As I am writing this blog post, I am thinking about how closely it is tied to my own nagging fears. I have for the last year promised I would write a blog to add to my website and yet every time I sat down to write, I stared at a blank page until I finally comforted myself with the idea that it didn’t matter, that it was too permanent, that whatever I have to say has probably already been said or that it just will never express what you get by talking with me.
I knew then and I know now that all of those were excuses anchored in fear. “Fear of what?”, I asked myself. To which I answered, “Fear that it won’t be good enough, fear of being vulnerable in expression and thought. To take a risk, to be ok with imperfection and ok with simplicity”. A blog is not my great work, nor my path to being discovered or a dissertation. It is quite simply a venue to share my thoughts and a way to connect with you. From that simple commitment, I find myself willing to do it and some how less fearful about it being perfect for you.
When I think of all the subtleties of fear, what I witness in myself and others consistently is that either an attachment or a resistance to a result is typically written into the thoughts that prevent us from moving all the way through our fears. I have three tried and true practices to get through fear that I would like to share. These practices have helped me overcome everything from a fear of public speaking, starting my own business, to finding the courage to say goodbye to a partnership or in this case, writing a blog.
Here are my 3 Practices For Overcoming Fear
- Make your Commitments Matter more than your Reasons
OUR REASONS are the FEAR. Every time you create a reason why you can’t do something, it keeps you from following your own growth path, you have surrendered to fear. Write your commitments down, enroll support and persevere as a way to practice moving through fear. - Let Go of the Outcome
Whether it is a fear of expressing ourselves or letting go of a person or habit that scares us, we have to release the fantasy or attachment to a particular outcome regardless of how positive or scary the perceived outcomes may be. The truth is we do not know what will happen either way. We can never truly know the outcome until it has occurred. I have no way of knowing whether you will like reading this and I cannot write with the idea that it has to be good enough for Elephant Journal for me to begin writing to you. My commitment is to my creative process, to being fully expressed and to just give all of myself in every moment. The rest is yet to be known. The outcome is not the commitment, we collapse the two and we get scared. Let go and just show up. Just that, just that. - Notice Fear and Practice Conquering it in little ways Everyday
In every practice, whether it is yoga, meditation, martial arts, ect. you are constantly building strength and knowledge of the process until you get to unconscious competence aka Mastery. Treat working with the mechanism of fear in the same way. When you notice yourself in fear, which typically manifests as excuses, anxiety, feeling too fast or too slow, feeling resistant, or having a recurring thought to do something and then not accomplishing what it is you are thinking to do. Use these signifiers to identify fear as it arises. Once you identify fear move through it using practices 1 and 2. Choose to move through a small fear everyday for 30 days. This practice helps us to at first acknowledge how many fear thoughts run the show on a day to day basis. Additionally, this practice will increase the confidence to take on bigger fears over time.
As I close out this blog post, I am feeling different than I did when I started and for each one I write, it gets a little easier to let go of fear, just share and to lead with my commitments. The writing of this feels like a win – 1 point for Me, zero points for Fear. I hope that the reading of this will also somehow help you a little bit in working though your fears as well.
All love,
Brooke
Brooke
