How is fear showing up for you?

what could we achieve if fear had less power

I’ve been meaning to ask many people to appear as a guest on the new podcast but just can’t bring myself to do it. This all-consuming fear takes over and I find something else to do, anything else to do in fact, I mean I found time to paint the kitchen floor this week!

I’ve brought it up in coaching sessions, put it on my daily to-do list every week for a long time and subsequently moved it to the next week every time. I’m six weeks into this dance with fear and not feeling the interval coming anytime soon.

Fear is the beautiful way our brain keeps us safe from taking risks that have life-threatening potential. The primal brain inside of all of us is calculating risk subconsciously and creating fear in response to some of the risker options. Based on evidence and past experiences our brain is helping to keep us safe.

Our brain doesn’t understand that giving that talk or, in my case sending the email, isn’t life threatening, it registers you have concerns and activates fear.

We don’t necessarily have grades of fear, fear is fear. But based on our memories and life experiences we all experience it differently. Some thrive in stressful environments that others wouldn’t even be able to imagine living through.

That said fear can show up in different ways and as reactions to different scenarios. Tara Mohr in fact talks about two types of fear she learnt from the teachings of the Hebrew Bibble by Rabbi Lew. Pachad - the fear of projected or imagined things. And yirah- when we experience the fear of inhabiting a space bigger than we’re used to, or when we have more energy than we had before or the feeling we have in the presence of the divine.

Fear has long been something that’s stopped me from getting on with things I want to do. I see my podcast fear as two-fold - pachad, I’m certainly imagining that people will reject me or worst (is there anything worse?) and yirah, the worry of asking guests who have a sense of a bigger space, with a dash of the fear of the divine to add to the mix.

My coaching session uncovered a few reasons for this but what became clear was that I had a divine complex with my guests. That I held them in high regard and that was what was keeping me from asking them. Let’s not delve too deeply into what that means about how I see myself, that’s a whole other post and coaching session!

I’d love to tell you that I’ve nailed this and sent those emails but not just yet. I did DM a friend on Instagram about joining me and she said yes. So that’s a win!

What I have been thinking a lot recently is:

How can I make this easy? and How can I add more freedom to this situation?

I’ve been asking myself these questions when I spot fear, or fear’s bestie doubt crop up. And I have to say they have been so helpful. Instead of the spin of thoughts, I have been able to clear my mind and find real solutions.

You see fear will always be there, we would be in quite a lot of danger if it wasn’t, but I think we can live with it. I think we can reassure ourselves we are safe, work with our thoughts and notice when the ones keep popping up that are there to keep us safe, choosing whether to embrace them or reassure ourselves of our safety. Our thoughts and feelings are important and just disregarding them could be harmful and lead to issues with self-trust, so I feel filtering them carefully and choosing how to use them is more helpful.

I understand that there might not be a perfect solution, wrapped in a pretty bow to your fear but I think doing the deeper work and questioning our fears can help us to understand what our brain is trying to protect us from. Which in turn can give us the chance to go even deeper and build our self-trust.

So I’d love to know what has fear stooped you doing over the last few weeks?