Does fear hold you back?

At 6 am on Monday morning. I was still wide awake – I hadn't slept a wink all night which was very unusual for me! On Sunday evening I had an insight, and that's what was playing on my mind all night.

The insight was, in a nutshell, just how much time I spend in fear*. Now that may seem really obvious to you, but I honestly had not realised just how much of my life was tainted or even controlled by fear. Fear was in the driver's seat without me being aware of it. Most of my decisions were being made from a place of fear or insecurity.

And part of that fear based world included my business of course. And within that framework it definitely includes you because you are part of my community. I was living with the fear of being rejected by you, the fear that if I speak my truth I might make a fool of myself with you, the fear that I might say something today, and then tomorrow I change my mind, and what will you think of me for not being consistent? The worry of not being right, that someone will prove me wrong if I stick my neck out and express my opinion and what if ...... oh no ...... the absolute scariest ....... I speak about the right way to do something, and then I don't do it!

And so what I did instead was hold back just in case I did do “it” wrong, or just in case you didn't like me, or just in case I changed my mind tomorrow. Then you really wouldn't trust me, would you!?

And as I was pondering all this, it dawned on me, you might be living with a lot of fear too. In fact I would put money on it that you are. And if you are, and I share with you just what is going on with me, then it might be helpful. In fact, I am pretty sure it would be helpful to see what goes on for me, and how I deal with it, or I don't!

So what I have decided to do (until I change my mind, lol) is to be as authentic as I possibly can, to share with you just what's going on for me in the hope that it helps you with your business. I'm going to stop trying to get it all just right before I turn it over to you, and that's not because I don't want to give you the best that I've got, it's actually because I am realising more and more that the more I am censoring the real me with my personal thinking, or you could call it ego, the less value you are going to receive from me.

And as I have been writing this, it is amazing just how much I have been tempted to censor it, to hide, to change my mind again, and not share my insight with you and admit to being so controlled by my insecure thoughts. And that might happen in the future, I can't guarantee it won't and I am telling you that in all honesty too.

I have been on the path of the effortless life for a very short time, recently seeing the simplicity of life. And for me that's what this is about, at least once I was able to quieten down my busy thinking mind that was screaming at me to not self sabotage, don't tell people what you are doing, don't tell them what's really going on, you will be too vulnerable and people won't think you are successful and won't want to work with you then.

When I allowed all those thoughts to float away, I was left with this. The bones of honesty, of something I really hope you can connect with. In fact, I know you can, because at the end of the day we are all the same. We are all connected on a level we might not recognise at the moment. The only thing that makes us different is the personal thinking we have about anything. And as I quieten down my personal thinking and allow my own wisdom to bubble up and be heard, I know this is the right thing to do.

The more authentic and honest we can be with each other, the more we can stop hiding behind a mask of who we think we should be, the easier it will be for the whole world. We don't have to work so hard at pretending to be something we are not, our own light can shine brightly and we get to work with just the right clients for us. Win-win-win.

While we pretend, put on a show of who we think the world wants us to be, we are depriving the world of two things. Firstly, who we really are, and secondly, allowing the perfect clients to find us. While you are over there with your mask on, pretending to be all perfect over there, the people that really need you are over here, looking at you wondering who could possibly help them because it's clearly not you, you are too perfect!

*I recognise that fear is a present moment emotion and so anxiety would be the more correct term, but for the sake of using the most commonly used term, I have stuck to the word, fear.