Mastering The Art of Fear
Mastering The Art of Fear
How to allow fear to fuel your work.
How to allow fear to fuel your work.
I think about fear a lot. I mean, at times we all do, right? Lately it’s been a very loud companion as I dig deeper into writing my memoir. No matter the situation, whenever it shows up I run the gamut in my relationship with fear. I see it, dread it, fight it, am pissed off at it, run from it, cry with it and am utterly fascinated by it for the never-ending lessons and conversations that derive from it.
Recently I listened to Linda Sivertsen’s Beautiful Writers Podcast when she and guest co-host, Martha Beck interviewed author Glennon Doyle. They were discussing Glennon’s extremely raw bestselling memoir, LOVE WARRIOR, which is sitting next in my Kindle queue. I’m an admirer of all three women and their work. This was a great interview where they delved into a wide range of topics centering on their commitments to being completely truthful in the expression of their stories and the way that stretched and freed them.
I was listening in my car and suddenly realized I kept exhaling, loudly, and my whole body was vibrating, my stomach like the engine room of the Titanic. Honestly, their conversation scared the sh*t out of me as I wade tender-footed into the pool of my own stories, uncovering little places where I’ve been hiding, often in plain sight, fearful of how it might be received. It was big. And, it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time because this fear of expressing my deep truths to someone other than my cats, often has me paralyzed.
When I sat feeling the bigness, what I discovered led to a more expansive aha: this engine in my belly, this fire that made me exhale like a dragon, is a fuel, an ammunition if you will, like I haven’t experienced in a long time. Like it goes deep and wide, echoing back decades, the kind of echo you hear in canyons and see when you look at your reflection in a house of mirrors. The truth is, this reverberation has been growing louder for a while now.
[As an aside, although it’s not really an aside because it’s such a big part of my story, I’ve been on a 30-day cleanse, eating only clean food. The intense vibration I felt I couldn’t feel before because I was numbing out on an addiction to sugar and overeating. Now, I could actually FEEL the raw fear in my belly which turned into food for my soul and fuel for my work when before I was feeding emotions that numbed me from feeling anything else. It feels incredible, honestly.]
I had lunch with a friend recently and we got into a great discussion about fear. He said he believes fear drives everything, good and bad. It’s a constant no matter what. I think there’s truth to that.
And, it got me thinking about how mastering fear rather than fighting or trying to conquer it might turn fear into an ally instead of an opponent. It’s like mastering an art form; at times you feel the art might kill you, until you reach a place of working with the art, willing the art, arriving at the mastery of the art. Could it be the same with fear?
The famed music producer Jimmy Iovine in HBO’S THE DEFIANT ONES said things turned the corner for him early in his career when “fear became a tailwind rather than a headwind.” What a game-changing shift in mindset! When fear is a headwind, getting in your way, it can be so strong that it keeps you in place, stagnant, stuck or pushes you entirely away from what you want. It can feel like fear has a power of its own.
When fear is fuel for intention it’s the tailwind that catapults you forward. Gary Zukav said in SEAT OF THE SOUL, “Every action, thought and feeling is motivated by intention…your intention creates your reality.”
When intention is aligned with your fear-turned-into-fuel it’s a very powerful forward momentum.
The game-changer is the knowledge that we are the ones controlling our fear, not the other way around.
I had a friend a few years ago who used to say when she was afraid of doing something it made her feel truly alive, propelling her to go into the fear and do it anyway. Booyah!
That can be called many things: courage, bravery, boldness. They all give fear a new role in the game.
Invite fear to be your partner, to work with you instead of against you. Is it a fear of rejection or of failure or of success that you have? If you take fear by the hand and move forward with it into each of those arenas, you take control and allow fear to morph and transform into passion and action.
Put your fears, as kindling, into the fire of your own engine. Then, just watch what happens. It could create the tailwind you’ve been waiting for.
Here’s An Action You Can Take For Yourself
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Originally published at www.thoughtchangerblog.com.
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