What do people mean when they say “feel the fear and do it anyway”? Do they want you to feel fear at the idea of walking into that dark alley and do it anyway? Are they advising you, if you feel fear at the idea of darting across that road in heavy traffic, that you do it anyway? I doubt it…
Here’s what’s really happening.
Fear and excitement both run out of the adrenal glands. When we don’t use fear the way it’s designed – as guidance for ourselves and others to BE and FEEL safe – then fear and excitement kind of collapse together and you can’t tell them apart. When they say “face your fear and do it anyway”, it’s really excitement they’re suggesting that you face up to and and act on.
There’s no need to push through trying to figure out which it is though – simple curiosity about what you’re feeling will bring the truth of it to you. You’ll see how easily that happens in live events. I adore working with people as they separate them out into two different emotions again and find the bubbles of happiness in excitement.
Me, I feel fear in my solar plexus and excitement in my belly. In the early days of me separating these two feelings out from each other, the difference in location helped me to figure out what I was feeling. You might well experience it differently to me.
The next time you experience one of those situations where you think you should push through the fear – pause, breathe and feel into it with curiosity – is this really fear or is it excitement? Because if it’s fear you do not want to be doing whatever this is until you’ve understood what it’s telling you and the fear has disappeared. And if it’s really excitement, then you not only want to be enjoying it – you want to be actually following it in your joyful creation or changing what you care about.
If anxiety has been a big deal for you, or if the Quiet Mind on the previous page didn’t bring you the clarity and results you’d hoped for, you might like to click the previous page button at the top of the page and do it again, adding “Could this be excitement?” to your awareness.
Our photo is from our Horse Wisdom Messages – one of our beautiful brumbies by Michelle J Photography. The message talks about how this collapsing of fear and excitement causes people to run away from excitement and is the cause of self sabotage.
Pause and reflect on that for a minute. By not recognizing fear and excitement for what each of them really is, we can go round and round in circles, thinking life’s tough and we’re struggling to reach our dreams – running away from the excitement that’s the very thing that’s designed to guide us to the good stuff!
