What are your greatest fears? What your fears reveal about who you are? Are you willing to move out of the safety of your cocoon and soar into the places that scare you, so you may truly live?
Can you turn your fears into your greatest blessing?
I used to work 60-hour workweeks.
I used to have panic attacks.
I used to wear lots of make-up, high heels and push up bras.
I used to care so much about the opinions of others that I would live my life trying to please my partner, friends, family, and social media followers. If only I’d known sooner there was a high-speed ticket out of this pretty-pleasing-perfectionism-lifestyle.
My fears turned out to be my way out of the corset I had put myself in. Those fears that told me I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t doing enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t successful enough. I found that the fears that held me in their grip for so many years were holding the key to my freedom all along. The fear could be your greatest blessing.
You see, fear keeps us in our comfort zone. It keeps us small like that. Yet if we make choices based on fear, we’ll only attract more of that energy: this is the law of attraction at work.
What we think, we become. What we fear, we attract.
How to Use Your Fears to Get Closer to Living Your Purpose
See fear for what it is. Fear is an emotion – energy in motion – that arises from the thoughts in your mind. So essentially, it’s just energy moving through your body. The energy that, yes, feels uncomfortable.
OK, that’s the feeling part of fear. Now the thing you’re actually afraid of. Well, that’s just a scenario playing out in your head. It’s not a reality, it’s a thought. Even though it feels very real, in fact, you’re imagining an illusion!
Face your fears. Here’s what I did.
I started with my fear of spiders. God knows even the tiniest creature with more than 2 legs would freak me out. I was that person that would call a friend to get it out of my house even if it was less than 1 inch small.
And so, I did the scariest thing I could think of. I had a hand-palm-sized tarantula walk on my hand. I’ve never sweat (and cried) so much in my life, but I’ve also never felt as good as after I did that. I’ll never forget the incredible feeling of freedom as endorphins rushed through my body. I felt happy to the point of bliss!
“Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up”
―
Next up was my fear of what others would think of me, by uploading a “spiritually coming out of the closet video” on Facebook. Wearing no make-up, by the way. I recognized the fear for what it was: fear of rejection and the breaking down of my carefully crafted image (the unstoppable businesswoman, which I thought would lead me to success) and just did it.
Sitting on the floor of my living room, I told the world about the setbacks in my private life and how they led me to change course. After I posted it, I didn’t look at my phone or laptop for the first hour and distracted myself with something else to do.
The video got shared and reached 20k views in a day! Hundreds of loving comments in my inbox then followed.
I developed a taste for facing my fears and thought of what else would be scary. And so, I threw myself out of an airplane, skydiving at the east-side coast of Australia. I took singing lessons to free my voice. When asked to do a TEDx Youth talk, I said yes! I kept uploading videos of myself talking about spirituality or my personal life online and even started a vlog.
And the biggest one of all: telling the most-beautiful-man-I’d-ever-seen the true feelings I had for him. I was certain I was headed for a grand rejection. I was ready for it. I decided the rejection would be painful for a while, but not as painful as walking around with my true feelings hidden for the rest of my life. The rejection never came, and my love was answered with his.
“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.” ―
Every fear I faced gave me the confidence to face the next one. And the next one. It’s like climbing a mountain and all you have to remind yourself of is to just take one more step. And then one more.
Before I knew it, I had closed down that business that gave me so much stress and started a new one that’s completely aligned with my heart.
I’ve traveled wide and far and am now making my money by doing what I love – and being me. It didn’t only change my life, but that of many people I’ve worked with – who thank me on a daily basis. None of it wouldn’t have been possible if I stayed in my comfort zone!
All these acts of facing my fears have shown me again and again that on the other side of fear is freedom. And that living your purpose is not only about following those things that feel good. It’s about following those things that scare the living daylight of you as well.
I know you have fears that won’t actually harm you but are here to make you stronger. I know you have a voice and a light inside that is yearning to be freed and let out. I know those fears can seem larger than life, and I also know you have the courage to face them.
Turn towards your fears instead of running from them. The worst part of your fear isn’t even the spider or the potential rejection. It’s fear itself.
Think powerful thoughts. Tell yourself you can do it because you CAN. An affirmation that helped me is saying to myself: “Feel the fear and do it anyway”.
Your life will change in ways you didn’t believe was possible, this I promise you!
photo source | adobe