Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having more contact with an old friend of mine. I only have fond memories of her and I strongly believe we will stay friends forever. The only thing that concerns me is that it appears as if she lives in fear.
Fear? you ask. What’s there to be afraid of these days? There are no hungry lions chasing us, medicine is able to resolve most issues and overall, living standards are higher than during most periods in human history.
I believe the fear that looms is the fear of being left behind and the fear of being alone.
The fear of being left behind is based on rampant technological advances she feels she can’t keep up with. In addition, whilst having paid her pensions contributions all her life, the actual pension doesn’t always reach the end of the month. That fear coupled with negative news headlines, doom scrolling and a hint of living in a bubble of similar minded people, that is the basis of a perfect storm of not even trying to keep up with the outside world.
Given the fear of keeping up, the world around my friend is closing in and getting smaller with every passing year. In the worst case scenario, this could lead to being alone which is the second big fear of hers. All that fear impacts her health which brings out more stress leading to more fear of being alone.
What to do about it?
The main step is to build up a mindset of adventure and curiosity. The reason is simple. If you always want to get out there and explore and learn and live, then you won’t even have enough time to think and fear. It will also result in a shift in mindset from worrying about obstacles to “how can I overcome them?”. These two ways of looking at the same topic couldn’t be more different. One leads to paralyzing fear and the other to building resilience.
If you are skeptical, please go and try it out yourself. Pick a topic that would usually get you anxious and then re-frame the fearful situation as a challenge or adventure that you know you can overcome but you just haven’t figured out how to do it yet. Or re-frame your fear by seeing the positive in the situation. Give it at least 10 minutes to start with.
How did that feel?
Photo by Eric Sanman from Pexels
Trust me, it is always better to try something, learn a whole lot and fail compared to never being courageous enough to go out there and live. The adventure doesn’t need to be big either. Even a small action can break a habit of staying within the comfort zone. One small action can be the start of something big. All it takes is one step in the right direction.
As for me, I will go hiking tomorrow and I know already that the mountain will be steeper than anything I have walked on before. NOTE: it is not steep for others at all, just for me. For me, the challenge is to overcome my low level acrophobia (aka fear of heights) and that is exactly the reason why I am doing it. I want to be more courageous and I know that I need to go out there and prove to myself that I can do it. After all, others can too.
How will you show your courage and sense of adventure this weekend?