Are You Living Out of Love or Out of Fear?
Posted on June 10, 2014 by Cari Rauch, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Knowing the answer to this question can change your life instantly. This article offers how to recognize it and an easy way to change it.
Most people don’t know the answer to this question, probably because it’s not a typical question we tend to ask ourselves. For myself I never really thought about how I was living and the reasons why I did things. When I did ask myself the question I really wanted to answer that of course I was living out of love – who wants to admit they live out of fear. However, when I took a close and honest look – I realized I have spent a lot of my time living out of fear.
Here’s a few of the things I realized I have done out of fear:
- I’ve stayed quiet and hidden out of fear of being ridiculed and judged.
- I’ve exercised long and hard (many different times in my life) out of fear of being fat.
- I’ve restricted food and dieted out of fear of gaining weight.
- I didn’t try out for things in school because of fear I wasn’t going to get picked (not good enough).
- I’ve stayed in jobs (many of them) out of fear I would run out of money.
- I’ve stayed in relationships out of fear of being alone.
It was a little bit shocking to see this list of how I had been living a lot of my life out of fear (I did write out a list of how I have lived out of love too.) Living out of fear isn’t enjoyable – it’s actually the underlying reason for chronic stress and unhappiness. Our minds believe we are going to prevent something bad from happening by doing or not doing something. This causes us to stay in this perpetual cycle of continuing to live out of fear.
An example of how this works goes like this. First we notice that our pants seem to feel a little bit tighter. Our mind starts to think we are gaining weight which causes us to feel afraid. Feeling fearful we start a new exercise program or go on the latest diet. We temporarily see a change (looser fitting clothes) but because we were driven by fear – the journey wasn’t enjoyable (in fact most of the time we dislike or hate it) so as soon as we can we stop. Then it happens again – our pants feel tighter and with that the perpetual cycle starts.
So how do we change it? Here’s a few simple steps to get started:
1. Become Aware – start noticing why you are doing things. Ask yourself am I doing this out of love or out of fear?
2. Decide if this is something you want to do. The only reason to do something is because you want to (remember there is nothing you have to do it’s all a choice) and doing if out of love makes it even better.
3. Find a reason why that feels good to you. The only difference between doing something out of love or out of fear is simply the thoughts/beliefs you are choosing to think.
Doing something out of fear never creates lasting results because it doesn’t feel good so it’s not sustainable. The only way to create lasting change in your life is by doing so out of love because in the end that’s all we are really after anyways – is feeling good.
