Fear – The Final Frontier

Are you feeling blocked or frustrated at the moment? Stuck in a rut? Do you feel that something’s holding you back from fulfilling your goals and ambitions? It’s an interesting question that affects most of us during our lives and this might be the perfect time for you to consider the areas in your life that are not delivering on their potential. This could equally be a great moment for you to discover exactly what has been slowing you down.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

-??????Plato

So, let’s start by identifying the areas that are not living up to your expectations. It can be very helpful to take a pen and a sheet of paper and make a brief inventory of the parts of your life that aren’t matching your requirements. Writing with a pen or pencil seems to involve parts of the brain that are not activated when we use a keyboard so, despite the ease and convenience of tapping out your answers on a laptop or tablet, this is the kind of exercise that benefits from a more old-fashioned approach. We’ve explored this technique of constructing deeply personal and highly relevant lists before. Now, we can use the technique to learn even more about ourselves.

Once your list feels complete, you’re ready to explore the influences that have brought you to this point in your life. If you had to list all the factors that you feel are holding you back right now, what would you say are the main issues that are blocking your progress? What’s getting in the way of your happiness, success, fulfilment or wellbeing?

What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good.

-??????Maya Angelou

We know that external factors can play a major role in determining how or when we can realise our dreams and we know that delays are often an inevitable part of any campaign for success or for a better life. But the reasons you choose to explain where you are right now – rather than where you want to be – can provide helpful insights into the way your thoughts and feelings are impacting on your life. These insights may reveal the underlying causes of your situation.

For example, if you consider your circumstances to be the result of other people’s actions, then this is absolutely the right time for you to take a step back and understand how this particular attitude is affecting your life. Blaming others is the first indication that we’ve handed over control of our lives to someone else. When we shift responsibility for our life from ourselves to others, we effectively renounce control over our destiny. We place our futures in the hands of other people and that’s a perfect recipe for disappointment, for delay and a loss of personal empowerment. Every self-help book and self-improvement course encourages the attitude of assuming total responsibility for the outcomes in our lives.

However, once you’ve learned to accept that your destiny lies very much in your own hands, you can explore the obstacles to your success and fulfilment at a deeper level. This is when you might uncover a less obvious influence that can make all the difference to the way your life unfolds. And what are we referring to here? It’s the hidden nest of fears that dwell in the unexplored depths of our hearts. These are the fears of being unworthy of success or happiness or personal fulfilment.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

-??????Buddha

Sometimes, these emotional minefields show up in our lives as self-sabotage or the tendency to give up when we’re so close to achieving our aims. Wherever fear raises its head, we are robbed of our wisdom, good judgement, creativity and confidence in the future. Fear is the secret serpent of doubt that paralyses our best efforts and intentions. And it’s one of the primary sources of failure in the world. Perhaps that’s why so many people believe that fear effectively rules the world. Yet, this is not necessarily so.

If we consider the wisdom of the ancient sages, poets and philosophers, they insisted in their teachings that fear was always the greatest illusion that mankind ever created. This is an extraordinary insight into our nature and a very interesting point to consider. If fear is mostly a product of our imagination - and if it owes its existence solely to the emotional energy we use to maintain its presence in our lives – then we know we can neutralise it by turning off the emotional fuel that sustains it.

A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.

-??????Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The most surprising aspect of this revelation is that our fears evaporate the instant we cease to feed them with our emotional energy. Fear needs our emotional power to exist. When we turn our hearts and minds towards a brighter, happier and more positive interpretation of whatever’s going on around us, fear vanishes in the light of our new perspective. Very few situations bring us face to face with danger. Most of the fear that we experience is produced by our imagination. By moving our thoughts and feelings towards more positive outcomes, by generating the fire of hope in our hearts, by accepting that we truly deserve to succeed, we find the courage to continue and take the next step on the pathway to fulfilment. Fear is the great barrier that limits our beliefs in a better future. When we step beyond its limitations, we discover the possibilities of a brighter, happier and healthier new way of living.

The first duty of man is to conquer fear. He must get rid of it for he cannot act till then.

-??????Thomas Carlyle

Greg Parry created The Wellness Foundation and the Cognitive Empowerment Programs specifically to help people master their stress, overcome their limitations and explore the power of their true potential. Feel free to join us today and discover the power of your own potential. We look forward to hearing from you!

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