F.E.A.R.
People like to play with the letters of “fear” and make them into cute little acronyms. Some of them are actually useful, one comes to mind: False Evidence Appearing Real.
Fear stops so many people from doing what they want to do that I feel compelled to introduce my own little riff on the four letters of fear.
Mind you, it’s – as someone who taught me a great deal while she was in my life would say – a bit salty.
FEAR = F#$k Everything And Rise
I say this because so much of what constitutes fear these days is nothing to be afraid of.
We have a physiology that, in our exceedingly safe and comfortable world, tricks us into fighting, fleeing, and sometimes, freezing.
And it’s 99.999% bull.
Public-speaking. Nothing to be afraid of.
Asking that attractive person out for coffee. Just do it already.
A deep-throated growl in the dead of night, deep in the forest. Yeah, that should get your attention.
Otherwise, fudge everything and rise.
P.S. Just after I finished drafting this I started to go through my e-mail and read a message from a mentor (Steve Chandler) that dove-tails perfectly with this above message; I offer it here in its entirety (links added by me):
I was on Michael Neill’s radio show recently and it was fun as usual. Michael used to be a comedian on TV in Wales when he was a young actor. He has a great sense of humor. On the show, we talked about asking. Why people don’t ask for what they want. We talked about Byron Katie‘s observation that “you could have anything you wanted if you were willing to ask a thousand people for it.”
He asked me to offer my theory about why we don’t ask for what we want in life. How we set up our days to avoid this process, and how a deep subconscious fear of rejection has more influence on our daily activity than any plan or created future.
Fear of disapproval. Fear of bothering others. Ruling the life of the fearful person. You don’t want that. You want your mission to rule. You want the project you are committed to…to rule your day.
Live well,
Steve
ps- THIS is the project that rules my day:
http://www.stevechandler.com/wealth_warrior_movement.html
We create fear and decide what we’re going to be afraid of… or not. Some people won’t sleep in the dark, others can’t sleep with the least bit of light. What makes one person so different from the other? The belief that things will be OK, that we will be OK. We will not melt like the wicked witch if we walk in the rain and our heads will not explode if we talk to a big group.
You’re also right on… there are times when fear SERVES us. Fear is always there to protect us but it’s up to us to discern real threats from the ones that we’ve built up in our minds.
Great reminder here that the best way to get over our fears is to face them, head on… that’s when they lose all of the power over us and we take 100% of the power back for ourselves.