F**k Fear

"Get busy living or get busy dying."
Andy Dufresne


Fear. It is the four letter word that factors into just about every single decision or action we make, take or don't make or take. It's presence or lack thereof determines direction. This is not about a fear of spiders, frogs, flying or heights, although it could be. This is about those nasty, tricky fears that really impact the quality of the lives we live that we are mostly unaware of. Whether we are truly experiencing the liberation we all want to experience in the lives we live depends on how manage these fears.

I have been controlled by my fears pretty much my entire life. You name it, I either have had or currently have a fear of it. No, I am not a scaredy cat, I just never took the time out to deeply reflect on them and how they impacted very important decisions in my life. Throughout my life I have struggled with a fear of failure. Too many times I avoided trying certain things out of fear that I would not be good at them. Just last week I went salsa dancing for the first time and had a blast. In years past I would have come up with every excuse to not try it out a fear of not being good at it and a fear of criticism.

If we are going to peel back the layers of the onion, let's get to what is the apex of many fears for us, myself included, and that is a fear of intimacy. That fear of heartbreak, rejection, not being good enough, not being loved, and abandoned all rolled up into one. Few fears are as powerful as this one and it is one we all have dealt with in our lives. Our past experiences determine our future projections. This is how self fulfilling prophecies work. What is more important is how we perceive our past experiences. Perception is flexible. It is our perception of what happened that will determine the energy we project towards a similar future experience determining the outcome or quality of that future experience. This is quantum mechanics or as Philip Zimbardo refers to as The Time Paradox. When I got divorced I was heartbroken. Like many who experience that searing pain, I immediately swore off any future escapades of intimacy out of a fear of experiencing the same heartbreak in the future. Little by little I started to work on reframing my perception of my past marital experience putting my attention on to those things I knew were good experiences and positive moments. I focused on the areas where I grew and became a better person as a result of the experience. This let me open myself up to the possibility of intimacy in the future. When I did meet someone I chose to be intimate with, it was a vastly different experience for me, because although my fears were present, I would not let them determine my path. I was able to be authentic, present, and vulnerable in a way I never had been prior. My fears of rejection, heartbreak, not being good enough, not being loved, or abandoned didn't stop me from showing and professing my love and those things that I desired.

Everything we want is on the other side of fear, as the saying goes. Fear is important because it can alert us to danger. But how often are we really in that kind of danger? I have chosen to move into risk and vulnerability and not be strapped into caution and prudence. I put myself into the eye of the most fearful of fears and came out short, but I am still here and will continue to focus on the positives in the lesson and apply them to my future projections. We all can.



#elliotyi
#paradigmleft
#habits
#mindset