Question of the Week: Can Fear Be Good?
It’s Face Your Fear Week on Sage Grayson Coaching. I’m sharing posts about confronting your fears so you can live your happiest, most-authentic life.
Today, I want to know if you’ve ever had a good experience with fear.
Has fear ever been a good thing in your life?
It was a purposeful choice to name this series “Face Your Fear Week” instead of “Kill Your Fear” or “Destroy Your Fear” or “Beat the Livin’ Crap Out of Your Fear.”
Fear isn’t necessarily good or bad. It just is. It’s your body’s way of warning you about danger.
I really enjoyed the book The Gift of Fear, and I like the idea that fear can save us from bad situations or dangerous people.
In my life, fear shows up as procrastination. But even then it’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes my fear of failure will make me procrastinate, and then later I’ll find out that if I had gone through with whatever it was, I would have been in big trouble. Our subconscious minds can detect things that might not be apparent at first glance.
In the comments below, share a time when fear was a good thing in your life.
I think that fear can be incredibly motivating. I used to be horribly afraid of public speaking. I was forced to take a public speaking class my freshman year for my major and my first speech I literally stood there trembling so much that I dropped my cards and completely lots my train of thought. I kept up with it and forced myself into situations where I’d have to stand in front of people and speak and wouldn’t you know it 5 years later I was TEACHING a public speaking class in grad school. I don’t necessarily enjoy it still but I don’t have a crippling fear of it and that fear was my motivation to really push forward and conquer it…. and that helped me get ahead in school and made a huge difference in my achievements.
That’s wonderful, Sarah! I’ve also found that exposing myself to my fear over and over again will make it easier to handle. And I love public speaking. 🙂
Once upon a time, I didn’t allow myself to feel fear. I would numb it, or instantly shift it to anger, or try to put a happy face on it. Now, I embrace fear.
Fear lets me know that something I’m thinking is not in support of what I’m wanting. It lets me know that there’s a strong network of beliefs that need to shift.
I’m not talking about the feeling I get when something feels off in a dark alley. When I get that feeling, I get the heck out of the alley!!!
I’m talking about the feeling of not wanting to do a talk, or step on the scale. At those points, I ask myself what I’m thinking. I soothe myself. I assure myself that it’s all good. When I feel a little better, then I take some action. I move out of it.
My fears are useful because they are helping me to grow.
I love this! My fears are helping me grow into a better person too. 🙂