Hi Slow Down Society, and Happy Friday Eve!
I’d like to talk Fear with you today —
and how the old-school advice of “feel the fear and do it anyway”
is harmful.
And I do not want you to do this.
instead, I want you to try and shift it, if you can.
Sit with it.
Feel it, and process it.
and then when you are READY, pick a different feeling to feel, and THEN take action.
Taking action when you aren’t in a good place will never feel good.
as many of you know, I have a background in child psychology and child development and used to do work for the local social services.
Guess what?
Adult psychology and child psychology are very closely related!
🙂
Here is a PDF of the above image —
Try and move from feeling FEAR to something else that might help move you forward towards your hopes, dreams, and longterm goals.
How about “curious”? or “hopeful”?
We are talking about this currently in the Facebook group —
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
xoxo
please take care of yourself.
I think you are wonderful.
steph
1 Comment
I am paralyzed with fear over doing something. I remembered the book, feel the fear and do it anyway, and thought this was terrible advice to give. I agree that it’s important to process the rest first and get into a more positive frame of mind before moving forward. But what about the book, the gift of fear? Sometimes our bodies communicate to us through emotion. Perhaps I feel fear as my soul, body, essence doesn’t advise said course of action.. perhaps I should heed my own inner alarm system. Imagine feeling an irrational fear of opening a door. What do you do? Pause to assess the basis of the fear? Perhaps your subconscious is remembering a negative association with that door? Perhaps your body knows there is a rattle snake, assassin, or weak floorboards that would send you crashing to your death. What do you do? Feel the fear and impulsively do it anyway, failing to heed your body’s inner warning system? I agree with your assessment. What bad advice that book promoted.