Folks who know me in my public persona as a teacher and workshop leader are often VERY surprised to find out that I feel fear. I’ve even had people try to talk me out of it, saying things like “ Who you?? You couldn’t possibly be afraid? How could you be afraid and STILL do all the things you do?” 

 

 

 

And that, my friends, is the 64 million dollar question. How can a person be afraid and still get shit done? How can someone feel fear and and still be wildly accomplished?

 

 

 

These questions speak to the heart of the problem most folks have with fear. Which is that they think fear is abnormal. Or wrong. That the only way to make things happen in the world is to find yourself in a place where you are either fearless or beyond fear or have “healed your relationship” to fear.

 

 

Which is another way of saying you’ve gotten rid of it.

 

  

But I’m here to tell you that NOTHING… and I mean nothing… is further from the truth.

 

 

 

First let me give you a back stage pass to MY experience of fear.  The short story is that every time I have done something new… whether it’s create a workshop, be interviewed by someone or write about something in a more vulnerable way … I feel afraid. And sometimes my psyche can consider something to be “new” for longer than just the FIRST time I do it. Which means that just because I was interviewed once doesn’t mean that it might not take ten more times before I get to a place of relative comfort and ease. 

 

 

 

Of course the bigger the risk, the bigger the fear. So writing a blog post about my fathers death might register as a three on the internal Richter Scale of Terror in my psyche. But starting something like my teacher training program can send me into a place of such anxiety that the IRST scale no longer has any meaning. 

 

 

 

I’m actually kind of a connoisseur of fear at this point. I have experienced low level anxiety for days on end. Insomnia. Full blown panic attacks. And that simple sense of gnawing dread that can suck the joy out of your day quicker than you can say “Snickerdoodle.”

 

 

 

So even though I won’t go so far as to say fear is my friend, I DO have a deep familiarity with it and how it operates.

 

 

So here’s a few things that I’ve learned about fear.

 

 

First of all it is ridiculously unpleasant. Uncomfortable. Often agonizing. And I don’t like it at all. 

 

 

Like you, when it shows up …. YET AGAIN…. I groan with frustration, throw a tantrum and complain mightily about the fact that it has decided to pay me a deeply unwanted visit. And I say things to myself like “ I can’t believe this is happening . I thought I had already DEALT with this issue. When is this ever going to stop???”  And a host of other unhelpful and disbelieving comments.

 

 

 

But the second thing I’ve learned about fear is that whining about it has no impact on it at ALL. It comes and goes as it pleases. It doesn’t really care about my discomfort.

 

 

It won’t go away just because I tell it to. It won’t go away if I do affirmations. It won’t go away if I meditate on peace and joy. It won’t go away if I breathe so deeply I am in danger of passing out from oxygen poisoning. It won’t go away if I try to trick myself into believing it is simply excitement. 

 

 

The bottom line is, it won’t go away as long as I am hell bent on doing whatever scary thing I am intending to do. Because it doesn’t WANT me to do the scary thing. That’s the reason it’s here in the first place. 

 

 

So the next thing I have learned about fear is that I don’t want to waste a lot of time trying to MAKE it go away. That’s another one of its tricks. If I get all caught up in trying to “deal” with my fear it makes it very happy. Because dealing with my fear is a distraction from actually DOING the scary thing. 

 

 

If I believe I CAN make it go away. And that I SHOULDN’T do anything until it’s gone, then I’m sunk. Because that’s just not going to happen. 

 

 

This is the equation. Scary things = scary feelings.  If I do the scary thing, I’m going to be scared. Period. 

 

 

But the last thing I’ve learned is that fear is not a problem to be solved. Feeling fear doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong. It’s just a feeling. It’s a crappy feeling, yes. But it’s not something to take very seriously. And its also an indicator that I’m actually going in the right direction. 

 

 

I’m only afraid when I’m stretching myself and doing something creative that I’ve never done before. I’m only afraid when I’m getting close to the core of what has the greatest heart and meaning for me. I’m only afraid when I risk being as big as I can be and shining like the sun. 

 

 

And doing all of THOSE things is way more important to me than not being afraid. 

 

 

So I grit my teeth, gird my loins and jump into the fear fray … knowing that once I DO the scary thing, the joy on the other side makes it so incredibly worth every sleepless night. Every anxiety filled moment. Every panic stricken fantasy about a future gone wrong.

 

 
And that joy is the only reason I’m here to begin with anyway. So screw fear. It might make me miserable but it is NOT going to stop me. I’m going to continue to create, and create and CREATE!