The REAL Reason You Have Fear

Posted on Mar. 12, 2009 by Baeth in Life Purpose

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately: “What’s the REAL reason we have fear?” Why? Because I’ve been having more fear than usual. Why? I’m doing things that are new in my business and thus, I’m in unfamiliar territory.

You’ve probably heard these explanations for the root of your fear more than once:

·         You’re out of your comfort zone

·         You need more information

·         You fear the unknown

·         You lack courage

·         You lack focus

·         You lack self-confidence

And that’s just a short list!  While all of those reasons are potentially valid depending upon the situation, I’d like to dig a little deeper, using your fingerprints as our map through fear.

Your fingerprints reveal several aspects of your soul, and one of those aspects is your Life Lesson. Your Life Lesson is your blind spot, your gremlin, your nemesis, your “negative tapes.”

Your Life Lesson could be one or a combination of these issues:

·       panic caused by a life out of balance (everything is an *emergency*)

·       anxiety making decisions

·       not expressing your authentic feelings due to the perceived expectations of others

·       sacrificing yourself into burdensome obligation

·       lack of clarity about your definition of success

·       challenges owning your power in the world

·       challenges managing your energy, time and money

·       challenges expressing your creativity

·       challenges speaking up for your self

·       challenges with your family and community (on a life scale)

·       challenges finding your passion and dealing with victimization, shame and numbness

·       challenges finding your niche due to guilt (”If I succeed, it takes away from others.” THAT kind of guilt)

·       paralyzing fear of rejection

·       trust/surrender/intimacy issues with anything: other people, food, money, etc.

If you look at the above list, are there one or two Life Lessons that really stand out for you? My Life Lesson is “not expressing my authentic feelings due to the perceived expectations of others.” Sooooo… now I’m doing new and different things with my business - and what do I fear? You guessed it! I fear what other people think and feel about me. (I recognize I have no control over what others think and feel about me. But it doesn’t make my lesson any less painful for the knowing.)

If you follow any fear to its natural conclusion, the fear is a painful outcome - humiliation, shame, excommunication, torture, fire, starvation, annihilation, etc. You think I’m kidding? I’m not kidding. THAT’S why we get so afraid about making that important phone call, closing the sale, standing up to our mother or father or our children.

Our Life Lesson is the surface issue that trips us up - it acts, amazingly enough, as a PROTECTION mechanism. What lies below that surface issue is our fear of not surviving. Fear lives in our mid-brain or *reptile brain* and it runs on instinct. All our crocodile brain knows is that if you step into the “Life Lesson Zone,” something scary is going to happen.

And then the drama begins. You get distracted, you procrastinate, you have no money, you have no time… The drama is the crocodile brain’s way of keeping you from FACING your Life Lesson and hence, learning it. By not facing the Life Lesson, our crocodile brain achieves ITS goal of keeping us stuck. When we learn our Life Lesson, we actualize our Life Purpose

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7 Responses to “The REAL Reason You Have Fear”

  1. Kimberly Englot

    12. Mar, 2009

    Great article, Beth! Life can be scary sometimes but there is so much “awesomeness” beyond the fear. I try to do something “uncomfortable” or “risky” several times per week. I usually find that when I am afraid, it’s because I’m not living in the moment because the anticipations is way worse than the actual event. Just yesterday I did something that I was ahsolutely terrified of–I just did, and “breathed” my way through it.
    Thanks for this!
    Kim

  2. Helen

    12. May, 2009

    More, more, more on this subject please!

  3. Sarah

    12. May, 2009

    Baeth, I have heard so much about you through Coco Fossland, and I believe I am still in touch with Hannah, via myspace! I wanted to post to your blog, in the spirit of submitting to your contest. To tell you the truth, a lot of people in my community have talked about your Spiritual Summit, and I have been reluctant to even consider it. I think that may be coming from *fear* because I have been challenged to stretch in so many big ways already this year, in trying to rethink my business as a photographer to more clearly reflect my position as an optimist. One of the biggest fears I am coming up against is having to admit that I don’t know everything! I’m smart and accomplished, yet I don’t have as much success as I want, which raises a lot of fear for me… Fears which I *fear* I would have to face at your summit! So, in fact, I think I am writing this not even *wanting* to attend, but rather, thinking that I *need* to! And, knowing that I won’t, unless some uncanny synchronicity presents me with the opportunity in such a magical way that I won’t be able to cower from it. I appreciate you creating the challenge of this contest, because to me, even having to admit (on the internet, for crying out!) that I would like to be more successful than I am is overcoming a plethora of fears. Thank you so much for being the center of a community where people are called to stand forth as they are, without the delusion that we have anything to be ashamed of. And, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts in this way.

  4. Name Robin

    12. May, 2009

    I would LOVE to go to your workshop and receive a complimentary ticket because:
    - I am getting divorced and feel myself retreating
    - have a business with a major Fortune 500 co that is making changes
    -have one child in college, at $50k net per year
    -trying to find my life purpose through the maize of it all
    -looking for some direction - on a deeper level
    - looking to put the J back in OY
    -my education fund has dried up
    - It will change my life, and I will be so grateful.

  5. Julissa

    12. May, 2009

    I just got your email about the possibility of getting a free ticket to your LPSS and I am in tears!!!! For me its like a glimpse of hope.
    I need this workshop like I can’t even explain. This past year has been an incredible journey of challenges that the Universe has put in my path to take me out of my misery and into my PURPOSE. If I give you all the details I’ll write a book so I’ll cut to the chase. My husband and I both lost our jobs on the same day over a year ago. As you can imagine the financial burden has been pretty intense. My home is on the verge of going into foreclosure and despite it I decided when I lost my job over a year ago that I would finally start my business and I would do whatever it takes to SUCCEED. The job I lost was a job I had dreamed of because I thought once I achieved an executive, 6 figure position I would be set. I quickly found out how miserable I was and I know I had internally asked to be removed. And while the layoff has been challenging, I know its the course the universe has conspired to lead me through.
    I have started my business. I have established a platform but something is missing. Something fuzzy is there and I’m not quite sure what it is. That unknown factor has paralyzed me. I need clarity and I know you can offer it to me at this Summit. I realize how valuable this would be and trust me when I say I had to choose between paying a month of my mortgage or going to your summit. Posting all this private and painful information on a blog gives me stomach pangs but I DON’T CARE if it will get me this amazing opportunity. I will use the Spiritual Blueprint to get clear and take the necessary steps to leaving my blueprint on this planet. I know I have a HUGE purpose and I am hungry to fulfill it.
    I truly hope this is compelling enough.

  6. Angela Croft

    12. May, 2009

    Hi Baeth,

    I love this article and had just this kind of conversation today with my dear husband who is freaked out of his mind about an interesting yet somewhat intimidating opportunity that has come his way & I will be passing this on to share with him.

    I am also responding to your invitation to apply for a free ticket to your upcoming event in Vegas. I first learned of you and your work when I was in Tucson a few weeks ago– (coincidence? I think not!) –and at the time I thought ‘how neat is this that I am feeling so inspired and motivated by this woman who also happens to live in Tucson’. As a life coach, I focus on helping people connect with their vision, passion, and purpose and I think your work is fascinating. When I was looking through the material on your website and read about the Summit, everything in me said “you need to be in Vegas”…and then everything in me said ‘there’s no way financially you can do this right now’ (even after I pondered every possible option!). I have been developing my business as I live life “on the road” with my husband who is a professional musician with the Broadway hit “Mamma Mia”, and while this opportunity to tour North America has been an incredible life experience, it has been a real challenge to live on one income while my business is getting going. My husband, who is unbelievably supportive, has even put aside some of his own financial goals at times to help me out along the way, and with some recent breaks in the tour (and several weeks of lost income) while continuing to pay for flights, meals and accommodations, we’re just not in a position to stretch for “extras” right now.

    His work and calling as a musician has provided me with so many incredible opportunities, including the luxury of having a considerable amount of time to be freed up from my previous work as a family therapist to pursue my dream of becoming a life coach. Aside from fulfilling my own goals and ambitions in building a successful business, one of my biggest objectives in achieving great financial success is to be able to gift him with the same kind of financial, emotional, and spiritual freedom that he has given me so that he too can begin to navigate a much-needed new direction in his own work after working for the tour seven days a week for three years non-stop.

    When I learned that the tour will be taking us to Nevada at the same time as your Summit (we will be in Reno July 2-7 and it’s a super affordable flight to get to Vegas)– I felt such a strong feeling that I should be there (again…coincidence?). I have felt for a while that there is something bigger that I am meant to be doing with my work and something I need to overcome in order to fully actualize my own purpose. I know that I have a gift for what I do but that in terms of building my business and my identity as an entrepreneur, there is something I’m missing- something I can’t quite see but that if I could I would be off to the races… and I know that I can get what I need from the experience that you are offering…….and I am SO ready! I am the type of person that does not shy away from what I need to do once I know what that is…I love to learn and what I do learn I put into practice and also share with others–so your free ticket will not be wasted on me–I am raring to go and given the opportunity I would be probably be the most excited person on the planet to know I’m going to the Summit in Vegas !!

    So…thank you for your work and for sharing your unique gift and voice– and hopefully I will see you in Vegas :-) Angela C.

  7. Angela Croft

    13. May, 2009

    Hi Baeth,
    One more thing!…I should probably also add to my Summit free ticket “application” that as a Canadian on tour in the U.S. with my husband, my travel visa does not allow me to accept funds from Americans at this time–so while I have had an abundance of amazing American clients , I have been doing this work pro bono in exchange for some great testimonials that will be available on my website (that should be launched in the next couple of weeks) in addition to the incredible satisfaction I have experienced along the way. It is important to me to keep doing my work -so pro bono work has not felt like a compromise so far (but it’s starting to!) and being on the road away from my home in Toronto has posed a interesting challenge in terms of accessing clients and markets from whom I can accept payment–so I have invested my last remaining business credit to develop my website. So…normally I go all out for these kinds of things- seeing it as an investment - but now my situation is temporarily different without an active income (yet!!). So, I know there are some upcoming new frontiers for me as I tackle the next challenge of marketing and deveIoping various service products and I am very excited to embrace the money aspects of my business as I also continue to be of service… and I know that your Summit would be an experience that would help me immeasurably to step into this challenge with the utmost clarity. Angela C.

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