Do you want to know something scary? Not wanting to be scared.
Posted on November 05, 2013 by Valentina Di Pietro, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Fear is a friend. Fear can be healthy. Invite fear to tea, look her in the eye. Talk to her. Then, show her the way out and say goodbye.
Happy Halloween. We do not have Halloween in Italy so it is even more fun for us. Our little boy picked Spider Man costume. He is fascinated by the acrobatic skills of the young Peter Parker in the blue and red suit. I asked him why not superman, another super hero. Vittorio seemed not to be thrilled by the speedo.
As I imagined, the mind of a 3 years old was more attracted by the sugar and the chance to look inside other people’s houses than facing the horror of skeletons and decapitated bodies. “No scary mamma, I don’t want scary”. We tried to skip the houses that were scary to me too and picked the ones that were “safer”. We had a great time!
Of course, Vittorio did not want to sleep by himself and slept in my bed last night.
It made me think about fear, and why we are fascinated by scary things and horror movies, even if watching them with hands on our eyes. It is the same reason why people watch the news, when sometimes the number of people alive is far less than those who dead. Why do we have to witness blood, fear, tears and screams?
Why horror movies that are told being “based on true events” are at the top of the charts?
Because probably we need to feel scared once in while. We need to taste fear, shaky legs and cold hands. Fear is a sign that we feel, and it can tell us how much courage we have.
In coaching, this is one of the first things I say when clients admit that they are scared —feeling ashamed of it. They talk as if they are not supposed to be scared, as if they were cowards. Or they admit that they feel scared and have not idea how to deal with this nasty feeling.
Fear is a friend, invite it to tea. I always say. Let fear come in, look her in the face, smile at her. Fear is good. Fear is healthy. But fear must come and then go. So after tea, show her the door and say goodbye.
Fear is healthy because is there to protect us. The work that needs to be done is understanding how to part from it and let it go. Let go of it to make room for options, problem solving and clarity.
Like Mrs Roosevelt said:“Do something that scares you everyday”. it is the only way to build self-esteem while embracing emotions and feeling.
Happy Halloween and scare your fears away!
