Fear and doubt have killed more dreams than anything else in this world. We all have fears and we seem to have many of them.
Why?
We all understand, conceptually, that we should not let fear affect our decisions or progress in life, so then why does it continue to do so? I’d like to explore that a little.
Since there are so many fears that we possess, lets pick out one in particular.
Fear of judgment (particularly from others) or better understood as…..when we become vulnerable and display our insecurities. No, I’m not going to be that person that simply says: “just don’t care what others think”. That’s a general statement and I feel someone needs to understand the dilemma at a deeper level to make the shift and overcome such a fear. Let me try and be that source for you.
Here’s what I find fascinating when analyzing this dilemma, there’s both irony and a paradox within this fear.
Let me explain.
The Irony –
When faced with having to do something new or making a major life decision you imagine yourself being vulnerable and others taking advantage of your vulnerability. Let me pick on myself by using a minor, but personal example to help illustrate this concept.
*Insert any decision or situation that may be more relatable for you*
Imagine you are thinking of starting on online business to spread your message and vision to the world. During this brainstorming process you begin to think about all of the things that you will have to do in order to make your message heard or seen.
You realize that making videos and uploading them to social media would be a great avenue and medium. However, you’ve never uploaded a video of you speaking to the camera for 1,000’s of others to watch and listen, and you start thinking about how awkward you’ll feel siting in a room, by yourself, staring at the camera and sharing a personal message to the world. Then you envision yourself actually having to upload this video for the public to see and since this will be your first ever attempt at doing so, you are putting yourself out there and being extremely VULNERABLE. One of your insecurities is being exposed.
Now you let the thoughts race through your mind. Whether you’re willing to admit this or not (most are unaware of such thoughts, because they are at the subconscious level) you would probably have thoughts such as:
“Who am I to spread this message, no one will take me serious as an expert.”
“Someone may think it looks dumb and sounds dumb.”
“Nobody will care about this anyway.”
For many, the following happens at a subconscious level: What if I don’t get any ‘Likes’ or comments. And worse yet, what if someone takes advantage of my insecurity by making a facetious comment about my video or just flat out pokes fun at me!
Making yourself vulnerable like this is not an easy thing to do for the fear of your insecurities being exposed and causing pain such as: anger, shame, embarrassment and anxiety. The sad fact is that most individuals hid behind their insecurities their entire lives, preventing them from ever scraping the surface of their potential and possibilities.
There are a couple things I’d like to touch on here.
1. If someone were to expose your insecurities while you’re being vulnerable (making a negative or facetious comment) who is causing the pain that you feel?
This is where I want to go deeper than just saying: “you shouldn’t care what people say about you.” If you understand the deeper/underlying root cause you can learn HOW to not “care”. I personally like to say: “learn to feel the pain, accept it, understand what’s causing the pain and learn how to release it.”
First, you would need to understand that you are setting yourself up for feeling pain and feeling vulnerable by GENERATING those negative projected thoughts such as: “Who am I to spread this message. Nobody cares what I have to say. I need to have more experience before I do such a thing”……
Because here’s what happens when someone does match one of your negative projected thoughts, your mind will automatically and immediately recognize this. This recognition will immediately reinforce your limiting belief (your negative projected thought).
Example - You post the video and someone makes a comment such as: “Oh, Jim, going big time now I see with your philosophical ways.”
BOOM. You’re insecurities and pain points have just been jabbed. You put yourself out there, made yourself vulnerable for once and look what happened.
Because of the self-generated thoughts you had prior to doing so, you conditioned your mind/brain to pick up on the indicators that will strengthen that belief system you had (Who am I to be spreading a message like this, I’m no expert). Your mind is simply doing its job: looking for things to strengthen it’s belief systems. It doesn’t matter if they are positive or negative beliefs, it simply wants to help you out and strengthen the belief system that YOU have programed in.
This process will immediately shut you down and could affect your choices and decisions for a lifetime. All simply to avoid that pain point, which could be avoided from the very beginning.
How, you ask?….
Change or shift the story. Yes, the story that you are conducting in your mind prior to making yourself vulnerable.
But how?
Presence! Presence means you are conscious and aware of the thoughts that You (your core Being/essence) are generating.
Awareness = power.
It’s only through awareness and shining your light of consciousness at the limiting beliefs, the story, the self-generated thoughts that you can shift and change these thoughts, beliefs and story.
That’s just part of the solution and YES, it’s that simple. Few do such a thing though. Practice it. Be the ‘Observer’ of your thoughts.
Does this mean that you will not have any of those defeating thoughts? No. But with the new found awareness you’ve now empowered yourself to take notice of the defeating thoughts and immediately let them drift off and then SHIFT/re-direct your thoughts, beliefs and story in a manner that serves you.
Create a story that serves you, one that projects the ultimate upside. I’ll take the example we’ve been using. By shining consciousness and awareness on these thoughts you could shift the story to the following:
“I have a story and message that can and will help people.”
“Because I’m making myself vulnerable people will be able to resonate with my message.”
“What if I can help just one person improve the quality of their life or inspire them to experience life at a new level?”
Now, which self-generated story serves you? The ones from earlier in the post or these newly formed stories?
One of the most important things to understand is where are these thoughts coming from and who’s generating this story.
Answer: Your ego.
Your ego is the calculated mind that wants to “protect” you from perceived pain. It will fight like hell to keep you in the confines of the comfy chair (your comfort zone) where it knows what to expect, what you’re good at and “it knows” what kind of reactions you will get from others (because you’ve done it before).
It will do everything it can to KEEP you from becoming vulnerable because nothing destroys the ego more than vulnerability. Understand that You (your core Being) is separate from your ego. The ego is simply a figmentation (self construction) of the mind, it’s an illusion and it’s one that you unconsciously have been building up for your lifetime.
The construction of an ego has allowed you to feel a sense of identity. But it’s now imperative to understand that this ego you’ve built is now holding you back from progress and experiencing a breakthrough that ultimately would allow you to experience life at an all new level. It’s sapping life from you, keeping you average and planted on the path to mediocrity. It’s job is to keep you in your comfy life. Never allowing you to tap into your true potential and fulfillment.
Understand this at a deep level and you can forever change your life and experience breakthrough after breakthrough. YOU are the master of your mind. It does not use you. You use your mind to SERVE you. Consciousness and awareness are needed for this to occur.
When you can decipher the difference between your true Being vs that of your ego, you can now handle the pain you feel when you’ve been exposed while being vulnerable.
You ask, How?
By recognizing that the ‘pain’ being felt is that of the ego, not you. By recognizing that your ego has taken a hit.
But have You become any less because of this? Read that a few times to let it sink in…….
The moment you do not identify yourself with your ego along with the pain that is felt by the ego, is the moment that you stop suffering. You will know when this happens. Because when your ego gets hit, you may feel a little pain/sharpness in your heart and if you can be aware of this “feel it/observe it” you can notice it and simply let the pain pass through as if it was a drifting leaf in the wind.
When you shine awareness and consciousness on this pain it can pass through and not consume your thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. If you don’t let it pass, what happens is that the mind/ego will identify with the pain and then strengthen it’s negative projection story and you’re off to the races producing even more self-defeating stories, thoughts and beliefs. Think back to a time when this has occurred for you. We’ve all done it.
Make the declaration that you will be the observer of your thoughts. Declare that you will become consciously aware of your thoughts, your beliefs and your stories. Declare that you will consciously direct your thoughts, beliefs and stories in a way that will serve you.
You can consistently practice this. Practice observing your ego at work and notice how you feel and/or respond when it’s being attacked. It’s consistently at work. Even the smallest things can activate it’s defense mechanism.
I’ve used this practice with an egoic insecurity of my own- my looks. I’ve always been someone that has cared about my appearance in public. I cared about how I looked and I feared others judgement. However, I now separate myself from this vulnerability and recognize that it’s my ego that has the fear and vulnerability, not I.
Does this mean that I no longer care about how I present myself in public? No, I do, but here’s the difference now.. If one of my friends or somebody pokes fun at something I’m wearing or makes a facetious comment that results in me feeling that “jabbing” pain in my chest, I know exactly where that’s coming from. My ego is feeling attacked because it’s insecurity is being attacked.
The difference - I used to let this affect me by leading to more and more self-defeating thoughts and stories running through my head which simply led to even greater insecurity. I now notice the pain and simply let it drift through. I release the pain and this process prevents any future thoughts, beliefs or stories being conducted. I cannot tell you how much this has changed my life. It’s allowed so much more joy and peace in my life.
That’s just one minor example.
This can and should be used in all aspects of your life because when you master this concept you’ve mastered your mind, or I should say, you’ve mastered your ego. You’ve separated yourself from the ego, no longer allowing it to own your life, your decisions, your beliefs, your thoughts and your story.
Imagine how many things you would be willing to do or try if you knew that you could accept being vulnerable and be completely ‘ok’ with feeling the pain from the insecurities of your ego?
How many breakthroughs could you have?
How many perceived limits could you break through?
You could start to tap into your true underlying potential!
Just remember, if you make yourself vulnerable and your insecurity becomes exposed by someone else (meaning your ego has been stabbed) are YOU (your core Being) any less?
Does it change who You are?
NO.
It only affects your ego.
To experience a life of insane joy, bliss and enthusiasm one must tear down the unconsciously built ego and live with an open heart. If you build an ego, do it consciously so you can defeat all odds, but always remember to remain detached from the ego, never become so unconscious that you 100% identify your Being with the formed ego. This concept is ESSENTIAL. Never loose ‘site’ of it.
You create YOUR story, so be diligent!
Let me touch of the second part of this Irony:
You empower and inspire others to become vulnerable by being vulnerable yourself.
If you go first others will follow.
AS I stated before we all have the same fears and insecurities and we’re all sitting on the sidelines waiting for others to go first. We are waiting for others to put themselves out there in the “eyes” of danger/vulnerability so we can give ourselves permission to do the same. This is a real problem and it’s a prominent issue in our society.
By you exposing yourself and becoming vulnerable you in-directly empower others to do the same. You’ve given them permission to display their own courage and become vulnerable as well. I’ll take our Facebook Video upload as the example again.
There are millions of people that would like to upload a video and share a message or vision that they have, but what prevents them from doing so? The same thing that has you questioning your action, becoming vulnerable to their insecurities. So they all just sit there, frozen in the tracks of mediocrity.
But something happens…..
100’s of them (those stuck in fear and insecurities) come across the video that you posted. And in your video you are being 100% authentic, real, relevant and relatable. You make your vulnerability known. This sends a message which they may not even recognize on a conscious level. They now feel empowered and inspired to follow your lead. Pretty soon 100’s of people get off of the sidelines and join in. All from you going first, leading, and showing your vulnerability.
That’s true inspiration.
Understand the power that you hold within. Displaying your courage empowers others to display their courage as well.
And remember this….
If we’re all sitting here on the sidelines, with the same fears, the same doubts and the same insecurities then what are we fearful of?
Go!
What’s the worst case scenario? Our ego could be harmed, but that does not affect us anyway because we’ve detached from the ego.
Be the leader, act first and welcome the others to join in on the movement as you do.
Master your mind = master your fears.
Think Different - Live Different
Brian Larson
Creator of: The Break Free Journey