As I drew a coaching session to a close last night with a dear client she said something that stuck with me and that was that “Fear is a B*tch”. She’s right, it is. Fear is so powerful and demanding that it robs us from everything that we deserve, dream and desire. It is what differentiates between being able to live a life of joy and love or a life of worry and paralysis.
I know fear too well, it takes many forms. Sometimes it camouflages itself into my entire life like a wallpaper and I don’t realise it’s even there until there is a crack and the light comes through. I’ve worked really hard to overcome my fears, but they don’t seem to go away they just change into new things to cause me worry. Fear is obsessed with me and somewhere a long the way I became addicted to it. When you’re so enmeshed with fear, you don’t realise that you are not it. You can’t recognise that you have surrendered yourself over to the powerful pull it has. Despite being so uncomfortably nasty, fear is something that will never leave our lives. To a degree we rely on it, because it can help us navigate situations in a manner that will ensure our safety. But fear is power hungry so if you start encouraging it, it will rule you.
I’ve been working hard on my relationship with fear. I went through a period of anger, for being plagued by what felt like a nasty friend who was there to torment me. Then I realised fear is also known as anxiety and when I started to give it a name, some characteristics and to separate it from me, I started to feel my own strength and improve my ability to distance myself from it without ignoring the fact that it’s there. From there I felt sadness because I couldn’t understand why fear was resting at my door and not others. I just wanted to run and it was weighing me down and I resented it for it. After much work through therapy, coaching and reflection I grew compassionate towards fear as I came to accept that it’s actually a coping mechanism that is operating post its expiry date.
I am not my anxiety, I am not defined by fear but fear is what has led me to discover my courage. Fear is what has given me the fuel to keep on fighting and persevere through some hard times. Fear has kept me safe. But I don’t need fear to protect me anymore, I just need to remember that it will visit me from time to time and just because it does, it doesn’t mean that I have to hold it tight and surrender myself to it.
Fear is a b*tch, but I am a warrior and I will get back up stronger each time I practice my courage.
May all of us who are walking around afraid come to realise that we are capable of courageously letting go of fear, little by little day by day.
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 