Fear, Failure and Emotional Resilience

I recently published a book titled 'Overcoming Fear and Failure - A practical guide for women who overthink, overanalyze and are overlyanalytical.' Needless to add I am fascinated about this topic.

Through my own experiences and in speaking with hundreds of women in various countries, I have come to realize that Emotional Resilience is at the heart of overcoming fear or failure of any kind.

When we have high degree of fear (in any part of our lives), its an indication of emotional breakdown. In today’s world, there are endless distractions that always sway us from dealing with our challenging emotions. Unfortunately, this perpetuates the cycle of distress and keeps us stuck in vicious loops of fear and failure.

My intention with the series is to initiate conversations on fear, failure and the necessity of developing emotional resilience.

I interviewed 2 bright women on LinkedIn and asked them about how they deal with Fear and Failure in their day-to-day life and how they get back up when they are knocked off-center.

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Meet Amy Perkins – the Founder of Keys to Courage (https://www.keystocourage.com). Amy recently left her 25-year career in teaching to make an impact on much wider scale. She now teaches people how to design a life of their dreams. Amy leads with example and she leads with her heart. In this interview below, she talks about living in gratitude and using gratitude as a springboard for emotional resilience.

Question: How do you overcome fear and failure on a day to day basis? 

Amy: I overcome fear by acknowledging the feeling then pushing through the fear and doing whatever it is that scares me. Sometimes I ask myself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I try and fail?” The worst thing that could happen is to never try and never know if you just might have succeeded.

Question: How do you handle the challenging emotions at work and in life?  

Amy: I handle challenging emotions by living with a deep sense of gratitude. There are so many things to be grateful for and with this mindset, challenging emotions are diminished. I also take time to meditate and exercise every day. It fuels my soul.

 Question: Are you emotionally resilient? If so, what tools you use on a daily basis?

Amy: I’m absolutely emotionally resilient. Living in deep gratitude for being alive puts everything into perspective. I don’t sweat the small stuff. I live with an abundant mindset and focus on all the good around me. When I focus on the blessings in my life, I find more blessings to be grateful for.

Question: Are there are strategies or go-to checklist you could share with folks on LinkedIn? In other words, how do you get back up when you are down in the trenches?

Amy: When I say I live in gratitude, my best friend died and one of my dear friends has ALS and one of my other dear friends’ daughter was recently murdered. So, I literally live in gratitude and I think if everybody thought of others that they know, that have gone through worse things than they are dealing with - things don’t get me down, they just don’t get me down. If something gets me down, I pop back up in minutes because I have so much to be grateful for.

My friend who lost her daughter in the Borderline Shooting in October’2018, her 18-year old daughter – they are champions of kindness. They are on a mission to spread kindness through their daughter’s message, Alaina Housley. So I just don’t sweat the small stuff.

And if we looked outside of ourselves more and realized that other people have a heck of a lot worse than whatever we are going through, there are just not many things that can get you down. Again, I have a friend with ALS, and she is so positive. She is grateful. She is writing a book with her eyes right now.

My best friend died, and she had a 2-year-old baby and when she was sick, I was grateful for every argument I had with my husband because she didn’t have one. I was grateful for every eye-roll that my daughter gave me because I knew that my friend was not going to be alive to see her son roll his eyes at her. So, that’s what I mean about living in gratitude. I am literally grateful for everything and that’s what makes me emotionally resilient.

 You can connect with the Amazing Amy at - https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/amy-perkins

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Meet Devina Kaur – the author of Too Fat, Too Loud, Too Ambitious and founder of Sexy Brilliant (https://www.SexyBrilliant.com). After a lifetime of being told she was too fat, too loud and too ambitious, her world fell apart in her 30s when her arranged marriage ended. Thirty years of desperately trying to be the person everyone else wanted had resulted in loneliness, depression and confusion. While looking for purpose and meaning, Devina embarked on a journey of self-discovery that led her to start the Sexy Brilliant Global Revolution.

Question: How do you overcome fear and failure on a day to day basis?

Devina: Through ongoing personal development what I have come to realize is that the more attached I am to a situation the more fearful I am of the outcome. When I have zero attachments, there is no fear or failure. Zero attachments does not mean not giving it our 100%. On a daily basis I practice extreme mindfulness. Through awareness of emotions I do my best to separate myself from my emotions by practicing present moment miracle.

Question: How do you handle the challenging emotions at work and in life?

Devina: I am emotionally gifted, my work, that is, SEXY BRILLIANT global revolution, is also my passion. I do not consider it separate from myself. In regards to challenges, I pay attention to the signals my body is sending me and take a step back, go into meditation (to regain my inner power through self-knowledge) and then I am able to separate my emotions from my logical mind. Example - if I have cold sweats, or anxiety attack about a person, a TV appearance, I listen to my intuition.

Question: Are you emotionally resilient? If so, what tools you use on a daily basis?

Devina: Often our biggest gifts are also our biggest challenges, I know myself and my gifts (and weaknesses). Self-knowledge, is the first step towards finding one’s gifts. Here is an ABC process I use on a daily basis.

A. When in doubt, doubt the doubts.

B. Courage is always one step ahead of fear.

C. Self-talk, that is, working my way through my ego, and mind.

I found out that self-knowledge and radical self-acceptance are the most important tools.

You can connect with the Dazzling Devina at: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/thedevinakaur/

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I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Amy Perkins and Devina Kaur and found it emotionally and intellectually stimulating.

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If you would like to be featured in this series, or if you have any questions or suggestions, please drop in a line at [email protected]