Transcription
And so the first two are almost self-explanatory. Getting rid of them seems a little more slippery through my fingers. And so I'm wondering, that's going to probably look different for each person, the tools that they use, their process. But could you inflush that a little bit more onto like getting rid of fears, maybe some several menu options on what that could look like for someone with an open-ended, and it could look different depending on someone.
is because you have negative feelings, anything. You have anger, you have stress, you get upset, you feel frustrated, all those things that are negative. That's there because you have a fear. If you didn't have fear, you wouldn't feel any of those negative things. All those negative things are attached to a fear. So the next time you get annoyed, or feel unfairly treated, or unappreciated, or all of that negative stuff, you can stop and say, what's the fear that's driving that? And find that fear.
And this is not easy to do. So you have to be very honest with yourself. This is where the next step is of becoming authentic. Becoming authentic, you really have to know yourself, know who you are. Most of us struggle with that. We are so used to living out of our heads and out of our intellect that it's really difficult to know who we are at a very authentic level, where we are just living from the being level for the most part. That's authentic. You know how hard it's been just getting out of your head in an exercise, lying in a booth, to get out of there and get into the being level. It's not an easy thing to do. But when you're authentic, you're not living out of your head anymore. You are just who you are. The core of you is you. Well, that takes some practice. And you do that by, you've probably heard a lot of slogans like, live in the moment, that sort of thing. In other words, be aware of what you're doing and why you do it. Be aware of your choices. Don't go through life like a zombie. Go through life aware of why you do what you do. Little choices. All sorts of choices. But particularly those choices that lead to negative feelings. Be aware of those choices. Own them.
You say, okay, I seem to have this problem of feeling inadequate. That's why it upsets me when I don't get the appreciation. Because that scratches on that fear of being inadequate if you don't get the appreciation. That's why I don't like criticism. Criticism upsets me because it resonates with that feeling of being inadequate. You go back and you find, okay, here's a fear of being inadequate. Makes me a little prickly to people who don't appreciate or don't seem to, or they find fault with you perhaps. Try to tell you that what you're doing is not right and it upsets you. That's a fear of being inadequate. So why do you feel that way? It's not necessary to say, oh, when I was three years old, something happened that made me feel inadequate. My mother came home and brought a toy for my brother and my sister, but I didn't get one. And I've been feeling inadequate ever since. So it could be any little thing like that. But you find the fear and own it. Say, okay, I do feel inadequate. I just don't feel like I'm very good at it. I'll own that. You own that fear. It's yours. Once you own it, you have the ability to get rid of it. If you don't own it, you can't get rid of it. So as long as you stuff it away, it's yours forever. Own it and then be authentic with it. Feel that inadequacy and feel how it affects your choices. Good to know it in you. And if you think about all of the choices you make and have made in the past that have been made because of that fear, you will be really overwhelmed with the desire to get rid of it. You'll actually know how it's been affecting your life. But you can't do that until you own it and live it a little bit.
So now we're at the point where you own it, you understand how it's been affecting your life, you're motivated to get rid of it. The next thing you do is when you feel that coming on, you feel an interaction because now you're aware of that interaction. And you're aware of that inadequacy and you're aware when it comes and triggers a reaction, triggers a choice. That's in your awareness now. So when you feel that coming on, you just say, oh, that's my fear again. I don't want to go there. Let it go. Don't be angry. Don't be upset. It's okay. And go on. Try to not go there. Well, that's kind of intellectual. But that will, over time, if you're not just trying to push it away but you're trying to get rid of it, that will, over time, make that fear come back less and less strong every time until eventually it's gone. Because when you're saying that, I don't want that fear, you're really using your intent to say, be gone. I'm not interested in playing this out anymore. Stop it. And that intent, over time, will make the fear go away. And tension changes future probability. And that intent will get weaker and weaker and weaker until it's gone. This may take a year. And that's if you're working on it really hard. But if you're not working on it really hard, if it's just kind of a casual thing, you may or may not be successful. So you really have to be serious about it. So that's kind of the process of getting rid of your fear.
Now, there's another wrinkle to that that you can do. And that is the only antidote for fear. If you're going to deal with it squarely and not kind of chase it away slowly, the only antidote to fear is courage. That's it. Nothing else gets rid of fear but courage. You just have to have the courage to not be frightened by that fear, to not have that fear. And how you express that courage is that you tell your fear, give me your best shot. All right, I'm just me. I'm going to act the way I am. And let those chips fall where they may. I'm being me. I have the courage to live with my inadequacy. Well, once you have the courage to live with it, you've pulled the teeth out of it. It can't bite you. See, what you're afraid of is that it's going to cause dysfunction in your life. Other people will see how inadequate you are, and you're trying to cover that up. Well, if you just own it, all right, I'm inadequate. I'm just going to live with my inadequacy. I'm going to be inadequate in the things I do. I'm just Mr. Inadequate. I accept that. That's my life. And I'll learn from it. See, that kind of attitude. Well, now what's the worst that could happen to you? The worst that could happen to you is somebody might think you're inadequate. So you've already accepted that. You've pulled the teeth out of it. It can't bite you anymore. There's nothing to hide. And then as you live it, you'll see that it'll just dissipate and go away. Because it no longer has teeth. It can't hurt you. That's like if somebody has a great secret on you and you're being blackmailed for the secret. Well, one way to get rid of that is just to tell everybody. Now there's no blackmail anymore. You own it. Blackmail is irrelevant. Who are you going to tell? I've already told the world. See, it's the same with the fear. Own the fear. Accept it. Be it. Live it. And figure that's your lot in life just to be that way. I don't have to hide it. I don't have to cover it up. I don't have to apologize for it. I'll just live my life and it's there. It can't hurt you now. But that takes a lot of courage. That's another way to go. It's probably a faster route. But it requires a lot of courage to do that. So you're basically telling your fear, go ahead. Take your best shot. I don't mind. Everybody knows anyway. I have nothing to cover up. So live authentically and if you don't like the result of that, change yourself. Have that intent to change yourself. It's the intent that's going to change you.