Fear keeps us stuck. Fear keeps us playing small. Fear can seemingly come out of nowhere, lying in wait under the surface. Fear can be all encompassing, following us to bed and waking with us in the morning.
Ultimately, fear keeps us from moving forward, from making progress in our lives and careers.
What are you afraid of right now?
Are you afraid to ask for a promotion?
Are you afraid to let loved ones in?
Are you afraid to let go of something (or someone) that is no longer serving you?
Take a minute to really think about the strongest fear you are living right now. How is it keeping you stuck? In what ways is it making you play small?
For many of us, our natural reaction to fear is to avoid the thing we are afraid of. This avoidance makes sense - if something might hurt you, why would you run towards it?
Avoiding the thing you’re afraid of could manifest in many forms. It might mean ignoring the fights you’ve been having with your significant other. It might mean drinking heavily on the weekends to try and forget. It might mean changing the subject every time your friend brings up your job search.
And yet, at the same time as we are trying to avoid it, the thing we fear still consumes our thoughts.
The problem is that even though the thoughts are all about avoiding the problem/fear, you are still putting energy towards the fear.
Unfortunately, since it is fear-based, that energy is negative energy. And so in our effort to avoid having X happen, we are blocking the positive energy around us and are only seeing the negative. The Universe cannot send us the positive things we desire because we are so focused on the negative.
Energy attracts like energy.
So, in order to out of our fear-based mindset and actually attract the things we want in life, we have to shift our mindset. I know, easier said than done.
To help my clients shift their mindset out of fear, one question I love to ask is “What is the worst case scenario of actually happening?”
Often, I find that when we face our fear head on (rather than avoiding it) and look at the possible outcomes of a given situation, it takes some of the power away from the fear we have.
It is also important to then ask how realistic that particular outcome is for YOU.
The reason this piece of the question is so important is that we have this uncanny ability to create extremely elaborate, negative stories in our head. It’s like our own personal WebMD where we can go to create some insane tale about how we’re going to die of some super rare disease all because we have a small pain in our wrist.
Okay, a little dramatic, but you get the point.
While our imaginations are an incredible gift is some respects (think of all of the amazing music, art, inventions, etc. that humans have created), in other ways our imaginations can run away from us and create some unlikely scenarios. As a result, we get so caught up in this fearful narrative that our mind has created that we don’t stop to even think about it’s legitimacy.
Looking at the worst case scenario and it’s actual likelihood of happening for you can help you to better understand if the narrative you’ve created is a) unrealistic and therefore you can begin to let go and move on or b) realistic and therefore can start putting measures in place to work on/improve the situation.
In either case, you’re addressing the fear head on and, therefore, the power of the fear itself begins to diminish.
When this happens, we can start to breathe a bit easier and focus our attention on the positive outcome we want. When we are able to make that shift from a negative mindset (focusing on fear and lack) to a positive one (focusing on possibility and abundance), then we shift the energy we are putting out into the world. The people around us, as well as the Universe, begin to interact with us accordingly.
Here’s a quick exercise for you:
Take a minute and think back to the fear I asked you to conjure up earlier in this post.
What is the worst case scenario of that fear? (For example, if your fear is that your relationship with your significant other might end, the worst case scenario you might come up with is that you’ll never have another serious romantic relationship again.)
Okay, now that you’ve identified the worst case scenario that your brain has come up with, ask yourself: How realistic is that scenario for YOU? (In keeping with the same example, you might think “Hm… probably not that realistic. I have a lot of life ahead of me, so it’s probably unrealistic to think that I’ll never have another serious romantic relationship again in my life.”)
Most likely, you’ll find that the fear that you’ve been giving so much energy to is actually pretty unrealistic. In the event that it is realistic, ask yourself: In this moment, what first step can you take to start addressing that fear?
Now, all of this is not to say that your fear might not occur or that life won’t have painful moments. Sometimes our fears do come true and really shitty things happen to us. Experiencing loss and pain happens to all of us at some point in our lives. In fact, it’s what makes the good stuff feel so much better. (Imagine if everything was great all of the time. It would become so normal that you wouldn’t get so excited about those moments anymore.)
The idea here is to really let go of the hold that fear has over you. In doing so, you can begin to live from a place of love and positivity.
When we do that, we can start to be open to the good things that are meant to come our way.
So take a minute to face your fear head on today. Challenge your brain’s worst case scenario story. I bet you’ll find the weight of your fear feels a little lighter when you do.
If you need some help working through your fear, I’m always here to help!
Be well,
Carolyn