Fear is an inevitable companion.
Many people live their lives saying they'll take a step forward when they're not so scared, or when they have more confidence. Then they find they never take the step because the fear never fades and their confidence never goes up... it even goes down.
They've got it the wrong way round.
Waiting for the fear to pass is like waiting for the sun to not come up. Fear is an inevitable part of who we are. We are hard wired to experience it. We have a neurological fear system in our brains which once helped us survive but which now limits our lives. According to Doctor Dan Baker in "you're Only Six Steps Away From Happiness", this fear system is the repository for past trauma and pain, current anxiety, fear of what is to come and archaic instinctual terrors.
We needed this in the early epochs of mankind, because it kept us alive. It gave us the capacity to spring into action whenever we see or sensed threat. This is how we survived, but as a consequence we became hardwired for hard times.
The fact that most of us in the Western world are no longer in threat of extinction doesn't change our wiring. The desire for flight or fight remains within us.
Courage... or confidence... is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to take action despite it. In fact, we can't learn courage unless we take action. If we wait for courage to arrive before we will act we're doomed never to feel it. This is the ultimate paradox. We need to do the thing to realise we have the courage and resources within us.
What do we fear?
Our fears are always the same:
Fear of not being loved
Fear of not being good enough, and
Fear of not belonging.
These constant fears are what keep us playing it safe. They keep us from shinning, stepping up, taking risk, experimenting, making mistakes... living.
Whenever we put avoiding fear ahead of our true desires, we're preventing ourselves from truly appreciating and loving our lives.
The types of fear we experience can be further broken down into three levels. The first level is the fear of what is going to happen, for example, old age.
Example of level 1 Fear
- Death
- Accidents
- Being alone
- Losing financial security
- Losing a loved one
- Illness
- Children leaving us
The second types of fear are those that require action, such as making a decision.
Examples of Level 2 Fear:
- Making friends
- Asserting oursselves
- Driving
- Ending a relationship
- Beginning a relationship
- Losing weight
- Public speaking
- Intimacy
The Third type of fear are those that involve inner states of mind. They are a reflecting of our ability to manage the world.
Examples of Level 3 Fears:
- Rejection
- Success
- Failure
- Being vulnerable
- Being powerless
- Disapproval
- Being judged
- Losing our image or being 'exposed'
Whatever category of fear we believe we are experiencing, at it core will be an emotional state. Ultimately, whatever state we fear feeling is going to fall into the categories of not belong, not being loved, not being good enough.
For example, if you fear public speaking it may be because you don't want to make a fool of yourself or appear silly, which is a state. You might not want to feel silly because then you would fear being rejected by the group... or not belonging.
You may fear losing a relationship because you don't want to be alone, because if you were alone then you would fear you weren't lovable.
You may fear change because you fear not being able to handle it when it comes. Your fear is that you won't be good enough. You may even fear change because you might fail at whatever it takes to manage the change, which would mean you would fear being judged... which would mean you would fear not belonging, not being loved, and not being good enough.
No wonder people find change hard to deal with.
The Two Paradoxes of Fear
Paradox One
The truth is yo can handle everything that comes your way, you've just conditioned yourself to not know this because then none of your wont fears have nay danger of coming true. Or do they?
Isn't it true that the more you focus on not having something happen, the more your ultimate fear seems more real?
For example, have you ever desperately wanted someone to stay in your life, and the more you've clung to that the further you've pushed them away, leading to you feeling unloved, not good enough and as if you didn't belong?
Paradox Two
The second paradox of fear is that the more we try to escape our fear the more we experience them.
Yet we still play the same games over and over. We play it safe in love to avoid rejection to avoid not being loved, and this never experience the joy of giving love.
We play it safe by not being vulnerable so that we don't appear foolish and thus never get to truly connect with someone, guaranteeing we don't feel loved or that we belong.
We play it safe hanging onto the little financial security we have for fear if we lose it we'll have nothing, only to never seem to get ahead,and never feel we're truly "made it"... and so feel that we're somehow not good enough.
Every day, playing out the dance of fear, letting fear lead us on a never ending cycle of disappointment or mediocrity.
Until we eventually ask: is this all there is? Is my life really only going to amount to an okay job, with friends who don't really mind if I don't call, mediocre health and a feeling like I'll never get off the treadmill?
There has to be a better way. There has to be a way to take action, and to be willing to take risk, and feel great about it.
On some level, your dance with your greatest fears has given you a "payoff" or a benefit. It might have kept you safe from hurt, or from rejection, from failure. whatever its benefit, this is the reason you let the fear run your life, instead of you running it.
"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the courageous man only once."
