Someone once asked me ‘what would you do if you weren’t afraid?’ It’s an interesting question really, I immediately thought of ‘I’d jump out of an aeroplane (with a parachute of course) I’m talking skydiving, then I’d go scuba diving, I’d climb a mountain…
What the question was really meant to do was make me think what are the things right now I would do if I wasn’t afraid; what’s holding me back from fulfilling me hearts desires. What blocks and holds me back from being productive, creative, successful…
What I know about fear is that fear is insidious because sometimes you don’t even know it’s there and it can come in all manner of disguises, sometimes it reveals itself as anger, an intolerance that just spits out in a knee jerk reaction to something. Fear paralyses and robs us of our connection to our hearts desires, fear separates us from those around us; fear can disconnect us from our dreams. Fear prevents us from living wholeheartedly with joy.
Emotions = E+motion, meaning energy in motion, in other word all emotion MOVES, it passes through you. Denial of emotions just makes them bigger and then they overwhelm you. Remember what you resist persists!
I would encourage you to be aware of your self talk, say I FEEL afraid, not I AM afraid. ‘I am’ suggests permanence whereas ‘I feel’ suggests something that can change. Buddhists use the term I am ‘WITH’ fear, or anger, or whatever it may be. It is suggested you ‘sit’ with it, be in it and feel it move through you; when you allow this to happen you can then take action.
“It is the actions we take or don’t take when we are afraid that can be damaging, not the emotion of fear itself”. – Robbi Mack
Next time you find yourself stuck or avoiding ask yourself, ‘what would I do if I wasn’t afraid’ – then be very still and you’ll hear the answer. After that, the choice is yours. Whilst I don’t plan to jump out of a plane anytime soon, I am working on a draft for writing a book!
