What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

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What would you do if you weren’t afraid? What would you do today? This week? This month? This year? What conversations would you have (or not have)? What actions would you take (or not take)? What's stopping you—outside of a fear story? ⁠Who would you be without that fear story?

Here's the thing about fear: it means well. It's here to keep us safe. To protect us. It's natural, normal, perfectly human to feel fear, particularly if there’s faced or unfaced past pain and/or trauma. (And who doesn’t have that?) Anyone out there taking risks, chasing dreams, and trying to live their best life is likely to feel even more fear than others. The more we push the envelope, the more fear will rise. It’s just how the design works.
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The trick is to know bones deep that the sense of security fear sells is false advertising. Fear wants us to believe we will find what we are looking for by shrinking from life, tightening in around experiences and clinging to our current beliefs, life situations, and narratives. But, you may have noticed, even if we do everything fear tells us to do, we still don’t seem to achieve what it promises, do we? Uninterrupted security, happiness, joy and fulfillment? Even if we abide by fear’s warnings, we still might find ourselves peeking around the corners of life, worried about what is or what isn’t, comparing ourselves to others, and doing whatever we can to distract ourselves from the void that never seems to fill. Why? Because as long as WE are there to listen, fear won’t stop telling scary campfire stories about an imaginary future that hasn’t happened yet! It's a giant feedback loop that accomplishes nothing outside of keeping old stories, old suffering, in place. ⁠

Fear is built into us for a reason. I'm glad it's there to remind me to look both ways when crossing a street in London so I don’t get flattened by a double decker. But the more we look at the old conditioning that creates most fear—and muster the courage to ignore it and take action anyway—the more we see that the vast majority of fear is illusory. 90-98% of it is an old story stuck in the past. And us along with it.

So let me ask you again: what would you do if you weren't afraid?⁠ And who would you be without that fear story?

If not now, when?
KB⁠