Fear is an inescapable inevitability that we are all pressed with. No matter who you are, you have experienced fear and it has expressed itself numerous way.
Fear is one of our core emotions. I imagine that for some emotion to be inherent in all of us, irregardless of sex, race, age, it must serve a purpose, right?
What is fears purpose? Well, I don’t really know the answer because I think there are multiple answers and ways fear expresses itself.
I have come to know fear as imagining what we think is going to happen. This is how fear has shown up in my life, especially as I have grown older.
I think when we are younger, like adolescents and younger, we don’t really have a ton of lived experience to anticipate what is going to happen. We are so spontaneous and brave that we just go for it and deal with the outcome later. Through this process, we begin to gain depth in experience which also illuminates and expands our field of fear awareness.
Take this dog metaphor for an example. Maybe when we were younger, we had an incident with a dog and got bit,, nothing too serious but it scared the hell out of us. From this experience, every dog we encounter from there forward invokes this fear within us that we might get bit again. There is some truth to this and validation, however, this is where fear can becoming debilitating and so overbearing it prevents us from ever encountering a dog ever again.
The dog in this example can be an experience of maybe getting shutdown when you asked someone out, or performing the National anthem and messing up the lyrics, or even proposing an idea to a workgroup that was laughed at.
You see, those that are resilient have a counter attack to fear. When these fear inducing experiences occur, resiliency says, “now what”.
I got shutdown when I asked that person out, “now what?” I messed up the national anthem lyrics, “now what?” My idea got shot down in the workgroup, “now what?”
This, now what mentality is meant to keep the book open, to keep writing the story of this experience. So often when these situations happen, we close the book. We end the story. This becomes problematic.
When we can reason with these potentially fear inducing experiences of perceived failures, there is opportunity to further break down why we are feeling the way we are and what to do about it.
In my experience, I have been known to shut down. I become quiet, reclusive, and shallow breathed. In many moments where I have failed or experienced something unfavorable, to be resilient seems like the greatest unattainable feat. This is where the “now what?” has helped me immensely. The door opens. I speak. My breath strengthens. My resilience becomes felt. Reason blossoms like a new season.
“All can become more clear when we are resilient and reason with our fear”
With love and gratitude, JB