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Why Are We So Afraid Of Change?
The Fear Of Change
In March 2014, I took a huge step that changed the course of my life. After 20 years of working as a sports physiotherapist, I quit my job. I left a full-time practice and my entire patient workload. I chose to walk away from the clinical practice of my profession. This was not an overnight decision, and a lot of thought had gone into making such a move. My soul needed to expand, grow and learn. It desired a new journey and profession that allowed me to align with my inner mastery.
I was more than ready to leave two years ago. But I was just too scared. So what changed two years later? Not the fear. I was still afraid. In fact, I finally realized that my fear was never going to go away. If I was going to leave, I had to do it despite the fear. My departure took me on a journey of understanding what fear is and the role it plays in our lives. And I had several "aha!" moments along the way.
What Is fear?
Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. It is an event we perceive that is likely to occur in our future. It is something that might happen but in fact is not happening right now.
Fear comes in many forms:
- unease
- worry
- anxiety
- nervousness
- tension
- dread
- phobia
Fear is all things in opposition to love.
We can't really know what love is without knowing what fear is, and vice versa. Fear will block, paralyze, restrict, constrict, darken, reduce, limit and stop us from living our fullest selves and our best lives. Love will liberate, free, expand, grow, lighten, shine, propel and direct us towards living our best selves and a fuller life.
Where we choose to operate our lives from determines the outcome. If I continued to operate from fear, I would have stayed stuck in my old job, my old pattern and the only story I knew. And don’t get me wrong, even though I decided to choose love over fear, my choice didn’t mean the fear went away. I just realized that it was only going to stop me from going after my dreams if I continued to live my life solely from a fearful place. Choosing love meant following my heart without allowing fear to get in my way.
My First "Aha!" Moment
“Fear is not the issue. It’s only our perception of it.”
We can make fears to be big or small. It’s up to us. Fear is controllable — much like the volume of an iPod. And you’re in charge of that. You get to decide how high or low to adjust the volume.
Once I recognized that my fear wasn’t going to go away, I made peace with that. Making peace with fear helped me to reduce its intensity and my fearful experience.
We need some fear in our lives because it drives us to want to make changes. But it’s only when we're overwhelmed by fear that we become stuck, keeping us where we don’t want to be.
Why Are We So Afraid Of Change?
As human beings, we love to tell stories. That's our human conditioning. We like to talk about what’s familiar to us. What we don’t know simply scares us. We're afraid to make changes because it means letting go of the story that we know so well. And that is the story that describes our pain and suffering, the drama, the conflicts and all the things we continue to complain about. Our egos like to be attached to pain and drama. And when we operate from our egos, we allow fear to be the centre of it all.
My Second "Aha!" Moment
“The reason why I left my sports physiotherapist job was because I decided to tell a new story about my life.”
My new story is about my dreams, my ambitions and how I am willing to take flight, knowing that the wings of faith and trust will carry me through to rise above all that was keeping me stuck. We can only move forward when we are finally willing to let go of our old stories.
What stories are you currently telling about your job or relationship? How is this keeping you stuck?
If you're entertaining the idea of making any type of change in your life but are afraid to do so, I’ll ask you to take a moment to think about the South Asian community in Canada or abroad elsewhere.
Our community is 100 per cent immigrants. We are here because a family member, such as our parents, grandparents or perhaps great-grandparents, chose to migrate from the only home they knew to a new country that they knew nothing about. Perhaps they weren’t proficient in English or they didn't understand the culture. Yet they managed to plant roots, create new communities, mosques, and temples and find employment and build businesses.
Most of these family members packed all they had into their suitcases to move to a country they hadn’t even visited in the hopes of a better life. I'm sure they must have had some fear about making such a move. But what they also had with them was immense trust and faith.
If they had let fear defeat them, none of us would have the lives we have today. Their willingness and desire for a better future overrode all their fears. And this has affected their lives and the lives of generations to follow.
My Third "Aha!" Moment
“When we finally decide to follow our hearts and not give into our fears, it can have a positive impact on us as well as all our family, friends and others in ways that are beyond our imagination.”
The choices we make will result in an outcome in our lives, which always depends on the vibration we chose to operate from. This vibration has an impact on all those around us. I never realized that when I was living in fear — the degree to which it was affecting my life and those around me. By choosing to tell a new story, I shifted my life and opened up to possibilities I couldn’t have even dreamed of.
When we're offering our best selves, everyone benefits. It simply begins when we follow our hearts and turn down the volume on our fear.
Feature Image Source: entrepreneursplaybook.com
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Farhan Dhalla
Author
Spiritual Personal Trainer, Angel Therapist, Author, Television Personality Farhan is the world’s first Spiritual Personal Trainer. Farhan believes we can only succeed in any our life goals when we are in alignment with our spiritual Self. Farhan uses unique techniques to he...
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