The things you most fear are running your life. Think about it. If you didn’t have those fears would your life still be as it is now? If you’re projecting these fears into your possible future, you’re already in protection mode around them.
You’re worrying about them without even knowing if they’ll ever come to pass. You’re placing your attention on them even though they haven’t happened yet. If they had happened they would no longer be amongst your worst fears. You would have lived through them, survived them, and come out the other side.
The funny thing about the things we most fear is that we’re usually not aware of them. They just run silently in the background of our lives affecting our behaviours. They’re usually so deeply embedded in our psyches that we’re not consciously aware of how much they’re affecting us.
If you’re a parent, it could be fears for your children. You might be holding them back and stifling their growth because of what you fear might happen to them if you don’t. If your fear is about financial ruin, even if you have more than enough money you’ll never feel safe.
Your greatest fear might be ageing or losing your looks. In order to avoid that fear you might invest in copious amounts of cosmetic surgery as a pre-emptive strike. You may start to date people much younger than you to represent that you still have it, you’re still attractive. After all, if you weren’t they wouldn’t be interested in you.
What about a fear of being homeless? That deep fear might be running in the background hinting at your life as a bag lady. Your subconscious may be projecting thoughts of you as an alcoholic pushing your shopping cart full of tin cans through the streets.
These deep fears affect our behaviours, choices and actions. We may be living our lives in constant safe mode to avoid them. If being publicly humiliated is your deepest fear, then you may never let yourself achieve certain levels of success. Much better to hide in the shadows, or stay in jobs or relationships you’ve outgrown than risk being publicly humiliated.
Get to know your deepest fears. Become friends with them. Confront them. Play out the worst case scenario. Let yourself feel the worst that could happen. If you’re still here at the end of that mind projection, you’ll likely still be here if the worst happens.
We’re much more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. Our bounce back muscles are strong. We make it through situations we never thought we could. We survive abuse, disasters, heartbreak, heartache and more. When we own our natural resilience and confront our deepest fears, we are then free to live life to the fullest.
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Yve Bowen is a passionate writer and copywriter. As a copywriter she provides engaging content and marketing copy for stressed out Sole Traders and Entrepreneurs. Find Yve at https://keeper.marketing.
