Fear is something that’s coming up a lot with my clients at the moment.  It seems to be a fundamental base to many issues that people come to see me for.

Fear of letting go of things that have been part of their lives for a long time.

Fear of letting themselves eat.

Fear of making decisions about their relationship with their partner.

Fear of changing their beliefs about themselves and letting themselves be who they want to be.

When stuff like this emerges, a great deal of the work I do with clients is centred around helping them to discover that they already have the resources they believe they need to overcome the fear – things like courage, bravery and determination.

Many people seem to hold the idea that successful / happy / fulfilled (*delete as applicable) people never get scared.  I disagree – I think that feeling an element of fear is both important and useful.  Fear shows us that we’re on the point of change, that we’re standing on the edge of taking a step into the unknown, that we’re moving out of protection-mode and into growth.

The fear itself isn’t the problem – it’s ok to feel scared.  It’s how you react to that fear that makes the difference to your life.

Fear, just like any other emotion or behaviour, has a purpose.  The unconscious makes us feel fear in order to protect us from something that it thinks will hurt us.  Fear can keep us stuck somewhere we don’t consciously want to be because it feels safer to stick to what we know rather than risk being happy somewhere else.

I think that using fear as a marker to let us know when we need to push ourselves that bit further, to summon up that bit of courage we all have within us is vital if we want to grow.  For me, being brave doesn’t mean never being scared.  Having courage doesn’t mean never feeling fear.

For me, courage is feeling the fear, recognising that it’s there, understanding why it’s there, and then overcoming it in whatever way you can.

So whatever it is that you’re scared of – go do it.