The Lesson About Fear Nobody Taught You (but this dragon fruit will)

9 min readNov 2, 2020

Are you afraid of spiders?

I don’t. But I definitely do have this fear with … WORMS. All kinds of worms. Including fruit worms.

Who can tell this beautiful dragon fruit is actually the home for dozen of worms, alive.

“Please stay away from me. Don't look at me. Don't jump on my face. Don't get onto me. What if they get into me? Ew!!!”

That’s what would go on in my head when I see a worm. And then disgusting images of dead bodies and organs getting eaten by worms would show up, and I would feel a strong electronic vibrance around my body.

What about worms that gets me so scared?

I sometimes sat with this question. And I thought if only the worms were having the same color as the fruit, vibrating, pink, and fresh. And yeah, if only they can just stop wiggling, their body moving around uncontrollably. That is what freaks me out the most.

This morning, I was not expecting this surprise.

I found one worm popping its head out of my beautiful precious delicious red dragon fruit. Who can tell this beautiful dragon fruit is actually the home for dozen of worms, alive.

My fear crept in. There was a feeling coming up my throat, that felt like something disgusting entering my body. And my mouth tightened up. My breaths became shallow and fast.

All I wanted was to get away from this.

How did I deal with this in the past?

In the past, I would swallow all this fear down, open the fruit anyway, try my best to get rid of the parts that the worms were in, keep the good parts. (Yeah I did not want to waste the fruit, and you know, I consider myself a tough strong woman so I should be able to deal with the worms)

The fear was still there in the background, in my body muscles. So I would do this as fast as possible, avoid seeing the worms as much as possible.

I would tell myself, “Come on! Just like you do it with any other dragon fruits, imagine there’s no worm…”

And I got by. 😄

Then later this year, I just did not want to deal with fear anymore.

“I am an adult, why am I being so afraid?” I constantly secretly judged myself.

I thought just needed to get them out of my sight, then all would be fine. I started to throw away the whole fruit.

Today, I’ve decided to do something different.

No more suppressing my fear, like what I did early on. No more running away from my fear, like what I did this year.

Today, right before I threw away any parts of the dragon fruit or the whole fruits, a thought popped up in my mind.

“Why did I choose to be so afraid of these worms? What is that I am really afraid of?”

I realized, it is not the worm I am afraid of. It never was.

I am not afraid of the worms. I am afraid of the thoughts about worms I somehow learned to create!!! That was a big “aha’ moment for me. :)

It is the projection of what I THINK about the worms that SCARED ME.

Having done a lot of work watching my thoughts, my emotions, and understanding the relationship between body and mind, I realized that there’s something I can do here to shift this.

So I decided to make a big sound, releasing the fear energy I had been feeling, and start cutting the fruit open.

Then I started talking to the worms 😄

Yeah, I started talking to the worms.

I cut open a piece of the fruit, and a worm showed up. The fear then crept in, and I then said quietly in my mind: HELLO. 😄

I repeated that until I finished cutting the fruit.

Hello. Hello. Hello.

The job is NOT done, yet!

Let me share with you the best part of what my dragon fruit and the worms taught me today.

After this shift I made, I decided to make a small video of the worms to celebrate this win with you.

And as I was filming the worms, something extraordinary happened.

So there it was, a piece of the skin where the worms were hanging out. I pointed the camera at them and couldn’t see them. I used the knife to lift up a few pieces of the fruit cover where the worms were drilling under.

I saw them but as soon as I pointed the camera at them, they would disappear into the fruit cover again.

New video by June Bui

I realized that these worms were trying to RUN AWAY and HIDE from me.

I realized that these worms were trying to RUN AWAY and HIDE from me.

They were just as terrified as I was. And they were just trying to survive …

At that moment, I felt a beautiful connection with the worms.

They are just like me.

So many times in the past, it was me who was panicking, running uncontrollably, trying to hide away from the world, the threat I perceived from the world. I was too afraid, too scared.

As soon as I realized this, I felt a relief. A deep sense of peace.

Deep lesson about fear revealed in the dragon fruit

Have you ever been scared of something, and you’ve learned to suppress it, or push it away, hoping you’d never see it again?

It could be a person, a situation, or even something painful in the past, some heavy energy that is even indescribable.

What happened today with the worms and the dragon fruit, to me, is another adventure with my fear.

I can tell you there have been countless other occasions, situations I’ve been through where fear was present. You probably can tell, from your own life. Fear seems to be the constant unexpected visitor that often brings a sense of resistance, doesn't it?

But, what if …

What if, only by looking at the fear, can it be dissolved?

What if, beyond the perceived fear, is peace?

What if, the fear is nothing but a doorway to a deeper connection with that which we think we are afraid of?

Feel the fear and do it anyway

I don’t know why but most of the time when I think of this mindset, I imagine a muscular dude yelling running into the wall in front of him. That does not look very much like “feel the fear” to me.

There is a difference, a big difference between, feeling the fear, and fearing the fear.

Sadly, nobody ever taught me how to feel.

What I was doing was in fact the opposite of feeling the fear.

I used to be afraid of traveling on airplanes. Yet I kept signing myself up for trips. And when I got on the airplane, I would try to tell myself that it’s okay, it’s not that scary. I would try to distract myself with books, podcasts, food, or sometimes, substances to help me pass out, so I don’t have to feel the fear.

The same pattern was going on with my fear of worms I described above. Forcing myself to open up the fruit, getting rid of the parts that have worms as quickly as possible, throwing away the whole fruit so I didn't have to deal with the fear. If I see a worm somewhere else, I would avoid being around that place.

The story today perfectly illustrates what I do with fear. I showed you how to embrace the fear and the spontaneous fruitful unexpected reward that showed up as I was able to acknowledge and feel the fear.

I think that’s what grace is about.

To wrap up

So here are 7 revolutionary steps for you to MASTER the relationship with FEAR right now. :)

Step 1: Recognize the fear.

You have to recognize you have the fear. My partner knows these worms get me into a different zone, but anytime he brings it up, I would quickly turn the conversation to something different. That was me unconsciously deny the fact that I was afraid of worms.

Step 2: Understand the fear.

Ask yourself, “What about this that scares me?” And then, go into this question: “What about it that I am actually afraid of?”

There’s a huge difference between these 2 questions. The first one points at the fear. The second one gives the point of attention back to you. The first is external. The second is internal. Patiently going through these 2 questions helps you get really clear about the fear.

Step 3: Own the fear.

Now that you know what you are truly afraid of, the next question is, “When and how did I decide to be afraid of this?”

You are going to find out something good, and deep here.

Step 4: Befriend the fear.

Now you realize you are the one who created this in the first place. You have the power to also fix this.

What’s your choice?

My choice is always that I want to befriend fear. What do you do with a friend, when you see them? You say hello :D

So I’ve decided to say HELLO. You can copy this. Say hello every time you feel fear, either to the object you are afraid of or to the internal feeling of fear. Just say HELLO, and smile. :) This is an important step, especially if you have a long-lasting fear over something because it helps break the chain of fearful thoughts, emotions, and reactions. :)

Step 5: Celebrate your friendship with fear.

Really think about this as a real friendship. After saying hello, you are not going to be able to go into a deeper connection right away. You need time to strengthen your connection. You don’t expect someone who you just met to fall in love with you, and do what you want to do for you.

Same here. So, celebrate this new relationship. Don’t expect the fear to go away. I know you really want to. But you can not. You have to learn to make friends with this inevitable neighbor.

I decided to make a video of the worms to celebrate my first tiny breakthrough in my relationship with them today. :D

Step 6: Trust the magic of love.

Yes. Trust the magic of love. Because you can’t afford not to. :) After I filmed the worms, watching them in their very authenticity, my heart was cracked open to this completely new dynamic. I felt connected with the worms, instead of freaked out.

I want you to have your own version of this, with whatever it is that you are afraid of. Only you, have the key to this magic. And you just gotta trust it is there.

Step 7: Celebrate more.

More celebration for you and your fear. The more you can befriend your fear, the better your relationship with fear. And guess what would happen next?

I really can not stress this point enough. More fear only adds more fear. And more love adds more love. If you bring more joy, fun, celebration to what is so scary, what do you think will happen?

I’ll leave it up to you to answer. As you can see, in my raw story here, celebration opened up the door to so much more magic, and lessons for me, and perhaps for you too, as you are reading that magic right now. :)

Hope you had fun and learned something insightful today. Hit the heart button if you’ve found this helpful. Speak up and share your thoughts with me if you have something coming up. :)

— — —

About June Bui

Hey, my name is Dung Bui, aka, June Bui. I am a conscious intuitive entrepreneur, life coach, and healer. I also see myself as a creative artist, writer, singer, illustrator. I often experience myself as a spiritual being who is enjoying this human life on earth.