Fear is a natural response, without it we wouldn’t assess or analyse, and we wouldn’t recognise or pay attention to that little voice inside. Not having fear could lead to a whole world of hurt.
Everything in the universe is in balance: day/night, good/bad, right/wrong, dark/light, positive/negative, you cannot have one without the other – so having a sense of fear is a good thing, as is being fearless. When fear is no longer serving you, you will know. It can take over and rule your life, it becomes all encompassing. When this occurs it impacts you in serious ways, it stops you moving forward, it stops you living life, it stops you taking chances – the path that we take in this instance can become rocky and difficult to navigate.
On searching the internet as far back as Napoleon Hill and to more recent times Dr John Demartini, people have produced lists of the 7 greatest fears. In fact 7 seems to be the magic number. There were the 7 fears of: getting fit, being a woman, money, men– the list was fairly impressive. I truly believe it can be far simpler than that.
If we take one of the common fears across all lists, which was rejection and drill it down, what do you find? It is not the rejection you fear it is the loss of connection, fear of not being liked. As humans we need to connect, we want to be liked, it is primal. So when we or an idea we present is rejected we can interpret this deep down as not being liked, not being accepted. We generally do things to be liked, connected, loved and happy. Our fears can stop us doing or acting in certain ways, as we fear losing our current status of being happy, liked, connected and loved.
4 Steps to overcoming fear
So what is the first step in getting your fear back into balance? Recognise it. Be honest with yourself if fear is what is holding you back from doing something, or achieving a goal recognise it.
Step two own your fear, acknowledge what it is holding you back from doing/being.
Step three is to assess, what are you truly afraid of, what is at the core of your feeling.
Step four assess again. Whilst some fears have solid grounding, most do not. Be really clear is this emotion/feeling holding us back from having the rich and meaningful life that we deserve?
So if you have fears that are holding you back in life, take stock. If you cannot do it on your own, seek help. It is worth it to live the life that you want and should be living.
Have a great day.
Deb
