What to Do When You’re Scared Out of Your Mind

When you think about going after your dreams, following your passion, and doing something you love, does it scare you?

If you’re anything like me, it scares you, a lot.

This is partly because we’re afraid of showing the world what we truly care about.

It makes us vulnerable.

Plus, going after what makes you come alive brings up your inner demons.

In order to make progress, you have to be willing to walk through the darkness.

But all is not as it seems, as you’ll soon discover.

Why You’re Scared (And Why It’s Good)

There are many reasons why you’re scared when it comes to going after what you want.

Here are just a few that I’ve come across:

• What if I fail?
• What will people think?
• What if I’m not good enough?
• Where do I even begin?
• What if it takes too long?

There’s nothing wrong with having these fears.

There’s nothing even wrong with being stopped by your fears.

By not pursuing what makes you come alive, the tension within you blossoms, and eventually turns into resolve.

You have to grow so sick of stopping yourself that you take action before you feel ready.

3 Quick Tips for Dealing with the Fear

The most effective thing I’ve found is to do what I feel drawn to do, to let my inner compass lead me to the right resources, people or places.

That said, below I’ll share three tips that have worked for me.

I don’t use the below tools constantly. I use them when I feel like using them.

So what I use changes from day to day, because I do my best to follow my inner compass.

Use the tools that resonate with you, and discard the rest.

1. Write

When you try to think through your problems, you end up in thought loops, which is why I recommend you write everything down.

Take a blank sheet of paper (or open your favorite word processor) and let everything out. And by everything, I mean everything.

Write down every petty thought, complaint, and excuse that pops out. The purpose of this is to clear your mind.

When I do this for 30 minutes, my mind becomes clear, and new ways of seeing emerge.

Another thing I sometimes do is go back to my earlier writings, and write an update of how I see things now. This helps cement the fact that I never stay in one state of mind for long.

My thoughts change, so my feelings change, and my perspective changes. Solutions emerge from nowhere. They are not something I have to chase.

2. Feel

The easiest way to “release” emotions is to feel them fully.

So when you feel scared out of your mind, instead of running away from our experience, become curious.

• What does it feel like?
• Where in your body do you feel it?
• If it had a color, what color would it be?
• Does it move, spin, pulsate, or do something else?

There’s something within us that tells us that we can’t feel these “darker” emotions, but we can. And when you do, you discover that the voice within you that tells you to stop is wrong.

Then you begin to wonder: If my mind was wrong about this, what else is it wrong about?

You also have other tools at your disposal, such as EFT, The Work by Byron Katie, Sedona Method, or NLP. They are all worth checking out, if you are drawn to them.

There’s a good YouTube channel for a form of EFT called FasterEFT.

And here’s one of my videos on feeling fear:

3. Poke

What if you shifted your attitude, and began to poke at your fears?

You could begin to wonder if you could move forward despite what you feel. Adopt a playful attitude not just to life, but to yourself.

Because how is it that you can feel happy one moment, and unhappy a few minutes later?

Your external circumstances may remain unchanged, but your internal state changes, because we feel our thinking, which include our beliefs, ideas, and other conditioning.

So in order for me to feel scared out of my mind, I have to represent that internally through an image, a sound, or something else. I then feel that internal representation.

You don’t have to do anything with this. You can begin to wonder, to poke at your internal reality.

You Are Being Lived

We are all a part of life. You. Me. And the tree.

Thoughts come from nowhere. Feelings arise in the body, and movement happens. We think we have to force life to conform to our ideas, but what if we didn’t? What if we could relax?

I’m not telling you what to do. Instead, I invite you to open up, to wonder.

What if you allowed yourself to feel the fear within?

What if you began to notice what you felt drawn to do?

Notice what wants to happen through you, because when you do, you begin walking the path that has always been there waiting for you.

Bonus: How to Accept Yourself

Here’s another video of mine on how to tap into self-compassion.

Post Image by Lali

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