Embracing Fear: The Path to Truly Living

Hello and welcome to another episode of Words With Myself.

I think it's very easy to fall into the trap of anticipating everything going wrong. I think for those of us who have experienced deep trauma and great suffering and loss, One of the hardest parts of recovery is not actually the initial processing and getting over what has happened. It comes far later when it's rebuilding that trust and allowing yourself to be able to feel safe and okay again.

Because you have this feeling once you have experienced something so painful you know that you can experience that pain again that it is possible to suffer in the same way twice and this can create this fear and drastic avoidance of closeness and attachment to things that actually do mean a lot to us for instance if you have lost somebody that you love feeling like you can open yourself up to love anyone or anything again can be extremely difficult because you know that by loving something

by giving it that place in your life and by valuing and having that attachment that you are susceptible to experiencing that loss all over again.

They could happen that you could lose something and go back to that complete devastation and we do this in all sorts of ways it's not just avoiding attachment it can also be avoiding painful experiences it might be that we put ourselves out there or put our reputation on the line and made a mistake or made a fool of ourselves or didn't get something right or didn't come first and that humiliation can also be extremely painful. That hurt to the pride can make us never want to risk anything again.

You might have put in a lot of effort or tried really hard to achieve something but it didn't work out for you and therefore every other thing that you try you don't really put in all your effort because the feeling of heartbreak and disappointment for going all in and getting your hopes up and being excited and wanting to do something amazing and it not going your way the pain is so devastating that we avoid doing things because we don't want to feel that pain again we

don't want to risk going through that again so we just don't do things that are competitive or you might avoid doing what you love to do in the public eye you know not putting your art out there or not singing in front of people because doing so.

Is scary and it opens you up to criticism and judgment from others and that's that pain again that's where it comes from when you fall into this trap you develop this tendency to not only avoid what is bad for you but also avoid what is good for you you don't want to take the risk because the pain is so evident and you know what that feels like and it almost seems like it's not worth going through the pain in order to get to the good bit and people can spend their whole life

like this they're not living their life doing what they want to do they're just living their life avoiding what they don't want they're avoiding what they don't want to happen they're not putting things on the line they're not risking anything because they don't want the negative consequences.

And they don't want the negative consequences so much that they're not even willing to open themselves up to the idea of the benefits to see the positive thing. So it might be that you avoid making new friends because you think, well, every time that I've made friends or previously when I've made friends, it's gone wrong. They've hurt me or let me down or weren't good for me, so why bother opening myself up to friendships at all? I might as well dispose of the whole idea and isolate myself,

because friendships are nothing but bad. But of course. Bad friendships aren't the only friendships that exist. But if that's all you've ever experienced, you can feel like that's all there is to have. But we know this isn't true because we haven't been friends with everyone there is to be friends with, so we can't possibly know or even really believe that every person is bad or that all friendships are bad.

We have to hold that kind of logical fallacy in our head and accept that well most people are bad so I don't want to experience all of these bad friendships and I'd rather not have any friends and deal with all of these negative friends so you end up cutting your nose off to spite your face you lose out on something that is beautiful and wonderful because you don't want the things that are bad and negative the juice isn't worth the squeeze but just like we were discussing last episode

about extremes and saying that when you fight against one extreme or one polar opposite you end up creating this other extreme well just in the same way if you try to minimize the bad and minimize and reduce the possibility of something negative happening you are also minimizing and reducing the possibility of something positive happening.

You must not be afraid to experience pain or discomfort. You must not close yourself off to things that are positive and amazing because they might be painful. Because not experiencing things that are amazing and beautiful is also painful.

It's just a lot slower. Instead of having some kind of short, sharp pain, some intense experience that goes drastically wrong, you will have a lifetime of monotony where things don't really go up or down because you're not putting anything on the table you don't have a stake in the game you end up playing it safe all the time and there's no real reward that comes from that fortune favors the bold and you must live your life in a way that is bold if you want to have that good life if you want to

really experience things if you want to see what life has to offer you have to take risks you have to put yourself out there you have to risk being hurt or upset or let down or go through pain go through uncomfortable experiences go through loss you must be willing to endure in order to really experience life because life is both. Life is the highs and life is the lows. Life is the good times and life is the bad times. You can't drop one without the other. You must have both.

And any time that you try to avoid one, you will avoid the other two. They are inseparable.

They come as a pair. That is the nature of duality two inseparable opposites if you let your cowardice or your unwillingness to go through pain affect all of your decisions you'll end up avoiding most of what life has to offer the things that are meaningful and important where the real work is where the real improvement is if you're wondering like what can i do to make a big change in my life or what can i do to have a real impact and really level up or really heal really grow it is focus on

the things that you are afraid of and do them anyway make the decision take the risk do the thing that you want to do, irregardless of how it makes you feel because if you want to do it if there's a real pull in that that direction but fear is what is stopping you from doing it you will get to the end of your life and you will realize that you saved it for nothing.

That all of those days that you preserved and great you've lived a long life but you haven't lived a day of it because you couldn't truly live because you were bound by your fears you were avoidant of what scared you or what you thought was going to hurt if you avoid the pain if you avoid the fear if you feel scared and run away.

All the time if you let it stop you from doing what you truly want to do or what you have the intention and what you've been placed on this earth to do you'll only be able to look at your life and realize that you survived but nobody survives life everyone dies at the end and all that would have happened would you have prolonged your suffering because you.

Were stayed in a perpetual state of fear for longer you are much better off doing something that absolutely terrified you but you loved it and dying doing it it's worth the risk what have you got to save your life for what is there other than doing what brings us joy and what we love to do what other way is there to truly live without relentlessly pursuing what we want irregardless of how we feel or what we're scared of or what might happen if it all goes wrong we are much

better off placing our trust and our faith in the universe and knowing that it will all work out and that these fears are not real they are simply limitations that we place on ourselves ways that we convince ourselves that we can preserve ourselves from getting hurt but by preserving yourself from getting hurt you are only hurting yourself it's a oxymoron and a paradox it's impossible to save yourself from your own suffering you either suffer doing what you want to do.

Or you suffer avoiding what you want to do. Either way, there is going to be pain. Either way, there's going to be suffering. So truly, there's nothing to fear. The thing that you're afraid of, this pain you're trying to avoid, is unavoidable.

So there is no point in fearing the inevitable. It's guaranteed. Suffering is guaranteed. But how you see that, your perspective and how you integrate that with your life chooses whether that suffering is beautiful or terrible whether it's long enduring process of monotony and failures and fear and anxiety or whether it's a heroic story of triumph and overcoming these limitations and achieving the things that we want to do and experiencing the things that we want to experience.

So the decision is yours. Choose wisely. Thank you for listening.