FEAR

Few people admit to being afraid. Most of us are.

Scared, anxious, apprehensive, boxed in, burdened, confused, distressed, fearful, frightened, guarded, hard pressed, overwhelmed, panicky, paralyzed, tense, terrified, worried, insecure.

FEAR

False

Expectations

Appearing

Real

Fear is the opposite of love.

Fear comes from feeling out of control. If we can’t control:

our situations,

our family members,

our friends,

other people’s reactions,

our emotions,

what will happen? We typically go to the extremes and find ourselves mulling over the absolute WORST that could happen. Very rarely does the worst actually happen. Then we find the worry was all for nothing.

Control. We don’t really have it. We can’t control other people, the weather, the traffic, the economy. We can control ourselves.

Self-control. It takes a lot of courage to let other people live their lives and stay in control of ourselves. We may think it feels like failure to give up control. It’s actually a great act of bravery.

Did you grow up in a home where you felt safe to express your fears? Some people learn that if they express fear, they will be ridiculed, “You’re afraid of THAT?” “Boys don’t cry.” They learn to keep the fear bottled up inside, or deny that it exists.

I’ve noticed that when you start to help someone uncover why they are stuck in a certain area of their life: relationships, jobs, finances, etc., they discover fear.

They might be afraid of:

change

failure

success

relationships

sex

intimacy

fear itself

something happening to their kids or spouse

being abandoned or rejected

death.

Some people are afraid that if others really knew them, they’d run as fast as they could to get away!

What to do?

As with most things requiring change, the first step is acknowledging the fear. Spend some time listing things you were afraid of as a child, as a young adult, or as an adult. What topics do you tend to avoid? Where do you feel stuck? Could it be fear keeping you there?

Fear can only hold you captive if you don’t acknowledge it exists. Once you bring it out into the open, it’s not so scary. Write about it, talk it over with a trusted friend, pray about it. Ask God to show you where it came from, and then pay attention. Over the next week, see if the topic doesn’t come up in conversations, in a movie you watch, or a book you read. See if your circumstances don’t shift to help you see your fear more clearly.

Once that happens, think about what life would be like if you responded to your situation out of love. It is the opposite of fear.

What if you moved closer to the situation, instead of pulling away?

What if you leaned into the conversation and really tried to understand the other person, instead of shutting it down?

What if you faced your problem head-on, instead of pretending it didn’t exist?

Try this for a week or so, and see what happens. The only thing you have to lose is fear!

Would anyone be brave enough to share their thoughts on FEAR?

This post written by Colorado Life Coach, Carrie O’Toole