How to turn fear into fuel: a journal exercise
If you stop running and hiding from the things that make you nervous, you’ll see for yourself, fear is a gift. A message. A lesson to guide you in the right direction. A shortcut to level up.
Here I share a potent journal exercise from my free Failure Friendly Ebook, an exercise I did every Monday morning for a year. I owe my sanity to this practice of facing, flipping and freeing fear.
You’ll see that nowhere does it ask you to feel your fear. That’s because I wasn’t ready to feel it, I was still governed by masculine ideals and saw emotions as weakness.
This analytical approach to fear, gave me the freedom to investigate my fear from a safe distance. If you’re at the early stages of your Failure Friendly journey (waking up and shaking up subconscious limiting beliefs) this is a must do exercise for you.
I challenge you to do this journal exercise consistently, every day or every week, at least 8 times. Get to know your fear, it’s patterns, it’s language and most importantly it’s messages.
The evidence behind this exercise is that fear and excitement are two side of same coin. Fear and excitement cause the exact same physiological reaction in the body, the only difference is the meaning we decide to make.
For those of you who are ready for more, (who are ready to make up with your wounded selves through self compassion), let me leave you with this poem from Rumi.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Fear is not the monster you think it is.
Your Friend
Buzzy