Receive my new Audio Recording Transformation From The Inside Out for FREE by recommending me on Facebook or Twitter. Click Here to learn more.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. We ask ourselves, who am I to
be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. 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. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own
fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love-
I'll be the first to admit that I've experienced a whole lot of fear throughout my life. As far as I can tell, it seems to be part of the human condition here on planet earth.
One of the more potent fears for me has been admitting to my fellow human beings that I don't know something. Either I don't know what the heck I'm talking about, or I don't have a clue what they are talking about. In essence, I've been living in fear of "I Don't Know" and THE UNKNOWN in general (learn more about fear by reading my archived articles The Source of All Fear, Love vs Fear, and The Crazy Dance of Fear).
Somewhere along the line I made up a story in my head where admitting my lack of knowledge or understanding on a subject meant that I was a worthless piece of crap; and this was the worst possible perceptions anybody could have of me. This fear was so strong that it began leaking into every area of my life experience. I would avoid asking questions in school because if I had to ask, that of course meant I didn't know and was therefore worthless. I would study by myself. I didn't socialize much. I didn't work well in teams and I never collaborated if I could help it. Asking for help was out of the question. When people would say things to me that I didn't understand, I would pretend to know anyway. I would do just about anything to avoid appearing "stupid" in front of other people.
Now let me be clear, I didn't intentionally set out to deceive people. This was all pretty unconscious. My actions were a natural result of the fearful thoughts I had in my mind. It was innocent enough, but that didn't lessen the impact it had on my life. Such is often the case when we mistake our thoughts for being real.
I've spent so much of my life hiding this fear from others, but more importantly hiding it from myself.
A couple of months ago that all changed when I had a conversation with a wonderful transformative coach named Lisa. I suddenly got a glimpse of the impact this fear has had on my life ever since I was very young. I instantly saw the destructiveness and more importantly the ridiculousness of it all. The whole thing was one big illusion that I had made up in my head.
I had some completely obvious but entirely new insights about this fear. The first being, who cares if don't know something? Nobody knows everything! In fact, very few people like spending time with "know-it-alls"; yet I was trying my darnedest to be one. If somebody actually thinks I am worthless, than I can simply choose to spend less time with that person.
I began to see how my conversations were shallow and un-fulfilling because I was never honest about when I was confused. My education and my work had suffered because as long as I claimed to know what I didn't, I couldn't open up to new learning and new thought. Plus, being full of crap doesn't lend itself to creating deep meaningful relationships. I finally realized that asking for help isn't bad, it's actually an extremely useful strategy in life when we get stuck. Plus, facing life alone sucks!
For years I intellectually understood the value of embracing the unknown. But as many of you know, it's not enough to 'sort of' get it'. So, when I truly saw for myself that the unknown really is where possibility lives, it transformed everything.
In addition to having some insights into the nature of this specific fear, I more importantly had some insights and new thought into the nature of the mind and human experience. These types of insights seem to lead to the most significant transformations.
I saw clearly for the first time that my fear was simply a result of fearful thinking. Not just this specific fear, but all fears. It had absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the outside world. I made it up, and I didn't make it out of something solid, I made it out of thought. We can only ever experience fear as a result of thought, not the world of form. As my mentor Michael Neill is so fond of saying, "we are living in the feeling of our thinking".
Now, when I say I made it up, I don't mean that I sat there and said to myself "okay, how can I scare the crap out of myself for decades? Ah ha! I know, I'll think these scary thoughts about people judging me and rejecting me when I admit to being confused!" It's not like that at all. I made it up in the sense that my scary thoughts are arbitrary. They are just thought, and I don't have to think those thoughts. They aren't personal, or MINE
It's quite a relief to discover our fears aren't based on anything outside of our own mind. Because if my fears had anything to do with the world of form, than to overcome my fears, I would have to try to change something outside of me. Anybody who has played that game for very long can begin to see a couple things. The first being that it can be really hard to create circumstances exactly the way we want them. And the second is that, trying to change our circumstances doesn't actually do anything to change our emotional feelings.
Remember the old saying, wherever you go, there you are? Well I think that's accurate, and I would add to it slightly by saying: Wherever you go you will still feel your thinking.
Now, that can sound like a problem if you don't understand the thought feeling connection. The bad news is we can't get away from our unpleasant emotions by physically changing our location or our circumstances. The good news is... it doesn't matter; we have an infinite potential for new thought in any moment. All we have to do is not try to over steer our thinking.
One of my favorite metaphors for this sensation I got from Michael Neill, and it is that of a power boat. If you've ever driven one, you know that the steering consoles have a self straightening mechanism. So if you are turning and you want to go straight, you don't have to turn it back, you simply release your death grip on the steering wheel and it will return to center.
Similarly, most of us have spent our lives with a death grip on our thinking; never realizing that if we just loosen our grip, our minds would open up to that self correcting mechanism of the mind that allows a constant stream of wisdom and new thought to flow to us.
So, when it came to my fear of the unknown, I had so convinced myself that my fear was justified, that I never really saw the truth that the whole thing was being generated from the inside out.
What happened in the transformative coaching conversation I had was I simply stopped clinging to what I thought I knew about my fear of the unknown. That created just enough space for new thought and insights to come flowing in.
The beauty of the whole thing is that I started changing my behavior naturally as a result of seeing the truth.
I'd tried for years to change my behavior without having any new thinking about this fear. It was effortful and a struggle, and more importantly it didn't work. The second I had new thought about it and the nature of fear itself, I started acting differently.
The reason this can happen is because human behavior is an effect of human thought over time. My new thoughts and insights about living in the unknown allowed me to effortlessly change what I was doing. I have begun openly communicating when i don't understand something. I have begun asking more questions and getting curious instead of scared. I am much more honest with others as well as myself. I'm connecting more deeply with others, and am able to make a bigger difference in people's lives.
Our thoughts about the unknown will create our experience of it, and my experience has shifted from fear to freedom. It creates a space for new creation and new thought. I'm free to ask questions of other people, of myself, and of my source. It's finally okay for me to not know. It's okay that I don't always know exactly how I'm going to help my clients. I have no clue where my next client will come from. It's okay that I don't know how my relationships will unfold. It's okay that I don't know the true meaning of life.
Not knowing allows us to stay in the conversation long enough to receive valuable wisdom from our spiritual mind.
Let me insert one caveat before I come to a close. It's important to realize that just because the unknown can be valuable, that does not mean we have to pretend that we don't know. If our thinking is clear and useful than go with that. Don't let my description of the unknown become a behavioral prescription.
We really do have an infinite potential for new thought thought! This means that regardless of how much we think we already know, our level of understanding can always deepen if we allow it.
Until next time, Live Life from your Love and Light!
Coach Ty
P.S. Remember to check out my new Audio Recording Transformation From The Inside Out for FREE by recommending me on Facebook or Twitter. Click Here to learn more.
Also Starting in November I have a SMOKIN' deal on my 1 on 1 Coaching for over 60% off of my normal rate. That's only $50 per session and I usually charge $150. Contact me to learn more!
