“The long and short of this lesson is that whatever you’re afraid of in life, you will attract to you. If you’re afraid of illness, you will attract it. If you’re afraid of being alone, you will be alone for as long as it takes to get over that fear. If you’re afraid to die, you will never live fully and joyfully.

On a purely physical level, fear lowers our vibration and makes us far more susceptible to viruses and bacteria. The biochemical state that fear creates in our bodies adversely affects our immunity and increases our susceptibility to the pathological viruses and bacteria that are all around us. For example, the majority of us have the bacterium that causes pneumonia in our respiratory system at all times. But it stays in check until our vibration is lowered in some way. It’s the same with nearly every other bacteria or virus we’ve been taught to be afraid of.

On an emotional level, fear blocks us from moving forward to the life of our dreams. At its root, all fear results from a lack of faith—pure and simple. When you give in to your fear, you are not trusting the Divine. The only way to build the muscle of faith is to calm yourself and turn your trust over to God. Hence the saying “Let go and let God.”

Turning fear into faith requires patience and commitment. Just telling someone to stop being afraid and to move into unshakable faith in their ability to live the life of their dreams is not helpful—especially if their nervous system has been imprinted with childhood trauma.

“We often inherit our fears from our parents and their parents before them—imbibing them with our mother’s milk—even if we can’t pinpoint the reason for our own fears. It is well documented that babies can take on the fear of their mothers even in the womb.

Anxiety, like its close cousin depression, runs in families. And so do all the fears that keep it going. I have a good friend who was going through a lot of anxiety and fear having to do with his career recently, and he discovered that both of his parents, unbeknownst to him, were on medication for anxiety. I told him that that anxiety was not genetic; it was simply a pattern he had learned while growing up. But more important, I told him that he had the power to stop it. And stop it he has—through consistent effort to replace his fear with faith.

If you sincerely want your life to be easy, you simply must do what it takes to fire together new brain patterns based on faith.”

Excerpt From: Christiane Northrup, M.D. “Making Life Easy.”