Is Fear Keeping You Stuck in Your Life?

Is Fear Keeping You Stuck in Your Life?

My husband Sharbel and I just completed four fabulous inspirational days at Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy (HPA) in San Diego, CA. A very high performance achiever, Brendon spoke to a huge group of about 2,000 people. It was the largest group of people at a workshop I had ever seen and experienced. It was very powerful having that many attendees’ energies focused on improvement and living better lives for themselves and in service to others.

This event offered a chance to learn so much from Brendon’s deep and wise content and opportunities to exchange ideas with other like-minded aspiring professionals and entrepreneurs. It also gave those attending a chance to network and take stock of their past, present and to create a new vision for their brilliant future.

It was quite amazing to see the incredible energy that Brendon brought to this event and to witness someone so at ease with what he does and who so clearly loves to speak, teach and inspire others. To see what it was like for him to walk out on the stage after each HPA break, check out the short video below he posted on his Facebook page.

The song, “Can’t Hold Us,” written and performed by American hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and singer Ray Dalton, was played repeatedly throughout the event, inspiring us and boosting our energy levels. The song is still playing in both my head and my heart. My husband and I have begun a ritual of beginning our mornings dancing to this fun beat. Our dog Harry is enjoying this new morning fun as well.

Keeping us engaged for four days, three of them from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. was no easy feat. He did have two other energetic speakers during the third day’s afternoon session, but it was predominantly Brendon who held the audience’s attention with both his rich content and his varied and interesting stories of his own experiences, including personal failures and vulnerabilities along the way.

Throughout the four days, he spoke about how he had pressed through his fears, always moving out of his comfort zone and eventually moving on to a new level of success and service. For Brendon, it is his strong vision and mission for his life that is always propelling him forward. That mission is to be in service to others and to himself and his family and to know that he lived, loved, mattered and made a big difference in the lives of so many.

Unlike Brendon, who has made a brilliant life and career of moving past his fears, so many of us are imprisoned by our fears and never move out of our comfort zones to our next levels of success and fulfillment. Some people call fear “False Evidence Appearing Real.” Our egos stand ever ready to launch our rockets of fear, always trying to keep us safe, while simultaneously keeping us stuck in familiar behaviors and patterns.

While our egos do sometimes help to keep us safe, as we lock our doors or stay indoors on days when travel is treacherous, in more ways than we realize, our egos can keep us stuck and prevent us from experiencing more joy and abundance. Sometimes our egos can even prevent us from fulfilling our divine destiny. Fears are so POWERFUL. And so often they are just an illusion or false belief.

While our egos sometimes help to keep us safe, as we lock our doors or stay indoors on days when travel is treacherous, in more ways than we realize, our egos can keep us stuck. Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Asif Akbar, www.sxc.hu/asifthebes.

What can be most insidious about our fears is that we might not even be aware that fear is what is preventing us from moving forward. So many fears hide in our blind spots. We think we are avoiding creating that talk because we are just too busy or haven’t yet come up with the right idea. But truly, it may be because we have a fear of public speaking or a fear we will bore our audience.

Why are you not doing public speaking? So many fears hide in our blind spots. We think we are avoiding creating that talk because we are just too busy or haven’t yet come up with the right idea. But truly, it may be because we have a fear of public speaking or a fear that we will bore our audience. Can you picture yourself at the front of this room with a packed audience? Do you get butterflies in your stomach just thinking about it? Photo from www.freeimages.com by Vicky S at http://www.freeimages.com/photo/129359.

Often our partners are wonderful mirrors and teachers for us. We can see how issues work within them more clearly than within ourselves. My husband, from Beirut, Lebanon, is always teaching me so much as I watch him navigate a totally new culture. When he came here, he delayed driving my minivan because he thought he needed a U.S. driver’s license.

Even when we found out that his Lebanese driver’s license was valid for a year from the time he arrived, he still was putting off driving. It was because he had never driven a minivan before and was used to his smaller car. He built up in his mind how difficult it would be for him and that fear kept delaying his wish to drive the minivan.

My husband built up in his mind how difficult it would be for him to drive our minivan because he had never driven one before. Photo by Donna El Haber, 2012. All rights reserved.

Finally, I pushed the issue and brought him to the parking lot of a big park where he could practice. In no time, he was easily driving the minivan and enjoying it too. He had wasted so much time allowing his ego to take control. His ego thought it was protecting him from something very difficult.

My business teacher shared an exercise to write a list on one side of a page all the things that once seemed impossible that now are not only possible, but easy. You can start out as a child, from tying your shoes to telling time and riding a bicycle, from ice skating and roller skating to driving a car. So many things in our lives that seemed so difficult are now just so naturally easy.

After you write this list, you can create another list of some things you have wanted to do, but have been unable to. Then see if there is something that may be a blind spot for you. Is it really that you don’t have time or money or might it be that there is some fear underneath your reasons? Might it be that your ego is warning you to procrastinate and delay moving forward? Ask some others who know you well about what you put on your list. See if they can help you identify some possible blind spots of fear.

Might it be that your ego is warning you to procrastinate and delay moving forward? Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Sanja Gjenero

I recently watched a YouTube video of daredevil skier Shane McKonkey. You can see it here. I had first seen the video during a livestream in a business class. The topic was about being yourself when you market and about being authentic with your clients. The video, with the song “Juke Box Hero” playing in the background, is amazing.

YouTube video of daredevil skier Shane McKonkey

As I was watching this, I marveled at how truly courageous Shane was to continue living his dream and performing amazing feats of skiing magic despite his age and how many times he had been seriously injured. It is always thrilling to see athletes who have worked so hard all their lives to be at the top of their game beat the odds and perform miraculous athletic acts of courage and grace.

It is always thrilling to see athletes who have worked so hard all their lives to be at the top of their game beat the odds and perform miraculous athletic acts of courage and grace. Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Gary Cowles.

It was also so very sad to have read before viewing the video that Shane had died while trying to perform another daredevil run in Northern Italy from a 2,000-foot cliff with cameras capturing his fall. His parachute jammed and never opened as he fell to his death in 2009. His father, the inspiration for his daredevil skiing, was left with great heartache and the difficulty of coming to grips with this tragic loss.

Shane clearly left a huge legacy and affected the hearts and souls of many, especially those who are avid fans of skiing. Here is a lovely blog post written by one of Shane’s admirers whose life was directly affected by Shane and his legacy: http://danherr.com/2012/03/13/living-life-to-the-fullest-the-mcconkey-legacy/.

As spectators, we can watch with trepidation and awe the balancing feats, strength of will, and courage as Nik Wallenda (www.nikwallenda.com) walks across those thin tightropes so high above the ground between skyscrapers and other extraordinary places of daring height. He, too, is so deeply influenced by his ancestors.

I know of another man, a daredevil mountain climber, who died so young, falling off one of those treacherous mountains. It affected his family so deeply, especially his sister who loved him so much. She knows he was pursuing his passion without fear, as was Shane and as Nik Wallenda is doing. It is what they seemingly were born to do. These men also received important messages and soaked in their own kind of programming when they were young. It was probably about banishing any fears, training hard, pursuing their passions, being an example of striving, dreaming, fighting back and not giving up, even in adversity.

Those who are brave and elicit our admiration were given important messages when they were young about banishing fears, training hard, pursuing their passions, and not giving up, even in adversity. Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Fanny Ab.

So what is it about most of us who are not asked to jump off high cliffs, do somersaults in the air, or balance ourselves on tiny tightropes from daring heights? We may just be asked to call someone whom we have some fear about talking to or step up to a new level of responsibility in our work, or speak for the first time before a small audience or maybe even drive a bigger car.

What blind spots are there for you? What fears may be holding you back from living a larger dream of your life? What fears may be preventing you from the abundance and grace you so richly deserve? What fears may be preventing you from showing others the light within you? And what fears may be preventing you from fulfilling your divine destiny?

What fears may be preventing you from the abundance and grace you so richly deserve? What fears may be preventing you from showing others the light within you? Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Michael & Christa Richert.

In his book Eat that Frog!, business coach and consultant Brian Tracy talks about our avoidance of those “frogs” we find difficult to tackle, the tasks that lead us more often than not to procrastinate. You can read more about his insights on procrastination at http://www.actnow.ie/files/BookSummaryEatThatFrog.pdf.

Is there a frog in your life that you are avoiding? When a task seems daunting, do you procrastinate again and again? Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Roberto Valdés.

In another wonderful book, The War of Art, about procrastination, “resistance,” and overcoming creative blocks, author and screenwriter Steven Pressfield, details so eloquently the many ways our egos put up so much resistance to prevent us from succeeding and moving forward. He describes it as a literal battle that artists must be prepared to fight. It is a war in which so much is at stake.

Are you prepared to go to battle against your ego and resistance? Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Jorge Vicente.

In working with clients, I have seen many blind spots revealed. When they see them for the first time and realize the excuses they made were not really what was preventing them from moving forward, clients are sometimes amazed. Something then begins to open up and they begin to see patterns of excuses because fears were so strong.

When they start evaluating the evidence and realizing all they worried about, although appearing real, never really was, there is a huge sense of relief. So much of what they believed to be true they discover wasn’t really true at all. It is just a matter of taking action and some small steady steps, one foot after the other, and so much that seemed “impossible” is now easily done. “Just show up and do the work,” is what one of my Tellington TTouch® instructors often said. And then you watch the miracles unfold.

I have called the process I use to help both people and guardians and their pets move forward, my “Break Through to Break Free Process™.” As clients “break through” to more joy, health and abundance, they can then “break free” from old fears and previous limiting beliefs and patterns. To find out more about this process and the variety of packages I offer for people and for guardians and their pets, click here. If you would like to set up a free 30-minute get-acquainted session to see if I can help with resistances in your life and also help you open to more joy, love, health and abundance, go to www.meetme.so/donnaelhaber.

May we all have the courage to see our blind spots and then release our fears. Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Leonardo Barbosa, www.leonardobarbosa.net.

May we all have the courage to notice our blind spots and then release our fears as we take small steps toward our divine destiny and the abundance and joy that is awaiting us. Brendon Burchard encourages others to “own” their dreams. What he does and what he has accomplished are extraordinary. Yet he affirms there is nothing magical about what he has accomplished. He became very disciplined along the way, something we all can work at and embrace. He put his mission in life front and center and is always working on ways to improve everything in his life, something we all can also do, each in our own ways.

Shane McKonkey, I am sure, would wish for us all to break free from any limitations and soar to new heights, embracing our highest vision for ourselves and our lives, as we land so magnificently just where we are supposed to be, gliding with joy and purpose for the ride of our lives down the vast and steep slope of infinite possibilities.

Are you ready to land so magnificently just where you are supposed to be, and then glide down the vast and steep slope of infinite possibilities? Photo from www.freeimages.com. Photo by Gary Cowles.

As we do so, we will positively affect the lives of so many, enabling them to shine their lights a little brighter because we have shown them how to break free and move forward with more ease, grace and beautiful balance as we embrace the even greater joy and abundance that is always waiting for us just outside our comfort zone.

With gratitude, love, healing and so many miracles,

Rev. Donna