Fear: Is it real?

We all experience fear. I know I have. The kind that puts a knot in my stomach and makes me feel like I'm on the edge of the cliff and I'm supposed to walk forward and step out into the air. I feel very panicky like I'm going to fall and it makes me want to retreat and rush back for solid ground.

Anytime we want something, like love, that requires us to step outside of our comfort zone, then this familiar feeling of fear will arise. I guarantee it. This feeling of fear is an emotion. It usually means what we want requires stepping outside of our limits of comfort into a place we know nothing of, the unknown...and it scares us. The voice inside our head, our ego, is our safety meter and it senses something is outside of its comfort level therefore it is giving you this feeling as a warning to alert you. The kicker is the ego only knows what has happened before. It senses that what you are about to do has no safety feature so therefore it must not be safe for you or perhaps something in the current situation reminds your ego of the past and all it knows is that it did not turn out well for you before.

The kicker is that this current experience whatever it is...is a brand new experience. You really don't know what the future holds, though your ego is desperately trying to convince you to steer clear because it cannot imagine a different outcome than the one you already had in your past. So who's in charge you or your ego?

It's like you have to stretch your mind to possibilities beyond what you already know to perceive a new reality for yourself. This statement is so profound because it can make all the difference in your life. It's not so much that the past is in reality and the future is not, it is that the reality you can't imagine as possible for youself will be hard for you to strive for. It's hard to enforce what you don't believe in.

All I could think of were all the painful memories of when I had tried in the past and it just hadn't worked out. In my mind, my ego kept telling me the stories I had already lived in the past and telling me why I should not keep trying. Even the night before meeting my now beloved, I remember thinking how scared I was that I almost talked myself out of even meeting him in person the next day (and I really liked talking to him on the phone!).

Wow! A year and a half ago, if I hadn't kept the faith and belief that somewhere, there was someone looking for love just like me, looking for someone just like me, I would never have kept taking actions to put myself out there, meeting people, and putting up an online profile. If I had listened to my ego, I would not be experiencing the life I know today. Our egos, if we let them can make us feel so convinced it won't work out that we will never take the next step. All we have to do is take the next step, it doesn't have to be that big of a step, but a step aligned with our deepest driving desires to help us get out of the comfort zone and transcend our fear. What we really want in life is on the other side. So if it is something that you feel fear around, such as meeting the guy you talked to on the phone for the first time, are you going to take the next step to meet him? You have two choices:

1: Take the step and meet him(her)....

2: Don't meet him (her) and forever tell yourself the same old story that it wouldn't have worked out anyway, you would've been stood up, etc.

One choice transcends the fear, the other makes the fear stronger. It could be the choice that changes your life as you know it. Which will you choose?