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Why I’m Not Letting Fear Control My Life Any Longer.

6/20/2019

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​This isn’t the kind of fear you feel in scary movies. (It’s worse.)
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If you asked me one year ago, I’d define “fear” as the emotion we feel that warns us away from potential harm or pain.

I thought fear was just what you felt while watching a scary movie. Or when you stepped into an intersection and saw a car coming toward you. Or when you looked down a steep ski slope with a sharp drop-off on one side and think you’re going to die. (No? Maybe that’s just me.)
Fear was always an uncomfortable feeling, but I always thought we got over it fairly quickly, once we removed ourselves from that scary situation.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I recently realized that I’ve been living with fear for my entire life.
What Is This “Fear” You Speak Of?This is a different kind of fear. It’s a low-grade, chronic fear that infiltrates every aspect of our being, our actions, and our thoughts. This fear isn’t saving us from harm. It’s not preventing pain, or warning us away from dangerous situations. In fact, this fear is doing the total opposite. It’s keeping us in a state of fearful living and keeping us from our most vibrant, fulfilled lives.

​Put simply, this kind of fear is the opposite of love. To quote Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love:

“When fear is expressed, we recognize it as anger, abuse, disease, pain, greed, addiction, selfishness, obsession, corruption, violence, and war.”

When we’re born, she explains, we’re filled with love — pure love. It’s the world, our society, that instills these overarching sense of fear within us.

To be honest, this has taken me a long time to understand. So if you find this completely foreign, I get it! Just bear with me, and I promise it’ll make sense one day. It’s only after spending much of the last year reading and learning from self-development pros—shout out to Gary Vaynerchuk, Gabby Bernstein, Oprah, and all the rest of you awesome writers & podcasters—and lots of yoga that I sort of “get” this kind of fear.

The Good News—and the Bad NewsFirst, the good news: “Fear is an illusion,” Williamson writes. “Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety, and trauma are literally all imagined.”

The bad news? Although it may not be real, this fear can literally prevent us from seeing possibilities that are right there in front of us. In our minds, it plants crazy, untrue thoughts about ourselves and our abilities.
Because of this fear, we don’t apply for that job, or ask for more money, because we don’t think we deserve it. We don’t write that blog post because we’re worried what people will think. We don’t have a fulfilling relationship because we’re scared we’ll get hurt. We don’t let ourselves seek happiness because we’re afraid we don’t deserve it. We don’t take that big leap or make that big decision because we’re afraid we’ll get it wrong (again).

Actually, if you think about it, we’ve been trained to be scared of pretty much everything. We’re afraid of dying young, but also getting old. We’re afraid of being alone, but we’re also scared to let someone love us. We’re afraid of staying still, but we’re also scared of making a change.
No wonder 1 in 4 of us has a mental health issue.

Our Deepest Fear I’d heard Marianne Williamson’s famous quote so many times in the past. Maybe you have too. She writes,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

Even though I may not feel “powerful beyond measure” (yet), I am at the point of realizing I have to stop using fear as my default mode. I have to stop using fear as excuse to play it safe. I have to stop being so afraid that I don’t even see the possibilities that are open to me in my life.
And yes, this means what you think it means. It’s not the fault of your friends, your job, your boyfriend, your boss. You can’t even blame your parents (sorry).
We can only blame the fact that we’re continuing to hold onto this fear like a safety blanket. But instead of saving us from harm, it’s keeping us in a cycle of self-inflicted pain—maybe not acute pain, but subtle, constant pain at best.
​
F*ck fearToday’s May 1. This date marks a lot of things. It’s (obviously) the first day of a new month, but it also feels a lot like the start of a new season with the weather finally warming up for good. It’s also Mental Health Awareness Month, which, in this insane world, is getting more attention now than it has in the past.
It’s also my dad’s birthday, who I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. He’s taught me that it’s okay to live with this low-grade sense of fear (or anxiety), as long as you figure out how to control it. And recently, he’s confronted some major health issues with incredible bravery, optimism, and positivity—anything BUT fear.

That’s how I want to start living—in both my personal life and in my work: bravely, optimistically, and positively.

I’m not going to lie. This new way of thinking about fear still feels foreign to me, and a little bit “out there.” But I also know that my current life isn’t providing me with what I’m craving and desiring. Basically, I’m at my wits’ end with playing it safe.

Which Williamson gets.
“Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do… As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So here’s the setting fear aside. Here’s to putting myself out there a bit more. Here’s to looking at this world with more love, more open-mindedness, and less anxiety.
Here’s to opening myself to the possibilities out there, and focus on asking myself What if?instead of telling myself all the reasons why not.

Because f*ck fear.
In honor of Mental Health Awareness

By ​Locke Hughes, freelance writer. health coach lockehughes.com.
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It's been a while

3/26/2018

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It’s been a while since my last blog post.
I’m sorry…
But life got in the way, 
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Thought  for today

8/28/2015

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A Simple Guide to Being Yourself Instead of People PleasingBy Carol Stansfield


To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Many people I talk with feel that they have no joy in their life. They feel obligated to do so many things that they don’t have time for themselves and the things they really want to do.

As a result, they feel drained, anxious, and resentful. With so many outside forces competing for their time, energy, and financial resources, is it really any wonder they feel this way?

So what do we do? How can we remain balanced among this sea of obligations and commitments?

The answer is to live consciously. By looking at each decision we are making and by asking ourselves, “Is this really what I want to be doing? Is this really what is right for me?” And then by making sure our actions stay in alignment with our true intentions.

Saying yes when we mean no often causes us not to trust ourselves. It damages our confidence and lowers our self-esteem.

So why do we do it?

From a young age, we are conditioned to act in certain ways in order to feel loved and accepted. This is the beginning of our loss of personal power and authenticity.

In order to create change, we will need to recondition our beliefs by discovering what is really true for us.

These are the questions I ask myself to become aware of any patterns and beliefs that no longer work for me. Once you become aware of these beliefs, you can simply begin to consciously change them.

Ask yourself: “Why am I doing this? Is it because…”

  1. I will feel guilty if I don’t?
  2. Everyone else is doing it, so I should too?
  3. I want others to think I am a nice person?
  4. I want to feel accepted?
  5. I don’t feel good enough about myself to do what is really right for me?
  6. I have trouble saying “no” or being myself around certain people?
If you have said “yes” to any of the above questions, you are cheating yourself out of the things that bring you happiness and joy!

The next time you hear yourself saying, I love to garden…but I don’t have time or I love to golf…but I’m too busy remember you can choose differently. You can choose to believe you are valuable; what is right for you does matter, and that your happiness is a priority.

Your life is the culmination of each decision you make every moment (whether you are aware of what you are choosing or not).

Begin to understand the intention behind every action you take and make a conscious decision to do only what is right for you. Gather the courage each moment and say “no” to anything or anyone that doesn’t allow you to be yourself, or to live in alignment with your dreams.

What will you choose? Will you choose to stay in power by acting with the knowledge that you are responsible for every action in your life? Or will you continue to give your power away in order to feel valued and accepted in the eyes of another?

The choice is yours.

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