Sometimes, half the battle in life-and in our acting-is to become aware of when we get scared and how fear actually stops us from really going after what we want.
I’m not talking about the kind of fear that one experiences while watching “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” I mean more subtle forms of fear that show up in self-sabotaging ways that, if we’re not vigilant of, become habits of thought that really keep us from being self-actualized in our lives, in love, in our careers, and in our creative work.
It’s not always easy at first to identify the subtle forms of fear, because our egos do an amazing job in coming up with valid rationalizations of why our excuses seem true.
But they’re not; they’re just thinly veiled forms of fear.
When I procrastinate or negate, when I get cynical or annoyed, when I’m impatient or reactive, when I gossip or resist, when I complain or get triggered-that’s all fear.
“Of what?” You might ask.
Getting out there, getting seen, being heard, being rejected, putting yourself on the line, opening your heart, being vulnerable, taking the leap, trusting in process and that it will work out, not measuring up, letting events define us, thinking we’re going to fail, not really believing that we can do it.
So if we can start to catch ourselves in habituated forms of fear that are keeping us from taking that acting class, or getting seen by a casting director, or producing our own Web series, or writing our own book, or asking someone out on a date, we can get out of our own way and actually attempt to do these things.
When the subtle forms of fear start showing up in the dialogues in our head, what’s the alternative to combating them?
Love.
Ask yourself, “What is the loving choice here?”
How would your higher self react? Not with anger or condemnation, not scolding you, not shaming you and making you feel inadequate, not believing that you can’t do something, not making you stuck.
Love is the answer.
And it’s closer than you think-through a breath, a smile, a moment, seeing something from another person’s perspective, giving people the benefit of the doubt, realizing when people do things it has nothing to do with us, by not taking everything so personally, by acknowledging when you do get scared as opposed to pretending you’re not.
Simple, but not easy.
But in simplicity, it’s everything we can understand and also implement to make positive changes in our lives.
So try it. Watch when you react to something. Sit and breathe and see if you can ask yourself, “What am I really scared of here?” You’ll be surprised that you’ll know. And that just by recognizing it, you won’t be scared of it anymore. Or maybe you will, but you’ll forge forward anyway.
And isn’t that what an active life is all about? Feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
*First published on Backstage