Plato said, “Courage is knowing what not to fear.” 

Welcome back to The Soul Podcast. I’m Stacey Wheeler.

 It’s been said many ways by many people. When we go after our fears, we become stronger and better.  And there a good reason. Fear and self-doubt will kill more dreams than failure ever did. That’s because inaction leads us to never achieving what we hoped we might. And fears are what fuels our inaction. When we let fear steer our direction, we chose the path of least resistance and fear keeps us stuck.

There is no single piece of personal growth that doesn’t come from discomfort.

When a baby learns to walk it must fall numerous times. When we learn to run, we must sometimes trip or fall. If we feared falling, we’d never walk. If we feared stumbling, we’d never run. So, we must reject the things that scares us. To grow, we must walk towards our fearful stories and test them. 

Defeating fear is so powerful, great minds have talked about it for thousands of years.

It’s so important Eleanor Roosevelt suggested, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” 

The Greek philosopher Hecato of Rhodes (or hek-caht-oh) said, 

“Cease to hope and you will cease to fear.” 

This is because when we give up on our hopes and dreams, we no longer have to fear the visions in our mind that may unfold if we try. The fearful things can’t happen if we never take the risk. It is only when pursuing our hopes and dreams that we must step into fear. And fear of failure and fear of judgement are the greatest or these. 

We’ve all felt we came up short in some way at times. And we’ve all heard our internal voice being critical of our failure. Maybe the voice says things like, “You can do better.” or maybe it even says, “You’re a loser.” That internal voice is different for all of us -depending largely on the messages we were given as a child from those we looked up to. We have expectations for ourselves. When we miss the mark, we can be self-critical. So, we fear failure because we fear our inner voice. And there are times we fear failure because we fear the judgement of others. We fear criticism, or even perceived criticism. And this too is underlined by an internal voice driven by insecurity. Humans have a need to be accepted. We feel off balance when we feel we are unacceptable to others. So, we avoid trying, in order to avoid failing… and we become stuck in our ways of being. 

These fears come from old programming. And like all things, we only get stronger through practice. Through practice you can change your life. 

In the last episode I promised an exercise to help you learn to find and defeat your fears. An exercise to help you build the habit of pushing back on them. So, let’s do this. 

This will be most effective if you pause anything you’re doing and focus exclusively on this for the next four to five minutes. So, if you’re driving or working, or busy in some way, pause this and come back to it later. If you listen now, it may be helpful, but you won’t get the most out of it.  If you can, grab a pen and pad and set it beside you. You’ll need this.

So, here we go. I’m going to help you pick something today… some small fear. And show you how to go after it. You’re going to be able to simply reject the fear and move towards it like a bully in the hallway of the school of your mind. 

I get that this is uncomfortable. But this episode is called “How to Kill Your Fear.” You’re listening to it for a reason.  Right? So, it’s time to pick a fear. 

I’ll help. This is best in person but we’re gonna go for it and see what we can do. 

So, if you’re ready, follow me and I’ll take you there… 

♬ ♬ ♬  starts  - Meditation starts

Here we go…

Take a nice long, slow breath and release it. Good… Then one more – just the same and hold it this time. Now think of something you want to do but have been avoiding… Release your breath. 

Take another and hold it at the top.

The thing you want to do can be anything…. 

Okay release the breath.

Breath as normal and listen to your breaths as they come and go. 

What do you want to do but have been putting off or avoiding…? 

Do you have it?

Listen to your breaths as they come and go.

If you have your fear in mind hold it. If not, watch for it to arise. 

Continue observing your breathing…

Okay…

So, you either had something come up or you didn’t. If not, you’re not ready for this yet. Perhaps the resistance is too strong. Come back. Listen to this again later. Do the exercise again until you have something emerge. If you had something come up (or feel something coming up) stay with me as we move forward…

When it came up, did you feel the resistance when it came to mind? Did your fear offer up excuses why that’s not a good one to go after? If it did, that’s okay. That’s normal and it shows you how fear works in us. 

Continue watching your breathing. 

Sit with your fear as you breath. Listen to your breath. Just breathe. In and out and be with your thoughts. 

Does it make you nervous to think of going after the thing that came up? You want to go after it. Not going after it is holding you back. Now understand, the only thing holding you back is fear. 

Take another slow, deep breath and hold at the top… and now release.  What fears are keeping you from going for it? What excuses? (pause me if you need to… and write down what the excuses not to go after it.)

Be with your regular breath. Be in your body. Watch your thoughts. 

There are usually multiple fears when we resist doing what we desire. We’ve stacked barriers in our way. We’ve made monumental arguments why it’s safer not to do the things we want to. Be kind to yourself today. You’ve had a lifetime of practice reacting to your inner fears. You’ve erected the walls of fear. You can pull them down. 

Take another slow breath. What is the worst case? What can possibly happen if you go for it. Can going after this fear physically hurt you -or only emotionally? … 

Take another long breath -and release.  And back to your regular breath. Observe your regular breath…

What is the fear holding you back from? What might your life be like if you pushed through it?

If there is no potential for physical injury, consider what is to be gained…. 

Now understand, you are not guaranteed that possibility… but by not pushing against your fear, you are depriving yourself of that potential. You must make a choice. Do you want that thing… or is your fear going to deprive you of it? 

Sometimes the thing you gain is not tangible, yet still valuable. Any time we push through fear we earn our own respect. Each time we do that we become stronger -more fearless. 

So, are you willing to go after this fear?...

Is this one too big? 

If its not… go get em! Make a plan to go after this fear today if you can. As soon as possible. Do it now if it’s possible, while you’re energized. You’re ready. And good luck.

If you’re stuck, stay here a bit longer. If it feels too big, that’s okay.

 We’ll go a little deeper and I’ll help you find a fear you can go after. 

The important thing is that you pick one, Once you push your fear over you will see how easy it is. You will be able to go after larger and larger fears. So, choose any fear. I’ll walk you through it. 

Are you ready? Here we go…

Take another long, slow breath and reset. Release it. And another long slow breath… and release…. settle into your body. Settle into a rhythm of breathing that is comfortable. Let your shoulders and arms relax. Listen to your breath as it comes and goes…. Let your hands be loose. 

…

Take another long, deep, slow breath… and release. 

Now let’s find some fears. Even if you don’t plan to go after them, let them come up. Don’t push them down. Don’t pass over them. Let them flow through you, out your hand, onto the paper through your pen or pencil. 

Make a list… anything that comes up goes on the paper. All the fears you’d want to release if you could. 

Is there something you’ve been wanting to do? Something you’ve been putting off? In those things you will find justifications for putting those things off. Those excuses and justifications are symptoms of your fears. Look there. 

Keep observing your breathing… In and out.. In and out… 

Write down anything that comes up. 

Now pause and look at your list. Is there more than one thing? 

Pick one. 

♬ ♬ ♬ ends

Do you already feel the resistance coming up? The excuses why you can’t go after it? Our minds are great justifiers. 

Your fear will offer up all sorts of reasons. And you’ll be tempted to believe them. Your internal voice is well practiced. It knows exactly what to say to protect you from your fear of failure. 

But in doing this it assures you will not succeed - because you will never start. Failure is okay because we must lean into the possibility of failure if we want to eventually succeed. 

Legendary hockey player Wayne Gretzky said it like this, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” 

So, get out of your own way. Take the shot. 

The first step in going after your fear is identifying what you want. You did that. 

The second step is to recognize your internal arguments… the things that usually stop you. 

The third (and most vital step)is to move forward through those  fears. This is where you find out if they are real or only imagination. 

Don’t be surprised if you feel fear on top of fear. Remember -when we go after what we want we fear the judgement of others but we also fear the judgement of ourselves. And the judgement of ourselves puts us in a perpetual loop. When we go after it we can have all sorts of things emerge. 

·         We may judge ourselves as unworthy.

·         We avoid pushing against our fears… “What if I fail?”

·         Our fear of failure makes us stop taking what we think of as risks (which is really just fear of testing ourselves for fear we will let ourselves down). 

Most of us fear letting ourselves down more than we fear the judgment of others. Have you ever done something that made you talk down to yourself? “Well, that was stupid.” You might say. Many of us have a huge fear someone else will say the thing about us that we already say to ourselves. “Well, that was stupid.” So, we avoid letting ourselves take a chance of doing something we ourselves will judge. 

And we are stuck where we are. 

When I thought of launching The Soul Podcast I had insecure fears come up. What if it wasn’t any good?” “What if people hated it and thought I was some self-righteous goofball?” 

I looked at my fears. I recognized each of them for what they were – fear-based resistance. I had a choice to make. 

Should I do what my heart tells me I should do, or let my fears make the decision? 

Then I asked myself what would happen if I walked towards my fears.

The answer was simple.

If you’re not going after your fears, you’re missing out on all that life has to offer you. It’s all right there on the other side of the thin veil of fear. Close enough to touch. But we believe the thin veil is a wall. We treat it like a wall. But it’s not.  

When you go after your fears, you find that you’re braver than you thought. Be courageous. Without fear there is no courage. Push against the veil of fear and you’ll see that courage isn’t as hard as you thought. And don’t be surprised if you get a RUSH when you push through it. 

It may not work every time but when you go after fear each day you get amazing results. And you’ll be surprised what you can accomplish. When it doesn’t work it’s likely because it’s a hard barrier. These take more effort… or because you’re expecting one step to get you to the long-term goal. 

If your dream is to be an Olympic swimmer and you’ve avoided doing the work. Don’t expect that joining a swim team does not immediately qualify you for the Olympics. Each step we take towards our dreams invigorates us. We grow as a person with each new step. The trick is to consistently take those steps. 

Hard barriers take longer effort. But the ones you’ve constructed will tear down like a curtain… a false barrier that once felt real. This is not a true barrier. It is only resistance. 

In The War of Art,  Steven Pressfield wrote, "Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance."

“The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. And Resistance by definition is self-sabotage."

"Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.” 

Okay, enough of all this talking. Now it’s time to reflect on your list. Pick a fear. Now find a way to lean into it. Go after the things you’ve been avoiding. And watch the fears fall over.