I recently posted about letting go of what does not serve me on my Vocal page. In my post, I dug deeper into the meditation mantra to “let go of what does not serve you” and defined what that meant for me. As part of my meta deep dive I stated one of the more spiritual things I’ve decided to let go of is fear. Letting go of fear sounds great on paper, but who would I be if I didn’t question and overanalyze what that really meant.
I have always been a fearful person. As a child I was afraid of most adults, strangers and even some family members. The dark put me in a state of panic and I could not imagine having to do anything alone. With age I’ve managed to let my fear of people go, but a few of those fears have stuck around. For example, I’m terrified of heights; the thought being on an airplane makes me want to vomit and I have a panic attack every time I ride across bridges. Thanks to a very safe childhood and loving parents, I’ve made facing my baseline fears a part of everyday life. Years of repetition have made bridges tolerable and planes almost fun (Hello Lotus Biscuits). So even though some fears have stuck around, I’ve been able to work my way through them with the help of patient friends, family and good ole practice. Pushing through these tangible fears is almost formulaic now. Unfortunately, these aren’t the fears I need to let go of.
The fears that are holding me back are much more sinister than the phobias above. Failure, shame, embarrassment, mistakes, being seen for who I am and not being accepted; those are the monsters under my bed. After writing my essay on letting go, I sat with myself and thought about these fears and how they limit my everyday. The fear of judgement keeps me from sharing what I want to share on my personal social media pages. Embarrassment mocks me and prevents me from sharing my poetry with my family. Failure hovers over me waiting to say I told you so every time I don’t get a lot of engagement on a post. These fears sit around and wait for their chance to hop in. My fears know they can take one weak spot and apply pressure until the walls of confidence come crashing down.
I’ve decided I don’t have time for these fears anymore. I’m thankful they kept me safe and got me to where I am, but I no longer have a use for them. They are the monsters that need to go because the fear of not acting because of them is greater than the fear of jumping. I may need a night light to go to the bathroom, but I refuse to keep feeding these negative beliefs that keep my true self hidden.
Making the decision to let go was the first step, but now it’s time for the messy mission of untangling my fear based thought patterns. I’ve been paying attention to my thoughts and what I’m thinking about before I fall into a fear spiral, and it’s illuminating. I’ve come up with canned responses as a way to derail my negative thoughts before they control my present moment. For example, anytime I think I’m a bad writer I’m going to pull up my published posts or stats for my page to remind myself that people care about what I have to say. When I worry that people may judge what I have to say, I’m going to whisper to myself that it is a reflection of them and not me.
Untangling my fear based thought patterns allows me to loosen my hold on fear. I’ve let other people tell me what I can and can’t do because of fear. For example, I had someone tell me that I was a fearful public speaker right before a group presentation. I had never been a fearful public speaker prior to that moment but once the idea got in my brain it’s all I could think about. I let one person’s interpretation of my body language define who I was publicly… that’s so silly. So I’m metaphorically loosening my grip on fear by refusing to let it define me. Instead of taking in all the feedback I get from outside, I’m filtering it first to make sure it rings true to me. I can only control myself, not others reactions to me.
This is just the beginning of my journey to letting go of fear, but I’m already excited about it (and a little nervous). Removing fear based thinking from my reflexes is going to allow me to present my more authentic me — and I think that’s beautiful. Let’s let go of fear and go fearlessly into the unknown!
