Facing Fears

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy." - Dale Carnegie 

Fear can be paralyzing and sometimes it stops us from achieving our goals. Fear can stem from the past or different expectations from others or ourselves. Fear stops us from experiencing life to the fullest. It is so difficult to have an amazing life if we are constantly in fear of the future. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is doing things in spite of the fear we feel. From doing that, we can grow into better versions of ourselves. Fear causes us to control our environment but the course of life itself is so unpredictable that we cannot possibly control every aspect of it. We have to learn to let go and let live. When we learn to face our fears, we can gain and experience so much more than living in fear. It is worth it being on the other side of fear, knowing that you fought hard to face your demons.

To start facing our fears, we need to be comfortable with it. Feel the fear and breathe through it. Do things that scare us instead of avoiding it because it is the easier thing to do. The more we do the things that scare us, the braver and more comfortable we will be. The more we give in to fear, the more difficult it would be to get out of it. Next, positive thoughts help to ease our fear. Fearful and negative thoughts only bring us fear and some of that fear is unnecessary. Expecting the worst will only cause us to be fearful. Do not dwell on fear, do not give fear our attention, time and energy. Dispel this fear by being prepared. Prepare what we can, control what we can, that would release some fear. Opportunity will come when we try and if we miss our opportunity because of our fear it would be such a waste and we would regret it. Instead of focusing on our fear of the future or failure, we focus on things that would bring us joy, like the relationships we have with others, being our authentic self and being in the moment, fear will only take us out of the moment and beautiful moments are fleeting.

When we fear failure, remember that failure is part of life. When we don’t fail, we don’t learn and grow, we remain complacent. Also look back on all our past successes and remind ourselves that we are capable of achieving what we set out to do. Do not let fear come in between your vision. Use that feeling of success and that feeling of motivation and resilience and fight the fear that you are feeling right now. Fear is only big in our head. Learn and get inspired by others. Read success story and understand that so many successful people deal with failure when they start out but they key thing is to keep trying. Inspire and motivate ourselves. When we feel fearful, share with the people around us so that they can rationalize with us. We also need some encouragements and validation from others, knowing that we are on the right track and receiving encouragements can help lessen our fear. As much as we want to receive validation and encouragements, it is also significantly meaningful to give validation and encouragements to others. Be kind, radiate good vibes. Carry all these good feelings with us when we face our fears, we are not alone. Fear isolates us, so reach out, connect with others. Do not let fear fester in us. The most important thing is to know our power and that we can do anything. Do it with fear, do it and fail, do it and cry, it is perfectly okay but just do it!  “Don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

Source:  https://tinybuddha.com/blog/9-essential-tips-to-face-fear-and-live-a-bold-life/

Handout for RWS session 8:   https://www.dropbox.com/s/7e9joxlb19jvav7/2. 040913 Feelings Chart.pdf?dl=0

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