how not to let your fears keep you hidden?
I am in control now.....not my Fear ~ Kate K McCarthy
Do you let your fears keep you hidden? Don't you just wanna look fear in the eye sometimes and say—or better yet just shout out loud....
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!
Leah Taub said something on one of her recent Strangers podcast episodes that had me pausing mid step on my morning walk.
For her "whole life she had operated from fear rather than from desire”. Well that revelation just about blew me away but, it also got me to thinking about me and my battle with Fear.
So first up, I’m glad to say that these days I operate mostly from desire. It's been a conscious awareness and intentional decision lately to tap into my desires. And one I still constantly work towards.
But that was not the case some 5+ yrs ago. I know without a doubt that fear was the thing that worked at the corners of my mind each and every flipping day my life, in my 20’s especially.
.....do I say to hello to a stranger at a party, or a local gathering or that I encounter in passing? ...can I do this thing (whatever it is) that would have people looking at me? ...what if I fell flat on my face? ...what if I embarrassed myself? ....what if I didn’t know an answer, THE answer? .....what if someone said you don’t matter? ...what if someone said they loved me? (yes even this!).
All of these and many more were actual questions I asked myself before I did a single thing. You could say I was definitely deep into the weeds.
Fear was my constant companion.
I checked in with it before I took an action. And, I can truly say that Fear held me hostage to its own whims and desires for me. After much coaching work I now know why that was.
It was to keep me hidden, to keep my bright light from shining, to keep me in the shadows fearing the light. I’m working on that. The staying hidden part.
So much so that I chose my word of the year based on conquering this fear. My WOTY for 2018 is show up.
Fear has had its grip on me for far too long. Time I took over and run things. (message from fear “it’s about damn time".)
What about you?
Where are you still hidden and what has your fear stopped you from doing more of?
Cause the more ofter we step into that space of Fear it'll come to be less of a capital F thing to avoid and more of a "oh, hey there fear, I know you're there but I kinda got this thing I have to do, so scram please" thing.
This takes practice though, and perseverance and being brave each time as you step in again and again, until the power it has over you is minimal to nonexistent. Till the thing you're avoiding is no longer a thing anymore. Till being brave begins to show up instead as a well defined muscle memory that needs no thought or cue.
So right now I'm having this brilliant love affair with Instagram, especially Insta stories. It wasn't always this way. A few months back my circle mentor challenged me one day to do a FB Live sometime in the following 7 days cause I expressed to her my fear of going LIVE (Yikes!) .
Almost immediately she came back with this challenge. I mean whoa.
And, because I'm an Obliger (from Gretchen Rueben's book, The Four Tendencies), and I tend to beautifully rise to meet external obligations more easily, I took her challenge on.
Only prob with that is...I am NOT a fan of FB.
At all.
On the 6th day after endlessly battling my Fear of showing up Live on FB (and it winning, dang it!) I decided, instead, to do my first ever Insta story on Instagram.
What happened is that I conquered this fear of mine by doing the thing my way.
After some internal grappling and introspection I realized 2 things....
1. it wasn't about being on camera (I have a bunch of Soul Speak videos available to watch where clearly, being on camera was never an issue for me).
2. I really intensely dislike FB. I realize it's become a passionate and consistent hobby of mine (ROFL).
So my point is.....figure out what the underlying cause of your Fear is. Journal about it, have a conversation with a friend or your coach about it. And then, find ways to make this thing happen despite feeling the fear.
For me, I created a workaround in my desire to SHOW UP and now I do it consistently ....on insta, not on FB.
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Let's you and me start talking to help you figure your way out from behind this crazy Fear thing. Time to shine some light. Learn more here.
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Toodles,