Is Fear Holding You Back?

I belong to a mastermind group, but we haven't been meeting up so frequently over the past year and so when we finally caught up the other day it was lovely to hear how everyone is getting along in their life and business.

One of the ladies has written a book, and I thought she would have had it published by now since the last time we spoke a few months ago that was the plan. The book is pretty much her life story which illustrates how she came through her trials and tribulations with the intention of helping others to do the same.

She followed the "rules of the game" by sending out the manuscript and getting feedback from a few people in her target market. The feedback was good apart from the fact that they mostly said they hadn't done the exercises she suggested in the book that would help them to move forward.
And then she gave the manuscript to a couple of friends and colleagues.

That's where it really started to fall apart for her. Their feedback was that it didn't really flow, the story of her life and the "coaching" part of the book were like two separate voices.

Now she feels stuck.

What should she do? Start again? Modify it? Make it in to an audio book?

On our mastermind call,she is lucky enough (or unlucky depending on your point of view!) to be one of 4 coaches. And so the natural question arose …….. what's your biggest fear in publishing the book?

Her immediate answer: fear of exposure. And yet she had written the whole book based on her own life story and had set out to do just that to help others.So what happened?
As an outsider and someone who has an understanding of the power of Thought, it's really simple.

She bought into some fearful thinking.

Simple and yet not so easy to see when you are experiencing it!

Fear appears so real especially when it is accompanied by physical evidence such as butterflies in the tummy, a racing heart and sweaty palms!How can this not be real?!

Well, the physical symptoms are certainly real and they are telling us something as is the feeling of fear.They are pointers or guides showing us the way back to the truth.
I love the acronym of fear: F.E.A.R. False Evidence Appearing Real.

So if this is not true, what is it pointing us to?

Every feeling is pointing us within. Every feeling is a gift though it may not look that way at the time!They are gifts that remind us to wake up to the way life is working - from the inside out.

So going back to my story about my mastermind colleague. She thought she was fearful of exposure and all that would bring to her. She didn't realize that she was creating the fear herself through believing in the fearful thoughts that were arising.

On the call, one of the group members reminded her of why she wrote the book and how many people it could help.Her mood lifted instantly and she started to see the possibilities and how she was holding herself back.

Basically, she had fresh thought about the book and felt inspired to get it out into the world.

Again, simple and yet life changing on so many levels.

That's the miracle of life.

We are the projectors rather than the cameras.

We don't take a snapshot of what's happening out there, we are creating it within and projecting it and living it, though we have been trained to believe it's coming from out there.As with any movie it changes depending on the lens we are seeing through ie,Fearful thoughts = fearful movie.Inspired thoughts = inspired movie.

It's pure magic when you think about it - we are creating the movie, we are the special effects team and we are the audience experiencing the movie all at the same time! Amazing!