The concept of diving deep within one’s mind to reap the benefits of its secrets is a practice that can take months, years if not decades for those of us who are truly searching for a deeper sense of understanding in oneself and others. Even if that means confronting our deepest insecurities and fears.
You are not alone.
Fears and insecurities are the components of humanity that keep us where we are. Without them, we are just as good as dead if we go too far or cross the wrong lines. With them we are bound to go where we’ve always gone and do what we’ve always done. So how do we decide the correct method of dealing with them? Where do our limits lie and where can we improve? That is going to be up to each and every one of us.
Everyone wants to be understood or understand to some degree. Even those who have been so badly hurt that they cannot seem to recover from their own experiences. These lingering wounds and lack of reconciliation can deeply impact how an individual chooses to go about life, consciously or unconsciously. Some of us choose to wear our heart on our sleeves hoping that someone else will see it and want it, others choose to mask everything and spread it thinly like a sheet of ice reflecting every attempt to get close. It’s these different ways of operating that camouflage our wounds and deepest insecurities or show our true colors. Whether we can accept or deny what is, what isn’t and what may be is up to us. Who do we trust? Where do we start? What do we do? Why even bother?
How do we confront our fears?
Head on.
It’s the only way you’re going to be able to defeat them and get past whatever obstacles they create for you. More often than not, you’ll realize that you’re bigger than your fears. It’s the idea of fantasizing about them that makes them paramount in comparison to your own dreams, ambitions, passions and course of action. However, this is not the reality of the situation. It’s just not true.
(If you are interested in an introduction to assembling one’s dreams into reality then check out this article I published located here.)
Now of course if your fears are reasonable in the sense of a realistic death, injury or big enough obstacle to crush you entirely then you need to recalibrate where you stand in proportion to them. As shown in the previous paragraph, catastrophizing is another story.
One of the biggest parts of growth and confronting your fears is to stop looking for justifications to your negative beliefs.
These are your limiting beliefs. They are what keep you in the same place.
These are what decide how the outcome occurs. In order to change them, you need to start asking yourself: What am I doing, thinking, feeling or believing in that is predictable? What always seems to end up going wrong in my life?
You’ll find the answers whether you want to or not. That’s where the real growth and change begins.
Think of it as a narrowing tunnel and all the walls are closing in. These are how your fears operate internally. They create this illusion of negative predictions only to make the viewer more heightened in anxiety provoking thoughts and assumptions. You would think that having a “prepare for the worst” mindset would help with every scenario, but it doesn’t. In contrast, it can actually make things worse. By constantly preparing for the worse and living in a perpetual state of fear you increase the rate of misery inflicted upon oneself. This can only reaffirm self-fulfilling prophecies and negative mental tactics that harm your overall well-being and health. Thus engaging in behavior accordingly for the worst results possible.
This is the cycle that needs to be stopped.
Keep mindfulness in mind.
“They didn’t break the cycle, the cycle broke them.”
— Brandon Perillo
This quote that my friend shared with me seemed pretty profound and inspirational at the time when we were discussing the idea of fear and how it can ruin someone’s life. I hope that it finds you in a time of need so that you can apply it to whatever struggle, conflict, limitation or fears you may have. Within the right context, it pertains to the idea of choosing to change the cycle of thoughts, beliefs and actions in your life so that you can start to feel better about yourself and what you’re doing in life. By doing so one can leave the past behind and learn from it instead of running in endless circles leading to the same disappointments in life or being controlled by your fears into a downwards spiral.
Brandon Perillo has served for our country in the Navy and been able to not only assist me with my mindset and it’s growth, but also the ability to utilize resilience when I needed it most. You can find him on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. It seems to me that those who matter the most will shine the brightest in the darkest of times. This can certainly help when fear is closing in.
So don’t let your fears become your fate. I know I didn’t. Did you?
