Here’s my confession Lovelies… being Highly Sensitive comes with it’s own ‘fear factor’. I’m cautious and I make no apologies for it. I’m not held hostage by fear and it doesn’t make me feel powerless. Au contraire! As long as I keep my inner line of communication open with my highly sensitive fear factor I can take risks, have adventures and get on with living. I’m free to defy ordinary!
I haven’t always enjoyed this freedom. I was raised with a parent who always said, “I won’t live in fear”. I used to believe that was so big, so bold, so brave. However, over time, when fear wouldn’t go away, I learned to feel ashamed when I felt fearful. I felt weak or crazy or wrong when I experienced fear. I learned to mistrust my fear, to ignore it and avoid it. Instead I lived with constant worry, anxiety and even panic attacks. I had been ‘coached’ out of my natural ability to fear and could no longer tell the difference between fear and it’s second-cousins, anxiety and worry.
Then I read a book that changed my relationship with fear and, this is not an over-statement, changed my life. That book was The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker (Little, Brown & Company,1997). From that day forward I have recommended this book to every woman I have had the honour of working with.
I went from being the picture of tense and worried to understanding that if I lived with fear all of the time it created a kind of white noise that everything gets filtered through. That white noise ultimately turns into anxiety. There was so much static, I didn’t know when to be afraid and when not to.
I began asking myself some searching questions;
- “Is anything really bad happening right now?”
- “Are the knots in my stomach about anything real?”
- “Do I need to be afraid? ”
Slowly I began to hear through the noise. In the process I learned to use my Highly Sensitive pause-to-check advantage to give me a well-manicured foot-up on fear!
I used to curse my cautious nature, but slowly I began to cherish it. My healthy caution and my natural intuition gave me time to assess and consider whether the fear I was feeling was relevant and imminent or if I was slipping into my familiar old pattern of anxiety and worry.
Fear is involuntary…worry & anxiety are choices.
Now, here’s the gem that changed my experience and relationship with fear forever. Fear is anticipatory, it’s job is to warn us that something might happen. However… (this was mind blowing at the time I needed it)
If you are feeling fear nothing is actually happening!
I’ll give you a couple of examples that will make it really clear. First one, I looked up and saw a car heading straight into us and I felt fear. Next moment however I was in action with nothing but responding to the emergency in my focus. What happened to my fear? Second example, middle of the night and we hear an invasion type burglary happening and it sounds like our door! Fear, for one split second until I jumped into action. (It was the next door office just so you know!) Are you getting it? When the scary thing actually does happen you don’t feel fear you respond.
Fear can stop you from living the life you dream of.
That’s because fear is never really about what we think it is about. It’s a shell game where we have to constantly search for the ‘real thing’. You second guess yourself out of fear. You stop taking chances because of fear. Life begins to revolve around your fears and it affects how you live your life, the decisions you make, and the dreams you dare weave.
Instead of being open to the unexpected, fear will keep you clinging tightly to the old.
Think about it, if you could walk away from your fears without a backwards glance…
…because you can count on fear to warn you when needed…
…because you can trust and rely on your intuition…
…because you cherish your ability to be cautious and careful…
What ‘loves’ would you embrace, what new journeys would you embark on, what new heights would you reach for?
P.S. The BOQs would love to hear from you! Leave your wisdom and comments in the box below.