Growing Happiness

Fear.  Just saying the word can cause heart palpitations.  According to Dictionary.com, fear is the distressing emotion caused by impending danger; anxiety or concern.  We tend to use the word to describe our feelings about heights, nightmares, movies, severe storms or child birth.  Fear is useful when it provides us with the sixth sense to keep us out of harm's way.  A little bit of fear is  also good when you are ready to give a speech or play a soccer game; it gets the blood pumping!   But, the fear I want to discuss is the kind that most of us don't want to talk about.  We don't want to readily admit to our emotional fears.  When our friends ask how we are doing we don't say, "well, I can hardly sleep at night because of the anxiety over the state my life is in, I have a great fear of disappointing others that keeps me immobile and I am afraid I will never feel good enough!"  Can you imagine if you actually said something like that?  What would be an appropriate response from our friends?  "Want to get a margarita?"

We keep this fear to ourself because it is has so much power over us.   It keeps us stagnant in our own life.  We don't like where we are, but we can't move forward either.  We find reasons for being stuck;  our circumstances, our finances, not enough time, not enough options, no support.  These are all valid excuses for not living our life to the fullest, but let's call it what it really is:  fear of failure. 

Fear of failure is something many of us can understand.  We are so fearful of taking a chance that we become prisoners in our own lives.  We fail to even show up.  We show up to our kid's baseball game, our neighbor's graduation party, our second cousin's baby's first birthday, but we aren't significant enough to show up in our own life? We know when we want something different in our life, but we are terrified of going after it.  Maybe you need a different career, but you aren't sure where to start, so you stay put.  Perhaps, you are a stay at home mom and you are ready to go back to work, but feel your skills are unworthy of today's job market.  It's also possible that you aren't even aware of what your desires are, you just can feel that lurking need to be somewhere or something else.

My challenge to you is to take some time to reflect, meditate and/or journal about your feelings.  Be aware of what you are doing throughout the day and how it makes you feel.  It's not easy and it takes time, but if you really invest in the process you will begin to feel. You will begin to connect with your inner truth.  Eventually, you will come to the proverbial fork in the road and you will have to decide which way to go.  Will it be the path of least resistance or will you choose to take a chance?  Go ahead, take a leap of faith.  Choose to take one step forward.