Fear Is Not The Problem

Let's talk fear.

Most people make fear mean that there is a problem.

We try to eliminate fear.

We want to eliminate fear before we start our businesses,

Leave our jobs,

Declare our love or move to a different country.

But what if we didn't have to make fear mean something bad?

Because let's take this apart.

A part of your fear is real.

That's a part you feel in the body.

When you feel an emotion,

Hormones are released and they're coursing around your body and that is what you're reacting to.

You can feel the fear and so you think,

Oh I'm feeling fear and most of us don't like feeling that.

So that part is really,

Really real.

The other part is fake.

And that's a fear that only exists in our minds.

That's a part of our being that wants to put a meaning on fear.

So that part is not really a just interpretation of reality.

It's simply an imagined reality based on our patterns and programming.

So what am I referring to when I say patterns and programming?

I'm referring to when you were growing up or any kind of emotionally charged event in your adult life.

We pick our cues from that and then we start building on them.

So perhaps when you were little,

Your parents told you,

Don't do that,

It might go wrong or be careful or watch out or don't get your hopes up.

Now this don't get your hopes up obviously is to prevent later disappointment but what I'm talking about is what if you didn't have to get disappointed at all or what if you were willing to be disappointed.

So what we create with all these vigilant behaviors is that we don't create really real safety but we just lull ourselves into a false sense of safety because we believe that if keep doing what I did yesterday,

If I relive yesterday today,

Well then I'm safe,

Then I'm good.

But then that's not really the point of life,

Is it?

We really want something more.

Only that more can feel a little bit scary.

But let's really,

Let's just learn how to come to terms with the fear,

The fear that only exists in our minds and that has been programmed into our minds and that doesn't really keep us safe.

Let's imagine that something untoward happens in your life.

You start feeling the fear,

Maybe some other emotions too,

But you start feeling,

Let's go with fear.

You have this real fear causing around in your body.

Now,

Instead of making it go away,

Instead of just sugarcoating and telling yourself a lie,

What if you could just be with the fear and suspend judgment?

That's what I like to do.

I like to stop myself from classifying it either in good or bad.

I like to stop myself from making meaning of it.

So if I'm okay with sitting here feeling the fear and not make it mean anything.

Then what?

Well then I wouldn't have to take action on it or from it and I wouldn't have to do something I might regret.

If I could just be with the fear,

Allow myself to feel the fear without wanting it to leave.

If the fear is just a hormone coursing around in your body,

Well then it will leave in about a minute and a half.

So if you could allow yourself to just be willing to feel the fear.

And then say,

OK,

I've felt the fear.

Now,

Before I start creating meaning,

Let me just decide on what would be the meaning I desire to create.

And you might think,

Well,

I can't.

Well,

Because this will mean something and it will be like a fact.

But really,

Will it?

Isn't it possible that something that looks really dangerous can happen in your life?

Like let's say you quit your job because you don't get on with your boss and now you're sitting there thinking,

Oh my goodness,

I haven't got a job and I won't ever be able to find one and I'll have to go and work for less money or in something I don't like.

And we start making up those stories,

Don't we?

But what if you could just stop that?

Leave your job be filed or leave because you want to leave leave because of discord leave for whatever reason what if you could just allow that to be and feel the fear perhaps feel apprehension,

A lot of those emotions that are related and just be with them.

And then you can start making meaning later.

Now,

I like to think,

Like I've educated my mind into thinking that when I feel fear,

It means that there's something new.

Oh,

Something new.

Of course I'm feeling fear because I haven't tried this before.

It's not a repeat performance of yesterday.

It's not coming from routine.

It's new.

And then I've made new mean exciting.

So you could make I've got no job means I won't ever find another good job.

Instead of going to the negative,

You could go over to the positive.

And you can think,

This must be a sure sign that I'm about to land the best job I could possibly imagine.

And if you could just allow yourself to believe that both are equally possible.

There is no reason why the negative is more likely to be produced than the positive.

What if they were just equal and that you got to decide?

Let's imagine that you decided I want this to be a really positive sign.

I want to believe that oh I've got no job means I'm open to my dream job.

If you really started believing that.

Don't you think you're much more likely to find that dream job than if you thought,

This is a disaster,

I won't ever find a good job ever again.

Right so when you look at it that way and when you know that the reason you go to the negative is simply because well you've been trained into it then what?

And let's talk more about that fictitious fear,

That fear that you feel ahead of time,

That fear that you tell yourself,

Oh,

I'd better not speak up because people might not like me.

And then you never say what you wanted to say.

What about that fear?

Can you see that it simply exists in your mind?

Maybe you're pulling up evidence from your past where you did speak up.

And where somebody didn't like it.

And now you're making that a permanent pervasive and personal theory around you speaking up.

What if you could just stop yourself and not make any predictions about it?

If you could do what I call suspend judgment.

What if you didn't have to imagine a good or a bad outcome?

What if you didn't have to classify it in safe or dangerous,

In good or bad or anything like that?

If you could just stop yourself and then notice and get really,

Really curious.

And then decide.

Oh,

I'm feeling apprehensive or fearful about saying my opinion.

Whatever else,

Let me just find out really what that is,

How I could use that in a way that really serves me.

Because of course we can make it mean a lot of fearful things,

But let's train our minds to go over to positive things,

Because both are equally possible.

So what I'm saying is not sugarcoat life or tell yourself that reality isn't real.

What I'm saying is,

Well,

Let's also notice what else is real and true.

And what I do with my clients and what I prefer doing for myself is to ask,

Does this serve me?

And if I want to be able to speak up for myself,

It can never serve me to tell myself this might go horribly wrong.

People might not like it and I'll be ostracized.

I much prefer believing that this could be actually exactly what people are waiting to hear.

Somebody could feel really empowered from hearing it and able to speak up for themselves.

I want to go over to the positive.

But before you can do that,

You have to interrupt patterning and programming that might have you go somewhere else.

The key to not have fear means something fearful.

The key to not making a lot of fearful meaning out of fear is to normalize feeling fear.

So when you get used to just being with the feeling of fear,

What you can do is put your intellectual mind onto a different task so it won't be busy creating meaning because our minds and brains do want to create meaning,

Don't they?

So let's occupy it.

So let's say you're feeling fear,

Not making it wrong,

Not trying to get it away.

Let's just become present with the feeling.

So you can sit here and actually feel the fear in your body.

Start describing it,

You can start being with it,

Feeling it,

Hearing it,

Sensing it,

Smelling it,

Whatever.

You could start really feeling it,

Knowing that this is what you're designed for.

You are a feeling machine.

So as you're doing that,

Your mind is busy trying to put words on what it is you're feeling.

And that is so useful because as it's busy feeling the feeling and describing it,

It's not making fearful meaning out of it.

So let's go with that.

What you're doing here is that you are normalizing this feeling.

You're normalizing it to your subconscious.

And why is that a good thing?

It's not because we want to live in a state of fear.

It's simply so that when you do get to feel this fear,

That is not physical,

Real fear,

But just imagined kind,

When you feel that and it doesn't create a trigger in your body,

When your body doesn't go into fight or flight or any of those dreadful states,

When it just thinks,

Oh,

I'm feeling fear,

Well,

Then you're really good to go,

Aren't you?

You could feel anything.

You could sit there and feel fear and not panic because your body is used to feeling fear and your subconscious knows that it can feel fear and that it doesn't.

Necessarily signal danger.

So having Um.

.

.

A ritual or a time where you can sit down and just feel the fear is really,

Really useful in that it normalizes this fear in your body and in your mind so that you don't have to run away from it and so that you don't have to make all of those fearful meanings out of it.

So what would be different in your life if you were willing to feel a bit of fear?

What would really be different?

What conversations would you be able to have?

What would you stop tolerating?

What would you really go after?

What do you think?

Excitement,

Whatever it is,

Try to get your mind on board with it so that it's willing to feel the fear.

And let's have you deciding what you want to make the fear mean.

Remember,

If you can sit down,

Normalize the real feeling of fear in your body,

And stop making meaning from it,

Suspend judgment and say,

Oh,

This is new.

And then become really present with the fear.

Once you have processed that in your body,

Once you have normalized it,

Then you go on to,

What would I like to make it mean?

And then you design a meaning that you want to assign it to.

And you do this from your intellectual mind.

You do that from a place where something good will happen after your body and mind has made the effort of feeling the fear.

So that you can then move on to that next thing,

The next thing that is really desirable.

So it's as if you're selling your mind and body on the idea you've got,

The idea of the fearful thing.

Let me know in the comments below if this speaks to you and perhaps if you're really daring write down what you are now willing to do now that you can be with your fear and not make it mean something dreadful is going to happen.