Facing Your Fear
Posted on February 06, 2019 by Joyce Collins, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
This article is about the value and importance of facing your fear. If you are struggling with fear, this article is for you!
I’ll start with a poem I wrote about facing my fear.
Letting Go
To cling to what I treasure and shun what I fear is not in itself the vice
That lies within the blind I wear and the will to pay its price -
To never know the value in the consequence I fear
Or the detriment to life itself of that which I hold dear
A few months ago I dreamed that I walked with perfect calmness out of my safe comfortable home to a cliff by the ocean.
I told no one I was leaving.
I walked down a treacherous trail to the bottom of the cliff where I bought a small boat, just big enough for me, and a paddle.
The man who sold me the boat asked where I was going, to which I replied that I was going to the middle of the ocean. When he asked if I had experience being on the ocean, I replied that I did not.
He said, “Aren’t you afraid to go to the middle of the ocean alone in a small boat with no provisions?” “Yes,” I said serenely. “That’s why I’m going.”
At this point in the dream I bolted upright in bed, my heart pounding out of my chest. I could not imagine anything more terrifying than doing what I set out to do in the dream, and I was shaken to the core that my subconscious self desired it.
Consider the first two lines of the poem “Letting Go.”
To cling to what I treasure and shun what I fear is not in itself the vice
That lies within the blind I wear and the will to pay its price -
Following my dream meant letting go of everything I valued, letting go of feeling safe, comfortable, and in control.
Why in the world would I do that?!!!
Answer – to learn what my fear was hiding from me. My subconscious knew that the path to my fear is the path to growth.
Consider the third line of the poem:
To never know the value in the consequence I fear
Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “We must grow or die.”
The path to my fear is the path to my growth, therefore the path to life.
Consider the last line of the poem:
Or the detriment to life itself of that which I hold dear
My subconscious also knew I was stagnating in my comfort zone, and therefore, to stay in there is to die.
What, if any of this, is going on with you?
