What’s on the other side of Fear - Day 18
I’ve done a lot of “story” work in the past decade. Whether you realize it or not we all create stories in our head about the world around us. Which is how I know we are ALL creatives in our own right. The ability to let our thoughts spiral out into the worst case scenorio or go overboard daydreaming about the perfect life shows me how artistic we all can be.
We create stories to make sense of what’s happening outside of us, inside our mind. This is important because the narrative we create guides us in our actions and the way we show up on a day to day basis. Which is why we should hold captive every thought before reacting.
One of the best ways I know to do this is by spending more time “noticing” and less time “imagining”. You see the things we notice are inarguable. It’s something everyone would agree upon: the color of someone’s shirt, the words somebody speaks, your surroundings, etc. And anytime we use the words “I think” or “I feel” we are imagining (creating a story). Unfortunately we take the things we notice and very quickly dive into imagining all sorts of scenarios.
For Example:
You notice your crush doesn’t text you back, so you imagine they are avoiding you.
The problem is you are only looking at one possible story. They could be not texting you because they are no longer interested or maybe their phone died, there is some sort of emergency or they like you so much they don’t know how to respond next.
So the fix for this is every time you start to say “I think” or “I feel” replace it with “I imagine”. This is a cue for you to realize you are creating a story that may or may not be true. And the hope is that then you will also run through the multiple other possibilities of stories that could be true.
This is important because as I said earlier we tend to let these stories direct our behavior. So many of us are driven by fear rather than love. We act and live our lives based on what we are scare of happening rather than going after what we really want.
But do you know what is on the other side of fear?….
NOTHING.
Yup that’s right, it’s simply an imagined version of what the world may look like.
I know what you are thinking, what if the worst case scenario happens? Well you tell me! What if it does? Play it out a couple years and tell me if it’s really that bad. Because I would bet it’s not nearly that bad as you think, and honestly might not be any worse than your current day which is why you are on the brink of going for it.
If you remember one thing today then let it be that your life is a story filled with many chapters and you are in control of crafting the narrative. If you don’t like where the story is headed then write a new one!
