What is your biggest fear?

How is fear affecting your life? How does it affect your well-being, your decisions, your relationships? In a world that craves the positive, a world of pleasure seeking, of wanting to feel good, how does one decide to focus on fear? We know that if we direct our focus to positive things, our emotional state changes, we feel better, it feels good. Controlling our focus is crucial for transformation, it is a simple and precious tool but there are other “feel good” approaches. We can shift negative to positive perspectives, we can change points of view and we can reframe past events. These processes are more than just about feeling good, I understand, they also allow us to transform and heal. For those reasons, it is even harder to make the decision to focus on something rather uncomfortable: the negative. There are ghosts living in the dark side and one of the biggest ones is fear. Yes, there is a time that we should focus on fear. It can be difficult to look it in the face, that dark and ugly face, and even more difficult is to find calmness in that place, find acceptance, find power and strength.

For years, I have tried to ignore fear, I have tried to be positive about it, calling it a different name but it only disempowered me. Georges St-Pierre, a retired MMA fighter, once told his sports psychologist that he was afraid before every single fight. His psychologist tried to convince him that he should call that feeling excitement but George insisted that he was wrong: “I’m not afraid to admit that I’m afraid”, he said. I love this attitude because it is pure and real. Fear appears for a reason and, if we don’t look it in the face, we will never know what is the reason, we will never understand it, we will never use it to our advantage and we will certainly never overcome it.

That’s why I ask: what is your biggest fear? Are you afraid of taking risks? Are you afraid of not being enough? Afraid of being abandoned? Of losing her or him? Afraid of being alone, being humiliated, afraid of failing? Afraid of not being strong enough, afraid of being rejected? These questions are important but they are just the beginning of a complex process that requires you to look deep into your soul and assess implications of those fears in your life.

Fears greatly influence the way we feel about ourselves and our relationship with others. Interestingly, the deeper the connection we have with someone, the more fear comes to play. It’s about having skin in the game but not only. The openness necessary for a deeper connection, also creates the space for fears to show up in all sorts of ways, ones more sneaky than others. The fear of losing someone, that many times is connected with the fear of being abandoned or being alone, is a good example of how fear can bring significant pain to a relationship and can ultimately kill it.

This fear is something that I experienced myself particularly in my very first relationship and it led me to completely destroy the little self-esteem I had at the time. I believed I needed that person in my life, and I wouldn’t be able to find another. I believed that was the one, it had to be. As a consequence, there was a lack of boundaries, a lack of self-belief and the relationship ended-up lasting too long. At the same time, I denied my fear and tried to push it down the most I could. It was so difficult to admit even just to myself that I was afraid of losing that person, afraid of being forever alone and afraid of not being enough. I remember even being afraid of crying… I ended up dragging those fears for years and in that way there were many experiences that I missed, a lot of time and energy completely wasted, and unnecessary pain that I put myself through. This is a common mistake and how I would have loved to have someone to tell me this, encourage me to be honest with myself, and helped me look into those fears in a safe way.

Now it’s imperative for me to share a key piece of my own process. Do you know why I eventually faced those deep rooted fears? I looked around and I saw people that were carrying fear their whole life. I understood that time was not enough, time on its own won’t do anything, in fact I understood that things only get worse with time when we refuse to look fear in the eye. With time, people get bitter, relationships deteriorate, and the fear perpetuates, being passed from person to person, friend to friend, husband to wife and even generation to generation. I didn’t want to be afraid of harmless situations, I didn’t want to be part of this process of spreading fear and most of all I didn’t want to become bitter, unhappy and toxic. Sometimes I ask myself if I was afraid of giving in to that darkness. Do you see what I mean? Maybe I was afraid of that as well, maybe a bigger fear made me overcome a smaller one.

This brings me to an important point: fear can be an ally. It can sharpen our senses, make our reflexes faster, it can make us rise to the occasion. Without fear there is no courage. Being fearless is not the same as being courageous. In the absence of fear, there is no need for courage.

So, here are a few more questions. When should you be fearless and when should you be courageous? And here is an interesting one: what does it mean to be courageous in a relationship? Where are you lacking courage? I am aware that these questions can be confrontational and that’s good, let them be. They are confrontational to me too but avoiding this confrontation is not the solution. Avoiding, ignoring or denying fear has terrible consequences. I know from personal experience, the same way that I know that sometimes to overcome fear, we need to focus on it. Even if there is that inner struggle, the fight between not wanting to go there and knowing that we must go.

To finalize, I would like to say that there is not a simple rule when it comes to dealing with negative or unpleasant emotions. As I published together with a recent video that complements nicely this text: “There are times in life to focus on the positive, there are times to switch negative mindsets into positive ones, but there are also times to focus on the negative. There are times we need to focus on a negative aspect in order to resolve it. Fear is a good example of that.” To understand these different situations, we need discernment, it’s all about that. Discernment should not be just a mind-based process, so it is key that you listen to your rational mind, your heart and your instincts. Integrate these three aspects in a balanced manner and everything will become more clear.

If you’d like to learn how to deal with your fears or want to share your struggles, drop a comment and tell me what you are going through. If you’d like to have a private conversation, send me a pm. I will share with you some guidelines and tell you how my coaching protocol can help you.