Tag: Fear

Not Afraid

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When we are laughing we are not afraid – Stephen Colbert

I fear a lot of things. Family members getting sick, failure, rejection, bad coffee.

We know that fear can cripple us, and keep us from moving forward. The fight, flight, freeze response comes to mind.

Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of troubles in my life, most of which never happened”.

Stoic Philosopher, Seneca said, “Perhaps the worst will happen, perhaps not, until then, look forward to better things“.

What are we afraid of?

What comes to mind, the worst thing that could happen, is death. One day I will die, and so will you. It is unavoidable, yet, I know I do all that I can to avoid it. Keep healthy, eat well, see the doctor, find ways to relax. But even after all that it is not going to work.

What I fear will come to pass. It will happen someday. Hopefully not someday soon, but it comes for us all.

My grandmother used to tell me, “Kieran, whatever you do, don’t get old” to which I would respond, “Okay grandma, I’ll give it a try but I’m not sure how successful I will be”. Then she would chuckle.

That’s what I remember about her, her sense of humour. And I think it made those times, as she was getting older, easier to handle. Because as you laugh at things, it takes the heaviness and perceived seriousness out of life.

It can be easy to create a serious persona, and get caught up thinking that everything in our life is so important, and so many decisions are life or death. But, if we allow laughter in, even decisions that are legitimately life or death, don’t feel as if they are life or death, more like life and death.

People and Things – Advice for Kids

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When my older children were little and I would leave them in someone else’s care, be that a grandparent, an uncle or aunty, or some other trusted person, I would give them these instructions:

Treat people nicely.

Treat things nicely.

I was really worried about how they would behave, and how that would reflect badly on me. It turns out that I needn’t have worried because they are pretty awesome human beings, and also, parenting out of fear that your kids may make you look bad is a pretty toxic place to parent from.

Regardless, the two principals remain solid instructions that I now share with my younger kids.

Treat people nicely.

Treat things nicely.

I think it encapsulates the whole realm of instructions for how to behave in the presence of other people.

I understand the complexities of it all, though. Because if someone is hurting them, or putting them in danger, I really don’t want their response to be nice. I want their response to be more like running away. That is part of a deeper lesson of protecting yourself.

But generally, the message I have for my kids is to be kind to other people and to things. It shows respect, generosity and a sense of self-worth, and it shows other people that this is how they would like to be treated in return.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks” …well that’s not true.

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I knew even as the words were still on my lips that it wasn’t true. Who was I kidding? Even as a teenager I knew that I was frightfully afraid of what other people thought of me. They call it FOPO, Fear of Other People’s Opinions.

I think now I am a little less afraid , but it depends on the day and the weather and the amount of coffee I have had. I do want to get to the point where I legitimately don’t care what other people think, but I’m not sure that’s possible, or entirely healthy.

Regardless of that, I want to get to a place where I care more about what I think of me. I want my opinion of me to be solid and fair and generous. If I can get there, then it matters not what others say and think, or at least it matters less.

In reality I’m not sure that my opinion of me will be solid and fair and generous, at least not all the time.

But, along this journey, I think I will limit the people’s opinions that I care about to those closest to me and those that know me the best. They have earned the right to have an opinion.

Acting Out

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“You cannot think yourself into a new way of acting. You have to act your way into a new way of thinking.” Marsha Linehan 

At some point, action is required. Even though planning is important. Even though preparation is vital. Even though having a sound strategy is wise, there comes a time when it is all lost if we don’t do the thing. If we don’t take the first step and put the plan into action, the preparation to good use and the strategy to the test. A step must be taken.

There is always going to be a reason not to start just yet. There is always going to be a reason to put it off just one more day until you have ‘all your ducks lined up in a row’. But the real reason is fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of looking stupid.

“But I’m a perfectionist” = “I am afraid”

“I’m not ready yet” = “I am afraid”

“The timing is not right” = “I am afraid”

Fear cripples, ruins, defeats, quenches growth.

Action begins to tell a new story. To create something new, to start a new journey, to begin a new chapter, first you must act in a new way. Your actions will shape how you think, and in turn, will impact how you feel.

For example, if you act generously, you will feel generous and begin to think generous thoughts.

No fear in love

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There’s an old saying that love ‘keeps no records of wrongdoing’.

I find it comforting to know that mistakes that I have made won’t be used against me in the future. That in a healthy relationship, through a process of owning up, seeking forgiveness, and restoring trust, mistakes and failures can be let go.

Love chooses to forget the times we stuffed up and remember the times we nailed it. It thinks that the times we managed to support, encourage, be present for and take care of others, is more important to focus on that the times when we didn’t do that.

James Clear would put it like this, ‘praise the good, ignore the bad’.

I like that kind of love. It is outrageously generous.

But I don’t always see, experience, or show that kind of love. I can remember times, pretty clearly, when someone didn’t meet my expectations of love, and also many times when I didn’t meet my own expectations of what love looks like to them.

The opposite of love is fear. When I act in a way that directly contradicts what love is, I know that I am no longer acting in love, but in fear.

Fear does keep records of wrongdoing. Fear remembers them, keeps track of them and then drags them up to use as a weapon any time it feels threatened.

Fear destroys relationships. It is outrageously stingy.

To move away from fear and towards love means acknowledging the fear, perhaps even unpacking it, and choosing to put it aside so that you can experience all that love has to offer.

Don’t Get Stuck

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“What causes a problem matters less than what maintains it” – Trevor Kashey

“Who did this?”

The question hung in the silence for what seemed like an eternity as two sets of eyes looked back at me in fear, eagerly waiting to see how they should respond to this emotional time, depending on how upset I was.

Another broken item in the home. Not an uncommon experience although it is one that drives me a little crazy.

My desire to get to the bottom of who, what, why and when of these sorts of situations can be helpful to figure out just what happened, but at the same time it can cause greater stress than the traumatic breaking of the breakfast bowl.

The result can leave kids being so afraid of breaking something that they get anxious about carrying a bowl from the kitchen to the table and in their anxiety, drop said bowl and break it. Creating more anxiety. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This can happen in any area of life. We can get so caught up in avoiding failure that we are afraid to act, and when something does inevitably go wrong, we can expend all this energy figuring out who or what caused it, getting stuck in the process of dealing out blame. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for accountability and being responsible for your actions, but if it’s just about discovering who to get angry at then we have missed the point. Anger doesn’t create solutions. Blame doesn’t create growth.

Instead of asking, “who did this?”, a better question is “what can we learn from this?”, or “how do we grow from this?” or “how can we improve this?”

Who or what causes a problem ‘matters less than what maintains it.’ It’s not about how we got here but it’s about where to from here.

Trapped on a Plane

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I took a flight from Sydney to Perth and about an hour in, I began to feel a unwell. It was such a strange onset – I was feeling great before I boarded, but things quickly took a turn for the worse. The flight had some turbulence, so I thought maybe that was the reason and things would settle down.

No.

Just over half way through the flight the worst happened. My recently eaten dinner came back to visit. I would love to have told you that it was fine and that I made it to the bathroom in time, but I did not. Someone was in the bathroom and the best I could do a large plastic bag being used as a bin.

I was very apologetic to the crew, but they were so understanding telling me it “happened all the time”, and that I had “done quite well to minimise the collateral damage” (I’m not sure I could do their job – imagine the things they would have seen). They expressed concern for me and how unpleasant an experience it must have been. That was sweet.

The truth is, there is nothing I could have done to change the situation. I was trapped on a plane thousands of feet in the air. I just had to accept it, embrace the public embarrassment, and find a way forward. And it was embarrassing. I was afraid to look stupid in front of other people, but I had no control over that moment. My internal system forced my hand. (Or stomach as the case may be).

There are things we fear that we have absolutely no control over. We get to choose whether the things we don’t control stop us from living our lives, from exploring, trying something new or even stepping outside of our comfort zone.

Fear cripples. Being willing to look stupid in front of others not only lessens the embarrassment after projectile vomiting on a plane but also allows you to walk in the freedom of trying something new and not being good at it yet.

What is Self-Generosity?

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Self generosity is so important. I think most people can find some energy to be a little bit generous to others, but generosity to ourselves seems to be the hardest thing to do.

There is a troubling dynamic between self-generosity and letting yourself of the hook. It can be a challenge to know if you are being honest with yourself. I still don’t know. Am I being generous to myself (like I would with other people), or am I taking the easy way out?

I’ll be the first to admit that it can take me a little while to understand what is happening ‘within myself’. I will often ask ‘what is the emotion that I am currently feeling’, or, more often, ‘I remember feeling an emotion the other day, what was that?’ I can be slow.

But it’s my emotions that generally stop me from doing something. Like taking on a new challenge, creating an event, or making a phone call. And so, I ask myself how much weight should I give to that emotion? Is this a time to listen to listen to myself and take a break, or is this one of those times that I can push on through? Am I running from a growth opportunity or is saying ‘no’ right now keeping me mentally healthy? Am I over thinking it? Am I underthinking it? Am I asking too many questions?

Maybe you can resonate with that.

The best strategy that I use which helps me manage this process is to sit in the discomfort of whatever the emotion is, name it out loud (works better if you are alone) and articulate what I am afraid of in that moment (fear is always at work).

That is my definition of self-generosity. Noticing what I am experiencing without judgement and sitting with it. From that point I will usually know instinctively what the next step is.

Give Yourself a Break

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It is exhausting. Keeping tabs on people, making sure they are behaving themselves and not doing something that they shouldn’t be.

I’m not talking about parenting. I’m talking about monitoring the behaviour of your friends and family. Because if you aren’t there looking over their shoulder to keep them on the straight and narrow, then who will?

It may sound ridiculous, but it is easy enough to find ourselves in that space, even if it is just for a little while. We watch other people’s lives as spectators, seeing where and how they fall short, and not living up to what they hoped for. When they don’t reach their dreams or achieve their goals, failing in the process, we secretly (or not so secretly) judge them from the safety of the sidelines.

Judging other people’s behaviour can feel good in the moment, but it is exhausting. Partly because you have to keep track of them, but also you need to ensure that you don’t act in the same way so that when you judge, you can feel ‘morally superior’.

I’m encouraging you to give yourself a break from that. Take some time away from it, because here is what I have discovered…

We judge because we are afraid. The mistakes that we fear making are the areas in which we are the most judgemental of others. This leads to inaction and stagnation.

So, lay off other people and face your fear. Try that thing you have been afraid to say out loud. It is such a better use of time and energy, and it may just lead to something amazing.

What Could Be

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How do you measure potential?

How can you take something as it is and create an educated measurement of what it could be?

It seems almost impossible and I sense that we tend to err on the side of caution when we do this. To be honest most of our thinking around what could be in the future comes from what has happened in the past.

We drastically underestimate what we are capable of.

We drastically underestimate what those around us are capable of.

Is it possible that what we can achieve, the difference we can make and the impact we can have on others is being held back by fear?

Right in the middle of Ephesians, the author Paul, implores his readers to cast aside their ideas of what they think life should be like and begin to dream about what could be through the strength of God who’s ‘mighty power is at work within us’ and is able to ‘accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think’.

So what are you capable of?

OR perhaps a more practical question – what would you would do at work, in your relationships, in any area of life right now if you weren’t afraid.

That’s the first step to glimpsing what your potential is.