I recently heard an interesting podcast by Shirley MacLaine and she mentioned fear and how she thinks fear is a great way for us, as human beings, to learn.

Being afraid is natural, but teachers as diverse as Jesus (”Be not afraid”), Mahatma Gandhi (”There would be no one to frighten you if you refuse to be afraid”), and Mother Teresa (”Deliver me…From the fear of being humiliated…”) have told us that fear is a natural feeling that is only that: a feeling. When we act, even when we are afraid, then fear has no power over us.

You control your fear when you are able to think, act, and reason in spite of being afraid or fearful. However, your fear is controlling you when you let it impact your decisions or actions.

What are you afraid of? Taking a good look at your fears may give you some insight into who you are and who you want to become. To be successful, many women have overcome their fear of failure or their fear of making mistakes, and they have simply ploughed forward. In fact, in my experience, the people who have made the most mistakes (and learned from them!) are usually the ones who are most successful: they have not let fear impact their actions.

What are you afraid of?
Here are some things to be afraid of:

• the dark
• the unknown
• other people
• making mistakes
• failure
• success
• pain
• looking foolish
• conspiracies
• animals
• science
• math or numbers
• spiders, snakes, creepy-crawlies
• needles
• open spaces
• list your own…

When you get right down to the list of your fears, you may at least understand where something may be impacting you. For me, I’m afraid of ghosts, but some level of me believes that this is simply because I don’t know who or what they may be. On a compassionate level, I understand and empathize with the plight of someone who may be ’stuck’ in our material plane when they’re not supposed to be here.

Our great texts such as the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, the Buddhist teachings, the Bhagavad Gita and others abound with stories of how we must not fear. Fear not is a common utterance in these texts and by our other teachers:

The Gospel of Luke:
“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”

Bhagavad Gita:
“Fear not what is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed.”

Eleanor Roosevelt:
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”

Confucius:
“When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them.”

Marianne Williamson:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

“It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I encourage you to take a good look at your fears, and in the coming year, find two or three ways you may go around, over, and under those fears. If you’re afraid of heights, consider going mountain climbing this year. If you’re afraid of spiders, plan to visit a natural history museum exhibit on them. If you’re afraid of the dark, turn on the light. Never let your fears be an obstacle to the work you are to do in the world.

My coach, Rob Seidenspinner of Sage Circle Coaching, always tells me to think about my fears and consolidate them into a ‘gremlin’ that likes to stay with me and ‘keep me in my place’ whenever I am venturing into new or unexplored territory: my fears want to keep everything around me in place and static, so that I don’t have to grow, change, improve, or have more of an impact. Your fears are almost like friends that come to visit: you may invite them in, or you have the choice to politely decline their presence.

I’ve entitled my fear “Crabby Ragamuffin”: this is someone who is afraid, doesn’t want to change, thinks she is worthless, doesn’t believe in anything, and doesn’t want to speak up. Needless to say, I’ve worked hard on identifying Crabby and finding out when her viewpoint wants to be the driver of my regular interactions with others. I’ve moved that thinking out of the driver’s seat because that type of thinking doesn’t help or change anything.

My viewpoint of empowerment, shared knowledge, transformation and healing is “Mariposa Powerful”: this is the viewpoint of being gentle, compassionate, knowledgeable, infinite, and bringing out the best in others.

Who are your “crabbies”? What are you afraid of? How is your fear manifesting itself in your day-to-day life? Where are some ways you can overcome that fear in 2008? Think about them, write them down, and let’s take action for the next twelve months.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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