Oct 11, 2018
Hi everyone! This is Connie Sokol, and you're listening to Balance Redefined Radio. I've spent over 20 years teaching people how to redefine what balance really is, meaning a more purposeful and joyful life.
They’ve paid off credit cards, lost weight, organize their homes, and created a meaningful life plan. They've managed their time, changed habits, and experience greater success both at work and at home.
So now I decided to take the plunge and help about 100,000 new people who want to redefine balance in their lives. People ask me all the time, “How do I go from an overwhelming and chaotic life to more purpose, organization, and joy?”
That's the reason why I'm doing this podcast, to give you trusted answers and create a space where you could find balance. My name is Connie Sokol and welcome to Balance Redefined Radio…
Welcome back!
So glad you're choosing to spend some more time together…
I've got some great things to share with you today about facing your fears because we all have them. This is always something we're going to have to deal with. Spoiler alert! In our lives, whenever we're trying to move forward in anything, this is going to come up…
So the beauty is that we get to learn how to embrace these fears, how to make them our friend and all the cliches that are out there. It's true. We really get to learn how we personally navigate dealing with our own fears.
Now, the fears I'm talking about today are not, “Oh wow. I’m at the top of a 500 foot cliff, and I'm afraid that this is a bad idea for me to sort of like free climb down.” Okay? That makes total sense why you would be afraid and very, very afraid...
I would really pay attention to that fear. Okay, so that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about there's something good that you want to do.
Maybe it's something you've wanted to do forever. Maybe you're standing at that precipice, and you're going, “Oh, I'm actually now here ready to do it, but I'm scared. I'm afraid…”
I feel fear and excitement, and we know that those two are two peas in a pod, and I've talked about that before. Fear and excitement are two companions, and so you just want to keep emphasizing one more than the other so that you can keep moving forward.
Whichever one is more debilitating to you, you want to make sure you keep moving forward in the direction that you've wanted to go for the good thing that you want to accomplish.
So I know I talked to people all the time and they're like, “Yeah, that sounds really good, but how do I do it in real life?...”
So I'm going to give you a few little thoughts today-feudal tips. Try to choose one that you can actually put into play. So the best way that that can work is if right now you think in your mind, “What is something that I really want to move forward?”
Or it's something you're already doing that you love, but you're just at an uplevel place, or a place to move to that next station as it were...
You're in a shifting place, whatever that is for you -- either learning what it is that you would need to do (you know what it is, but you're scared to move forward) or you were doing it, and you're just upleveling to another place.
You decide how this applies to you, but the first and foremost thing to recognize about fear is that it feels irrational. Well, it feels real, but it's these irrational fears that we have about where things can go, what can go wrong, how I could do it poorly, how I can embarrass myself, how I'll fail.
My daughter is so cute. She's got that whole thing about, you know, “If I lose my pencil, then I'm going to end up living in a van down by the river…”
So it's not that kind of a trail that we want to go down. We want to stop that spiral before it starts.
We want to be able to acknowledge, “Wow, in our growth timeline, in our purpose timeline, this is right in step.” It's right on schedule. So we can anticipate it, and then we can move through it because we have some tools.
So the first thing I want to share about fear is taught by Kevin J. Worthen in his talk “Fear not,” and he talks about the acronym for fear of being: False Evidence Appearing Real.
Then I've mentioned that in another couple of podcasts because I like to come back to this because it is false evidence appearing real...
Some things look very real, and some things are very real, “Oh, well, I don't have enough money to move this forward.” But the thing that's false about it that we need to move beyond is standing still is not our only solution.
That's not our only way of working around that problem...
What we do is get afraid of the solution, or afraid that there isn't a good solution, or afraid that the solution we have obviously isn't going to work...
So therefore, that means, “This isn't going to work and we're going to live in a van down by the river…” So instead we need to step back, and we need to engage in partnership with the divine.
This is where this comes into huge play because the reality is if we think that we're doing this all on our own, then for sure we're going to be afraid. Absolutely...
We're going to recognize those limitations. I love this talk by Erin Holmes on waiting upon the Lord. The antidote to uncertainty and sharing when she was talking with this professor, Professor Clark (Gregory Clark), and he was grappling with is tension between fear and faith.
And he said, “What is the source of fear? And his answer was -- I think it's rooted in the assumption that I must solve all my problems and face all my challenges alone using my own resources.” That is frightening because deep in my heart I know how limited those resources are...
Knowing that I am not capable of changing myself or my circumstances for the better, I stand frozen in fear. Has that ever been something you felt? Does that resonate with you? Have you ever felt like, “I know my limitations and I stand frozen in fear?” I think we can all relate to that.
Where you get to a place and you just go, “It isn’t clear anymore, and I don't know where to go. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know how to get there,” and so fear is really saying,
“There's only one way to do this, and I can't do it.”
“I don't have anyone to help me do it, and there's no other way or variety that those things are not true…”
That is the false evidence. So what we want to do is step back, partner with the divine and be able to say what I call the “third way.” There's a third way.
There's a different way to go about doing it that maybe we haven't seen before or don't know yet...
But it's there because if we feel in our soul that it's something we’re to do, then we will have the divine way open that we will be able to find it and know what it is.
So I encourage you to be looking for the “third way,” whatever that looks like…
I link it back to Moses in the Old Testament where he's standing before the Red Sea.
He’s got chariots on one side. He's got a lot of water on the other side, and there's no real option to go back.
It only looks like two ways, but guess what? There's a third way, and that Red Sea opens…
So in our lives there's going to be those moments where we just see two ways, and we don't realize that there is a third way of that sea opening.
But it's just as real as the ones that are before us. Okay?...
So that's the whole third option. You can face your fears with realizing how you can look differently at the False Evidence Appearing Real...
So then the next thing we need to do is, you know, people say a lot of times, “Oh, we'll just have faith, you know, overcome that fear with faith.”
And it's like, “We’ve got to squeeze our hands and crack our knuckles…”
Let's really exercise faith here people!
Okay? This is not like that. I love this quote from Neil Anderson. He says, “Faith is not only a feeling, it is a decision.” It is a decision. We decide.
We say, “You know what? I can either be scared, or I can move forward. I can do something.” That is an act of faith. It's a decision and it's an action. I love that quote (you've heard me share this before) that says, “I want to. I get to. I choose to.” I love that quote...
I'm probably saying in the wrong order, but that's the order that I remember it. I like it...
So remember, “I want to. I get to. I choose to,” instead of being afraid of what's in front of you.
Now put a different lens on in front of that and be able to say, instead of, “I have to. I don't want to” -- you know, that kind of feeling of “I want to avoid that.”
Instead put that new lens on, “I want to. I get to. I choose to.” Feel the difference in that. It is game changing...
It's life changing for me when I put that lens on something, especially when it's something I actually really truly want to do, but I'm just afraid to move forward.
Okay, so face the False Evidence Appearing Real, and then decide to act in faith-meaning you're going to do an action.
You're going to actually move it forward...
For me, that's me being able to set a deadline. Me saying, “I'm going to speak at such and such a place,” and agreeing to it, then putting it off for six weeks until I'm a three days out.
The weekend before, I'm going, “Well, what I've actually been doing is seed-bedding…”
I've been reading. I've been studying. I've been talking to people, and I've been gathering all the stuff that I don't really realize I've gathered until I sit down and start to barf it out.
Sorry, a little bit indelicate, but I just start getting that tidal wave out, just sit, and then I can go back to sift and say, “What is it that really is going to resonate with this particular audience?”
And that's what I just had to do this week…
I'm speaking at one of the biggest women's conferences in the country. I'm wrapping up tomorrow. It's 20,000 women plus that come from all over the country and outside of it to come to all these classes. There are 300 plus classes in this.
These very things, these life questions, are for partnering with the divine as we go through it. And mine this week was on covenant women -- fearless, faithful in fulfilling our destiny.
And as I've been talking about these things, you know, it was a crazy week. It's been a crazy couple of months of starting, you know, launching this new program, launching the podcast, and launching all of these things that were huge, big, and dynamic.
I'm going to pick up my daughter from Europe because she's been nannying there in France, and all of these things are happening all at the same time. Throw in the start of school and, you know, it has just been crazy.
I literally have been up three, four, five in the morning and staying up late…
I still needed to do my talks. So guess what? I ended up having to do my talks this week. I had the outlines, but I hadn't done the PowerPoints. I hadn't done the actual talks. I was literally laying track as fast as the train was coming.
The night before, the morning of, and even last night, I knew my kids needed my cuddles.
It was 9:30 when I finally got done with the day. Then I still needed to do my presentation for this morning on the PowerPoint. It was 9:30, and I looked at my kids. I just thought, “They need me. They need loves, my hello, my support, and my connection. I need to give that to them.”
I just gave over to that thought. As soon as I had that thought, I did not fear…
At first I felt this anxiousness of, “Oh my gosh, what am I going to get this done? I'm going to have to stay up super late or get up super early.”
And I just had this clear, peaceful feeling, “It'll all work out...”
So I put first things first in my mind. My kids had their heads in their laps, and I'm scratching both of their backs at the same time, and they're going happily to sleep when the thought comes to me, “Oh, I don't have any calls in the morning…I can get up early, do this PowerPoint, and it'll be fine. I know in my soul what I want to say, I just have to actually put it down.”
That's what happened, and I got done actually a little bit early this morning.
So it was crazy awesome, but I had to take that step of faith. I had to look through that lens of, “Oh, I want to, I get to, I choose to not have to.”
“When am I going to get time to do that,” had to switch to that lense to make that decision.Then the feeling came. Then the goodness came…
Then, I was able to do what I needed to do.
So try that -- the “third thing.” I encourage you to follow what I thought was really genius.
This one writer, Anna Davies, was talking about a study that had been done about how people can deal with anxiety or these fears published by the American Psychological Association.
The study found that when people tell themselves to “Get excited,” they perform better than when they tell themselves to “Calm down.”
Have you done that before when you were getting really stressed out?
Maybe you've had to do this presentation, this job interviewed, something at the school with the kids. Maybe you've got to do this big project, this community event, whatever it is, and you're feeling this anxiety, and have you ever tried telling yourself, “Okay, calm down, calm down.”
I know I'd be at an event and tell myself, “I’ve got to be on the ball.” You try to calm down and you're like, “Where's that meditation?” Right?
Try flipping that and saying, “I'm so excited to do this job interview. I'm so excited to do this.”
Anna Davies finishes the quoting Alison Wood Brookes by saying, “When people feel anxious and try to calm down they are thinking of all the things that could go badly. When they're excited, they're thinking of all the things that could go well.”
So I just want to make this point that when we're looking at something that we do want to do, we're just sort of being paralyzed by fear.
Then the beautiful thing to do is put on a lens of excitement and put that at the beginning.
“I'm so excited to _____,” whatever that might be. And try this with your kids. I've done this with my kids for the first days of school and didn't even realize it at first.
I was trying to calm them down by like, “You're okay, you got this,” you know, as you're calling coping strategies. Right?
Inadvertently, I didn't realize that I was kind of doing the other thing because my little six year old was like, “Oh, I'm going to miss you.” Right?
Then I started talking about the teacher that we met, how awesome she was, and where his desk was. He has his buddy sitting right by him. His two best friends are in class. It's going to be such a blast.
They get to go to the big kid playground now, and they get two recesses...
I mean it rocks. Plus he's got his Pokemon lunch box, so all is well…
He was getting pretty excited. I did not realize that I was following this protocol until I just found this quote, and I was like, “Yeah, I saw that.”
That worked. He went to first grade, and he is having a great time...
So here are couple of things I hope that you'll consider when you're facing your fears.
When you're saying, “I really feel this way, and I know it's false evidence, but it sure feels real.”
Then be able to say, “Okay, here's the third way here. I know that I can fear not, I'm going to face it, and look for that false evidence because that's a third way.”
There's a third way, and we can figure it out, whatever that is.
The second thing is to decide...
Remember, faith is not only a feeling, but it's a decision. You have to make it. Remember that it can include, “I want to. I get to. I choose to.”
Lastly, try to see it through a lens of the excited. “I'm excited about this,” instead of being all nervous and fearful. Alright?
Give those a try today with whatever you got going on, and let me know what happens...
#I'mexcited. #teamreplay or #teamlive.
Tell me what you've learned because as I said before, as you post below, other people will be inspired by your experiences and isn't that the best?
I am not the fount of all wisdom. I am not the fountain of all knowledge...
I am a guide to a spring of great, juicy, wonderful things, and they're beautiful things.
They're things that are going to help you in your life. That spring is made more abundant by everybody else adding in their cup of water there -- even two tablespoons.
So put something in that you've learned that's resonated with you from what I've shared, or put in something that you've tried and let me know how it goes. I would love, love, love it.
Whatever you do, choose one thing from this podcast today to try today, not next week, but today. Try it today and let me know how it goes. Okay, and remember, keep living your life Balance reDefined.
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