How to transform your deepest fear into positive action

What is your deepest fear about the changes you want to make this year? Even if you don’t set new year’s resolutions. You may set intentions to change, goals or objectives at another point in the year.

Whenever you set an intention for something to be different, to make a change, a fear about it may still be there. And whilst I think it’s important to get to know our fear, I love the sentiment around the nature of fear in the poem ‘Our Deepest Fear’ by Marianne Williamson.

Read about how to transform your deepest fear about the changes you want to make this year into positive action #seriousillness #chronicillness Tell a friend

Are you actually afraid of your greatness?

Her premise is that our deepest fear is of our own greatness, our power, our light. And I get that. A lot of my clients are surprised to learn how much they focus on their inadequacy or what is wrong rather than what is going well in their lives and how good they feel about something positive which has happened.

We have ended up being hard wired to focus on the negative (and this helped our ancestors survive). Yet what if we developed our abilities to focus on the positive? This could balance things out a bit. I’ve seen the positive difference it has made with clients.

And that is very much needed when you are living with a challenging health issue be it an illness or injury where your life may have changed a lot and it feels like that all you’ve been dealing with is negativity. It can help you to make the changes you want for yourself.

So what I’ve done is taken Marianne Williamson’s poem ‘Our Deepest Fear’, which is in italics throughout this blog, and added in questions and thoughts on each stanza for you to reflect on. To help you develop your self-appreciation muscle for the year ahead.

Our Deepest Fear

You can find this poem in Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

You may think, ‘What power do I have? My body is broken/changed! I can’t do what I used to do!’

Yes, your body has changed. You have changed. But I challenge that the change means you are devoid of power, adequacy, and light.

I encourage you to think about the personal power you do have, what you are good-enough at, and all the lovely qualities that make you uniquely you.

What is your personal power like? Where do you feel your power and adequacy in your body? In your chest, belly, legs, arms, back, all over? What are these sensations like?

What are your strengths, passions and talents? You still have all that. You may need to adapt how you manifest them and you may have developed new ones.

Who are you not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not be?
You are a child of God.

Are you holding a belief that you can no longer be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous whilst dealing with the impact of a challenging health issue?

Are you holding a belief that you can no longer be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous whilst dealing with the impact of a challenging #health issue? #seriousillness #seriousinjury Tell a friend

Sometimes we assume we can only be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous if we have the kind of health we had before our health issue. Or we equate being brilliant, gorgeous, etc with being perfect.

It’s not about that. It’s about you being your own good-enough version of brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous with where you are now in your life.

What do you need to think, do and feel to fully stand in your brilliance and own it?

Your deepest fear is making you shrink

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

In the context of this stanza, ‘playing small’ comes across as playing small in a way that is not helpful to you. For example, putting other people’s needs ahead of your own, not asking for what you need, not asking for help when you know you really could use it, or not having a small go at something you really would like to do for yourself.

‘Playing small’ in a way that serves you well is absolutely fine. Paradoxically, It’s a way of ‘playing large’ in your life even whilst you are dealing with the challenges of your or our loved one’s health issue.

What would it be like for you to play large in your life?

If this feels scary, remember that taking small actions is absolutely fine and recommended because they are more achievable. ‘Playing large’ isn’t about doing big things on a grand scale. You define what ‘playing large’ looks, sounds and feels like to you.

So play with ‘playing large’. Use your imagination. If you were playing large in your life, what would we see you do and hear you say?

Notice what it’s like in your body to play large in your life. Spend time with what it feels like to get to know these feelings. Do this often. That makes these feelings habitual. Feelings you can return to again and again.

You are meant to shine

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; 
It’s in everyone. It’s in everyone.

If the word ‘God’ bothers you, think of God as your inner greatness. And if society’s traditional definition of God works for you, by all means use it.

What is your inner greatness like? If you drew a picture of your inner greatness, what would it look like?

How do you want to manifest your greatness this year? It doesn’t have to be in any big or grand way. It can be of a size and quality that is just right for you.

How do you want to manifest your greatness this year? It doesn’t have to be in any big or grand way. It can be of a size and quality that is just right for you #seriousillness #seriousinjury Tell a friend

When you liberate yourself from your deepest fear, you end up liberating others

And as we let our own light shine, 
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

Imagine what it would be like to let your own light shine and do what you really want to do despite your deepest fear. How liberated would you feel?

I think when we want to do something we are very keen to do, we have to feel the fear we hold about it. We have to sit with our fear and feel our way through it. Society often teaches us the opposite, to quash the fear, to put a lid on it. But by getting to know our fear and the need resting underneath it, we liberate ourselves from our fear. We sit alongside it rather than have it wrapped around us keeping us stuck.

By doing that, you role model for others how liberating oneself from fear is done. By them seeing it, that makes it a lot easier for them to change. So you end up giving a gift to others.

What’s it like for you?

How do you want to share your brilliance, greatness and talents this year? What will enable you to do that?  And if you have been doing it already, let us know what you’ve done. Share your thoughts or questions in the comments below or alternatively email them to me (contact form in sidebar).  

If you are living with a serious health issue or are caring for someone who is, and would like support to make changes this year, have a look at how we can work together and get in touch for a free no obligation consultation.

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© Copyright Barbara Babcock 2019