Vigilant Visionary

Hello Vigilant Visionary,

You’re amazing and talented. You have the skills, support and the vision to make your dreams come true. Always proceeding with caution, careful planning is one of your greatest assets. You measure, practice, research and prepare. And this works for you in every endeavor. Your family knows it. Your friends know it. You know it.

But now fear is getting in your way. Your tolerance for low risk isn’t getting you anywhere. Again. You struggle with the uncertainty of the future, and often insist on more preparation to avoid taking the big plunge. Even with the net of knowing from past successes, you’re afraid of what will happen. What if you fail? What will others think? What if it’s too late for this kind of thing? What if you succeed? How will you handle it?

It’s time to surround your Vigilant Visionary Self with a bundle of compassion and care. Fear is stopping you in your tracks and will keep you stuck in the what-ifs and what-nots as long as you keep sweeping it under the carpet. How do you get out of this stuck place? You look into the eyes of fear and become intimately familiar with her. Learn to recognize the voice of your inner critic.

There are three things I recommend to make friends with your fear:

• Tune into your body – Go do something physically to or with your body – go for a walk or a run, or, one of my favorites, do yoga. Practice slowing your breathing, taking deep intentional and focused breaths. Our bodies are amazing vehicles and a huge source of wisdom and ultimately power for us to tap into. Merely tuning into what we physically feel in our bodies will tell us a great deal about our fears.

Scan your body section-by-section—start in your toes, then move to your arches, to your ankles, up your legs, into your hips, into your core, and so on. Note which parts feel light or heavy, sticky or free. Which parts feel tension? Be particularly mindful to identify where in your body you feel fear — or any emotion for that matter.

Do you get butterflies in your stomach? Is your mind buzzing with energy? Or perhaps you hold it all in your shoulders. This scan is a great way to identify how you physically react to fear. Fear in the present situation will often show up as butterflies in our gut or tension in our shoulders. Our hip joints will often hold emotions that are pushed down and are not being voiced. These are just a few examples, and everyone is different.

Learn to do this scan regularly and in different situations. You’ll begin to identify how your body responds to fear and other emotions, to what feels normal and what is new. Simply being curious and aware, without judgment, can help you move into, through, and beyond fear with a kind sense of self-love.

• Follow your fear through all the possibilities by asking yourself, “What am I really afraid of? And then follow it up with and “What if that happens?” For example, at one point early in my career I was terrified of the thought of public speaking. When I examined the depth of my fear, I might have imagined falling off the stage. I merely need to ask, “And then what?” When I start to think this through to what might actually happen, I see that I’d probably pull myself up with a rush of people running up to me to make sure I’m okay. I’d be embarrassed. “And then what?” I’d probably make light of it and joke about it. “And then what?” I might start off my talk feeling a little rattled. “And then what?” I’d deliver my talk. This line of thinking can be carried out until you arrive at the realization that there’s absolutely nothing life threatening that is likely to happen.

Our mind is often drumming up big stories of unlikely possibilities. Our fears are based on our human instinct of fight or flight when we lived in life-or-death situations. We rarely face life-or-death situations in our present-day lives. In fact, most often when fear shows up, it’s showing up as an emotional fear, not a physical fear. Realize that we often paint scenarios in our minds of things that might occur, but they’re not really likely to happen. There is great power in looking into the eyes of fear when we walk through the “and then what?” scenarios.

• I wrote a deck of daily inspiration cards called Pony Ponderings. One of the cards that I wrote was called Looking into the Eyes of Fear. I wrote this particular card at a time when I realized that I could no longer sweep fear under the rug! I share this card with you today!

I can assure you that fear will be your traveling companion on your personal growth journey toward stepping into bigger platforms in your life. Your voice of doubt will show up and tell you that you’re not good enough or smart enough. The opportunity before you is to examine these voices, allow them to be heard, and then embrace them with kindness and love.