fear to get me (as well as others) to do their bidding from giving more money to helping the pastor and his family in anyway and paying bills. It was ridiculous (and I pretty much told them same)...

[mesmerist]

Originally Posted by H:O:R:A:C:E

you've had a lot of "conditioning" and programming... you don't need those.

hell is the separation from all that is good -- separation from God.
there can be no separation from God; God is life itself, and to be separate
would mean to be dead (nonexistent).

Identity is a feature of uniqueness. there is only one unique identity -- God.
All are an expression of God; there are no exceptions.
the ego may insist that a person is distinct from Source, but it is incorrect.

there can be no fear from being separate from self... that is logical absurdity.

be well, H:O:R:A:C:E

Any more proofs would be helpful. I'm trying to wrap my head around why this means God must love me.

I don't know, maybe this is just a reflection of how I was bullied when I was young or how my parents raised me or the pressures of a new job. I start therapy tomorrow.

[mesmerist]

Ok, I'm trying to go into today with, like, a major chip on my shoulder. I'm basically going to be going through the day internally screaming at my inner demons telling them, "NO! GOD IS ALTRUISTIC! GOD LOVES EVERYONE! I'M SICK OF BEING DEPRESSED AND I'M PLACING MY HOPE IN THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME NOW."

It's the encouragement I think I need to give myself.