The two types of fear
And what to do with them!
Hello you.
How are you doing today? How are your fears?
My fears are just the same as usual thanks, they are there, they pop up over and over (and over!) in different situations, but I am doing my best to manage them and not let them run the day for me.
My last big jolt of fear was on Sunday teatime, just before the first journaling session I ran as part of my new membership.
It’s a new and small membership and the first paid for offering. I had no idea if anyone would come and so I had all these thoughts;
What if no one comes?
What will I say when people ask me how it went?
How good a coach and marketeer can I be if I can't get anyone to come along?
What if people don't care about journaling?
Why did I do this on a bank holiday weekend?
What if there is just ONE person and it feels super awkward and they look at me as a failure?
What if one person is worse than NO people?
Urgh!
As it happens, people did turn up, they are interested in journaling and how it can support them, they actually found it REALLY valuable, it didn't bomb, it wasn't super awkward and it feels like the beginning of something good and important.
How did I push through those icky feelings of fear though?
More on that in a bit ;)
Fears are all over the place when we are running a business and just generally in life. Anything that involves us putting ourselves out there, being visible, be that business, dating, public speaking, job interviews, having opinions in meeting and gatherings, these are all spaces where fear starts to take hold.
Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of judgement. Fear of rejection. Fear of not being acceptable. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of ridicule. Fear of not being liked. Fear of your life not turning out the way you want it to be.
It's perhaps something people involved in running their own business do anticipate happening, as you have to push through a lot of fears to actually get something off the ground, but I think the amount of times fears show up and gets in the way on an ongoing basis can come as a bit of a surprise. It did to me. I thought I’d push through the initial discomfort and then I’d fly, but nooooo.
I came across an interesting thing about fear which I want to share with you, as unpicking fear and looking at exactly what it is is the first step to mastering it.
In her excellent book ‘Playing Big', Tara Mohr explains how there are two words for fear in Hebrew, two distinct types;
Pachad and Yirah.
Pachad is projected or imagined fear. Fear that when we interrogate it can be seen as an overreactive, irrational fear, not the sure thing it’s being presented as: But Pachad looks like the fear of rejection, judgement, failure, things going wrong.
This is the fear I was describing above, the fear I felt last Sunday tea time.
Yirah is a type of fear where we are going to take a step up, do something new, inhabit a larger space than we are used to. It is also the feeling we feel when we are in alignment. Doing the right thing. If you've ever been coached by me you might have heard me describe this state as when you get 'tingly'. I love a good tingle!
Yirah is a state to connect with and enjoy, to see it as a huge sign that, despite the unknown quantities at play, you are very much on the right track. Stay with Yirah, don't allow it to tip over into Pachad.
However, in full honesty, when I decided to offer monthly journaling sessions as part of my membership, and imagined that beautiful, thoughtful space I would create to allow women to grow and become MORE, that’s exactly the mistake I made.
Initially it was Yirah. I tingled. I felt myself growing and becoming MORE. It was exciting!
But as the event got closer I inevitably tipped into Pachad.
So, how did I tip BACK from Pachad to Yirah?
I asked myself the two questions that I always ask myself and I also ask my clients when their fear shows up in coaching sessions.
What's the worst thing that could happen?
And can you handle that?
In my situation, the worst case was; no one comes, this reflects badly on my status as coach and marketing genius to a small number of people that would ask or notice. I also might need to rethink that aspect of my membership. Maybe having a membership full stop isn’t going to fly.
Can I handle that? Yes. It doesn't feel good but I can definitely handle it. I have handled a lot worse.
I also immersed myself in prepping for the session, knowing that no one might come but that if they did, I was going to make it valuable. I was going to enjoy it. Back to Yirah.
So remember this acronym next time you start to wobble.
Fear.
False Evidence Appearing Real.
If you are in my membership, you’ll maybe know that the next live event with me is a Q&A coaching session called ‘Ask me anything about FEAR’.
Join me and other creative women to talk about and listen to stories of our fears and how we can work around them.
You can simply click the link below, register and submit a question for me if you would like me to work with you during the call. You can also just come along and learn from the process, no pressure at all to submit a question, or to chat.
These sessions will be monthly and along with the monthly journaling session and other resources, forms the backbone of the benefits currently offered to paid subscribers - so it’s a good time to be here.