BY: COLLEEN LINDBERG
We all have been there. That time in your life where you feel it, that is whispering in your ear “You can’t do that” “You aren’t enough” “You’ll never win” and I could go on and on. We call it by so many names, but really it comes down to fear. We are scared to take the next steps for many reasons. It clouds our judgments, makes us think low of ourselves and even allows us to sit and watch instead of playing in the game called life.
Just recently I came up to this battle with fear. I didn’t call it fear and nor did it feel like fear. However, when I actually got to the root of the problem the answer coming back was “You’re scared”. Now being scared is not something that I have usually connected to myself. I am a driven and ambitious woman that pushes through things, I don’t get scared. Well, I was. In that fear, it left me unmotivated, paralyzed and in a state of disbelief. It wasn’t until someone else pointed it out to me that I was available for the answer. It was weird. Here are a few things I did to move past it.
1) I owned the fear. I sat in it and said ok “If I am scared, why am I scared?” and I listed everything. I reflected back on it and made sure I laid it all out. I couldn’t clear things that I was hiding so I made sure the list was robust and it was full of everything at that moment that I was fearful of.
2) I took things step by step. I looked at my then overwhelming list and said how can I get some small things off of it and break down the big stuff into small things. This will allow me to take things in stride, not have the feeling of having to do everything and I was still getting things done. Every morning I woke up and wrote out what I was grateful for. You can’t be in fear and gratitude at the same time. When this was happening, small shifts were making a difference.
3) I started to workout and be really present on my walks with Athena (my dog). It allowed me to clear my mind, release the pent up energy and exert the energy in a way that was helping my body to align itself.
4) Lastly, I reached out to a close friend and talked it through with her. Sometimes you just need to talk it out. From that call, small changes started to happen and every day got better moving on from there.
So, if you are reflecting on your life right now and you are realizing that you are in fear, try these four steps. They might help you too. One thing I know is that we can’t be in our potential or living our purpose from a place of fear and you have so many awesome things to do in this world… so step in!
