Why does fear leave us bare and keep us from living our truth?

As a leadership coach, I listen to the fears my clients face every day through their personal stories. And I am certainly not immune to my own fears. Like everyone else, I am reminded of them more often than I may like. Yet, whenever I face fear, I give myself permission to free my heart and mind. It is a conscious choice to move beyond pain and be open to the possibility that freedom from fear brings.

Mikaela Shiffrin talks about being raised to make friends with her fears. A World Cup slalom athlete, Mikaela shares how her family encouraged taking risks and being open to new things by embracing fear. That philosophy has fed her competitive spirit and served as an anchor in her approach to life.

I have fallen in love with the very idea of making friends with my fears. These words give me the grace and the space to acknowledge my fear, understand it, and then – only then – meet it head-on. Because, in a world where chaos is the norm these days, I welcome the gentleness and respect making friends grants.

Michael Meade (author and storyteller) once wrote, “There is no transformation without feeling fear. Our greatest fears mark the places we must go or risk losing our souls.”

Making friends with fear takes what is broken and makes it whole.

Know that making friends with our fear lets us seek to understand pain from a place of love. And when we create this sacred space, we also form a deep friendship with the self. There is great possibility lying in the folds of our friendship with self. It is transformative.

So where does our fear come from?

Those emotions often surface in our fears as questions and doubts. Am I good enough? Will they like me? What if I don’t have enough money? What if I’m alone? What if I fail? What if I don’t get that job? What if? What if? What if?

Our emotions can be real, honest, and unvarnished. Or they can be remembered or imagined. No matter their source, we anticipate the pain the emotion will cause and first feel it somewhere in our body before it even registers as a threat in our heads.

So how do you begin to meet your fears?

1. Take a breath and notice where fear shows up in your body. Where do you sense it? Embrace that. Awareness is your first step in making friends with your fear.

2. Name the fear as best you can.

3. Is it honest in time, remembered, or imagined?

4. Do you need to respond to this fear in the moment, or can you sit with it to understand it better? Most importantly, be gentle with yourself because friendship takes time.

Ten Additional Questions to Get You Started

1. What do I gain by addressing the fear?

2. What do I lose if I don’t address the fear?

3. What one thing at this moment would you like to do, but fear is holding you back?

4. How does that fear make you feel? And then, how do you typically respond when you feel that way?

5. What fear might you be holding onto from your past? How is that fear holding you back? What will it take for you to make friends with it?

6. What do you want your future to look like? How is fear blocking that life?

7. In the world of chaos, you may be hearing lots of fear. It can be contagious. Do you want to listen to that or let that fear go? You have a choice.

8. What if you do something that doesn’t turn out the way you wanted? What unnamed fear do you sense in your body and ponder in your head?

9. What do you need from yourself and others to make friends with your fear? Who and how can trusted others support you?

10. What one thing has the tightest hold on you and trips you up when you try to move forward? What fear is lying underneath that hold?

Hang in there. This gets easier with practice.