November 16, 2022
Fear and Love Motivation:
Self-Healing by Reclaiming the Power of Your Thoughts, Feelings, Words, and Colours
Jansie Bond
(2022)
ISBN: 979-8356297557
New Book Shows How Our Thoughts, Feelings, Words, and Colors Affect Our Lives
In her new book Fear and Love Motivation: Self-Healing by Reclaiming the Power of Your Thoughts, Feelings, Words, and Colours, longtime colour therapist, self-discovery facilitator, yoga teacher, and now author Jansie Bond shares how we can change our actions from being fear-motivated to love-motivated when we pay attention to the words we use, gain control of our thoughts and feelings, and even discover the healing power that color can have in our lives.
In the introduction, Bond explains that this is a book about learning to love ourselves unconditionally by using our fear as our starting point. Once we understand our fears, we can reclaim our inner power and restore our life within, which, in turn, will benefit all aspects of our exterior lives. Bond states, “We all get motivated through either fear or love. When we are afraid, we are alive but not living. Love lets us live with exuberance every moment. Our challenge is to learn self-love before we can spread love around. Changing your fear into love is the most important and best journey you can embark on.”
From there, Bond takes us on an amazing journey—by bus. She talks about the fear bus and the love bus and asks us which one we would rather ride on. She explains:
“In an effort to bring light into fear-filled companies, I invented the fear bus as a vehicle to take a journey of awareness. Shame, blame, and guilt are the luggage we all bring with us on the fear journey. It is always a good idea to talk to someone who can help you work through your fear, and if you cannot do that, write down your fears and put them in a pot to get distance, and hopefully, perspective.”
As we travel through the book, eventually we become ready to switch buses. But first we need to understand some concepts, many of which may surprise readers. Bond tell us we need to understand that everything is energy, and once we accept that idea, our lives can change. She reveals how energy exists in our words, in colors, in our feelings, and how we need to work to elicit positive energy from all these areas of our lives.
One surprising way Bond teaches us to heighten the positive energy in our lives is through her word reveals. These remind me of simple games we played in elementary school. For example, how many words can you find in the word “appreciates”? You might find “ate” or “tape,” among others, but Bond can create a whole sentence worth of words from it: “Repeat praise; it appeases peers.” Throughout the book, she repeatedly uses this technique to find positive, uplifting words hidden within larger words that might otherwise scare or confuse us. This is not scientific word etymology by any means, but it is a light, fun, and illuminating way to give new interpretations to words. Words are powerful, and Bond reinforces that point again and again until we find ourselves really thinking about which words we choose to use, how they make us feel, and whether we should choose better words.
Bond surprised me throughout the book by her different perspectives on various things. For example, she reminds us that we need to conquer our egos to achieve true love and happiness rather than reside in fear. The ego lives in a place of fear—so fearful it won’t get attention that it will even seek negative attention. Bond states:
“To worry about someone or something is the ego making you feel or look important. It is not helping the other person. An overworked or stressed out government official, doctor, healer, church official, mother, or father can be of no value to anybody. We have to ask ourselves why we keep doing this. The only answer I can come up with is it makes us feel important. Today, children in schools get ‘shadowed’ by a teacher as punishment for bad behaviour. I am sure many of the kids find that reassuring for keeping their little egos intact.”
However, when we surrender to our fears and don’t give in to our egos, we can experience transformation. A perfect example of the power of surrendering comes from a story Bond relates about a master who called his disciples to the edge of a cliff:
“He said to them, ‘Come closer,’ but they refused because they were afraid. He called them again, and they said, ‘We are afraid you will push us and we will die.’ He called them a third time. They came to the edge; he pushed them and they flew.”
Of course, we can’t take the story literally, but the point is that if we break free from the chains of blame, shame, and guilt, we can experience the liberation and joy of opening our hearts and minds to new ways of thinking.
Bond’s ideas may seem a bit too mystical or metaphorical to some, but the truth is they can be applied directly to real life and the workplace. In fact, Bond has spent many years consulting with companies to help them implement the techniques she offers. For example, she promotes the need to create a friendly working environment. At one point, she tells us:
“A manager at a company I worked with said to me, ‘I can understand what you say, that fear is an innovation killer, but fear motivation works to get the job done.’ I answered: ‘At what cost? In employee relations, productivity, sick leave, and high employee turnover?’ He laughed and responded: ‘No comment.’”
There is much more I could say about Fear and Love Motivation. Bond’s discussion and suggestions on the healing power of color are alone worth the price of this book. But I most enjoyed the word reveals. They remind me of the fear we feel when giving a speech and the advice to imagine your audience members in their underwear. Word reveals are like stripping down words to their most basic elements to find new meanings in them. This process gives us power over words and also the open-mindedness to see the secrets those words may have for us.
By the time you have finished reading Love and Fear Motivation, I’m sure you will have a new way to look at the world. That’s not to say you won’t still have bad days, but you’ll be better equipped to deal with them. As Bond says:
“I have not yet found a person who does not have to deal with fear and love on a daily basis. Even the enlightened souls have their daily dose of fear lessons. The only difference is when we know we have a choice, it makes it easier and much quicker to bounce back into the pot of gold.”
Your pot of gold awaits you. You can start the journey with this book.
To learn more about Jansie Bond and Fear and Love Motivation, find her book on Amazon.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of When Teddy Came to Town
