fear.

fear. it is a challenge to us all. it is a feeling that something is wrong and that we are at risk. it`s a useful mechanism for survival that makes us run from predators and find places to hide. unfortunately, in a modern society, there are few predators able to provide significant threat to our survival, yet we still have this wiring in our brain that tells us to run blindly every now and then.
the interesting thing is that the wiring is weak. all we have to do is physically and mentally ignore the signal and the body follows suit.
people jump out of perfectly good airplanes and laugh all the way down, knowing that the parachute will open and they will float to the ground.
leap and the net will appear.
that is a buddhist saying. i have a card on my fridge with that written on it. on the other side of fear is the rest of your life. mine too.
i used to be terribly afraid of public speaking. every time i found myself in front of a group of people i would freeze up and nobody had a good time.
i knew that i had to deal with the feelings i had, because public speaking, doing seminars, is a large part of what i do and i really wanted to do this work.
thinking back i realise that i just got sick of being controlled by irrational fear of talking in front of people. i am good at what i do. i know the material and really enjoy seeing people get the messages in what i provide. so i just went and booked a seminar room, put out some flyers and took out some ads in the paper and filled the room.
i spent two weeks learning to put the fear aside and focussed on the good feelings we were going to have when i did my job well. the night of the seminar i saw smiling, laughing faces and got the feelings going inside as a result and walked out and introduced myself in the best state possible to entertain and communicate.
i`ve never looked back and it changed my life in so many ways.
our biggest fears create the biggest barriers to our growth and attainment. when you leap the net will appear.
that`s why that card is on my fridge.