What’s on the other side of your fear?
True story…
Our best life is on the other side of our greatest fear.
I have the privilege to experience that saying for myself. I personally struggled for years with the fear of failure and disapproval. A couple of years back, I went through a very stressful period that led me to quit my former ‘dream job’ as an engineer. In the months to follow, I felt such a failure to the point that I was paralyzed from moving on and making decisions for my own life. Deep inside I knew that I will never be able to excel and thrive in something I am not passionate about, yet the only voice I could hear in my head at the time, was shouting at me that I am a failure and I’ve let myself and everyone around me down. After all those years, energy, plans, hopes and expectations that had weaved that identity around me, now what? What’s next?
I had no clear path ahead of me. I only knew what I didn’t want, but had no clue what I do want. I would find myself questioning and doubting any thought, any decision, any action. ‘ What if…I make again the wrong choice?’ Every direction felt wrong. It was scary.
I had many great opportunities in the engineering field in the months to follow. I even received 2-3 offers for engineering jobs in large engineering firms in the NL that I would find myself rejecting one after the other. With each rejection the fear became louder and louder!
“What do you want to do?”, people around me would ask - with all the good intentions-. Yet, I had no answer for them. That question became my nightmare, my biggest trigger that held me up at night and made me cry and shiver in fear day in and day out for months. I could not see what I am good at, what is my value? What do I have to offer to this world? I was getting so angry at myself for not having an answer. I was going through an identity crisis, as I would come to realize later.
What would you advise anyone in my situation? Most likely you would show compassion and offer positive and supportive suggestions or advice in an attempt to help them get out this spiral. Yet, if this was you that was going through something similar, there is a really good chance that you’d feel and talk to yourself the same way I did.
I knew I wanted something outside the ‘known’ and ‘standard’ way I was taught I could earn a living (i.e., working for a mediocre monthly salary at a corporate/public sector). Engineering of course offers a lot more different alternatives to explore which was great, if only it was what I want to do! But, it wasn’t! I wanted a career that excites me and fulfills me. I wanted a career that doesn’t drain me but instead gives me energy and creates value for the world. I wanted a career that allows me the freedom to express myself and be creative in the way I want. A career that is flexible and doesn’t consume the majority of my time within a day, instead allows me to enjoy the time with my friends and family whenever I want to. But what? and how? Was I simply daydreaming? Was I just fooling myself that I can have a career that I would actually enjoy? The ‘real life’ examples I had around me would seem perfectly ok with doing something they don’t like and just find reasons to justify why they are keep doing what they do. They would find comfort and justify a life of ‘just getting by, day in and day out’. Most often than not, that reason was money and the uncertainty of not knowing what else they could do - much like my situation-. But I was not ok with this, and that was clear for me.
Choosing for myself a career that is outside the norms and standards of my immediate surrounding was for a long time too scary and painful for me to handle. The most painful part was that I, not others, was refusing to accept it as valid, as my truth. I was in denial and as a result I was keeping myself ‘stuck’. At the same time, I knew I didn’t want to go back to something that was draining and unfulfilling only because that was the only way I would see as ‘realistic’. The only way I was taught to believe in and ‘trust’ that can provide me financial support. Yet that familiar way had failed for me. It was clearly not MY way. Knowing this, was enough to not allow me to go back to the ‘known’ and familiar. I guess I intuitively knew that my ‘healing’ is in the unknown. And without being able to articulate why, it was the ‘unknown’ I had decided to follow. The path less travelled.
Over the last 2-3 years these two voices (my own intuition vs the critical/realistic voice I was raised by) were constantly fighting in my head. I felt myself sinking in despair many times. I spend months in solitude, not being able to share my thoughts with anyone- not even with my closest ones-. I would find myself regularly reading bedtime stories to my children while trying to hide my tears and my shaking voice and body. Some times I would even question my sanity. Thankfully, I had the willingness and clarity to seek and ask for professional help. Life coaching alongside journaling proved to be quite effective in my case, as it allowed me to express and examine my thoughts and inner dialogue. At the same time I was immersing myself in psychological and spiritual content in an attempt to make sense what was happening. Meditation, daily exercise/movement and nature also had a helpful effect on me. Later, I realized I had an inner strength that was guiding me all along and never let me give up.
Slowly, and steadily I was able to strengthen the voice of hope and dim down the voice of fear. I allowed myself to feel my way through this instead of trying to figure it out. I made it ok for me that I don’t know how or when I will achieve what I want. Instead I followed the breadcrumbs of what makes me feel good in the moment (listening to music, taking a walk outside, focusing my gaze on my favorite tree outside my window, crying, yoga, hugging my kids, watching a stand up comedy show on youtube, journaling, sketching etc.). My mood remained on a constant rollercoaster daily for years. I made ‘crying’ my best friend. And that was very healing. When tension would build up I would allow myself to release it through crying. Many times the crying was quite intense but always after that I would feel so much better and lighter.
Today, 3 years later, I am in a quite different place in my life (soon also physically :)) . The unknown has become my home. I choose to live in that space and I love it! I am enjoying and appreciating the fact that I can see my very next step, my next move, without having the whole plan clear yet. I am moving through life following my daily ‘feel good’ moments and inspirations. I create my life day by day.
My end goal now is evolved from my ‘dream career’ to my ‘dream life’. Ambitious? I’d say essential. Not for me but for everyone.
Is fear real?
Every fear is made up. It’s a construct of the mind, i.e. it’s not real.
By that, I am not claiming that there are not situations or circumstances that can threaten our physical wellbeing. However, the fear we hold around this (i.e., the fearful/negative thoughts and the resulting emotion and sensations in our bodies) is of our own making! For example, yes, the poison of a snake bite in your body may cause a vary real even a fatal condition, but the fear of snakes that causes our body to shrunk and shiver even with the thought of a snake is not real! However, this fear is enough to prevent us from a walk in the forest because of the possibility of encountering a snake. In this case then, we are talking about ‘ perceived danger’, i.e. self-imposed limitations due to the possibility of an external danger. In our civilized societies, we’ve taken this to the next level by creating fears around our place in the world, relationships with others. We are all familiar with the fear of change, the fear of failure, the fear of judgement, the fear of not getting the love and attention we seek from others when we act in ways they may not approve. These fears stem from adaptations in our phycological structure as children with the intention to remain close to our care givers and essentially survive. Unfortunately, more often than not, those fears follow us into adulthood and inhibit our life experience to smaller or greater extend.
The problem is never the fear itself. The question is how much power this fear has over us, our actions and behaviors in life. How much those ‘made up’ fears that we keep repeating in our mind and manifest as bodily sensations, are powerful enough to keep us from seeking new experiences or changing habits and relationships that don’t serve us anymore, and may even be harmful for us.
How do you overcome the fear?
There is no point fighting with the fear. You cannot fight or control the fear. The only option is not to listen to it and move forward despite of the fear. Even the most courageous people in history had fears. No-one s free from fear. If you expect to have no fear you’ll have to wait a lot…your whole life!
Fear is not your enemy
Everything in life has a purpose. Fear would not be there if it wouldn’t serve us in some way. So it’s a matter of questioning ‘how does your fear serves you”? Fear’s intention is to protect you. Yet, if you give it too much power (by feeding into it with your thoughts and beliefs) it ends up stopping you from living your life the way you want to. It dictates your decisions and actions. Is this a life worth living? You can only answer this for yourself.
