Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
As I’ve said many times before, I believe that FEAR has ruined more lives, and more relationships, than anger has! Fear is sneeky. Fear is quiet. Fear is subtle. Anger is LOUD and obvious and usually obnoxious. You can easily tell when anger is affecting people. But when people make fear-based decisions, to try to Avoid whatever it is they are Afraid of, it’s way more difficult to tell. If people "just don’t go there" to keep away from what scares them, it seems like a personality trait, or a boundary, but it well could be out-of-control fear. When we don’t know how to deal with our fear, and we are Afraid of our own Fears, we will consciously, or unconsciously, direct our communications, our decisions, our relationships and our lives Away from our Fears.
HOWEVER,
Fear doesn’t say STOP, it’s only telling us to PAY ATTENTION!
"We get thru our fears by doing what we are afraid to do."
- Doc Downing, LMFT, Ph.D
and NOT by avoiding our fears.
Some fears are cool and helpful and life-sustaining. Fear of falling, when you’re on top of a roof, is a good thing… it tells you to Be Careful, and Pay Attention. Fear of abandonment, when you’ve been left by many throughout your life, is a good thing… it tells you to Be Careful, and Pay Attention. But notice that fear doesn’t necessarily say STOP. If you need to fix the roof, you gotta push thru your fear and go up there anywayz — carefully, slowly, with eyes wide open — but still Go. If you want to be in a relationship (and we all do), then you gotta push thru your fear of people leaving you, open up and go there anywayz — carefully, slowly, with eyes wide open — but still Go.
So please LISTEN to your fears. Hear them. Thank them. Vow to be careful try to keep from repeating old pains. Then take a step Forward, anywayz, TOWARD what scares you. Tell your fears to quiet down a bit, ’cause you’ve got work to do. I think you’ll find that:
a) the fears lessen in intensity and severity,
b) you learn new things very quickly in this state and,
c) you will probably live thru it!
Try to do something today that you are afraid of doing. Start small if you’d like, but face one fear today and see what happens. If it doesn’t go well, Ok, learn from that. Either way, I find that facing my fears, head-on, help me builds my trust in myself – and my self respect — so the next time, it feels much easier, knowing that I am in control of my fears, they are not in control of me!
Go get ‘em.
- Matt
Recent Comments