Why do we love our couch so much? Why do we binge eat and drink? Why do we exercise excessively?
Most anything we do repetitively without thinking is an avoidance of an emotion. We mostly fear the emotion, more so than the actual action. And that fear can leave us near paralyzed and looking for ways to escape.
You will argue and give a multitude of reasons why you do not want to do something.
· Bettering your game of golf – I am not good enough, the fear of making a fool of yourself.
· Losing weight – the mere thought of failure plus the multitude of other inhibiting beliefs.
· Procrastination – the fear of failure and beliefs you tell yourself. Tackling something that you know you have no intention to do, but the fear of disappointment outweigh your choices.
· Fitness Fanatic – our fear of going back to that person who were bullied.
And so many more.
Our fear of being a failure, not good enough, making a fool of ourselves, etc. It is that emotions that gets stirred up the moment we are faced with this prospect that stops us dead in our tracks and we reach for the TV remote, the bag of crisps, etc. It is not the actual action that we fear.
We fear mostly the emotion around the action.
There is not a single person born on this earth who knew it all, how to do it all. We all had to learn to crawl and then walk and then run. And if we had these fears as a baby we would have been a blobbering, helpless mess who would have starved to death. But no, we were created and born to discover and to move forward, to a life that we find better. With that comes a very sensitive ego that does not like to fail or be made fun of. We end up in this constant battle in our heads of doing something and fear / doubt holds us back. Next thing, we reach for Prozac and the couch becomes our best friend.
Why the fear of doing things?
It all comes from limiting beliefs that we instilled over the years. Yes, things happened to us, but we decided to, and did, take on the beliefs that are preventing us from moving forward. Because we were bullied at school, we decided that we are not good enough and we carry that into our graves with us. Because we fell at our first attempt at ballet and the class laughed, we decided that we will never be a ballerina. Because a teacher told you that your essays are not good, you decided that you are not a writer.
We decide to build that fear. We feed that fear constantly.
We decide to hang onto it and make it our life long buddy.
The truth is that people can only react to something from their frame of reference. People mostly project their fears onto us and we can either accept it and take it on as our own, or we can say, “Thank you, that is not me”.
This emotional ball that we are, receives re-enforced actions from others because we choose to accept them. Life re-enforce that where we put our attention – what we resist will persist. These “things” that stirs up the emotions will prevail until you face them and change your outlook or action.
So what if they laugh at you? You are already one better than them – you are trying. So what if you failed this time? Next time you will know not to do it this way. Who said you are not good enough?
Take any of the people who made it “big” in life and read their autobiographies. Most of them were "made to belief" at some stage that they will not amount to much, or they even had a physical disability.
The big difference is that these people decided long ago that they are not going to allow fear to walk a path with them.
They put fear in the back seat, he can drive with, but he is not allowed to become a backseat driver. Fear, she may dress up and walk with, but she may not talk.
Put fear in its place where it belongs.
The only thing you should fear is that you give fear too much power.
Sue Leppan
Transformation Life Coach
NLP Practitioner
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