Partner-up with your fear!

We all have fears. It’s part of being human. Since I’m human, I have my fears too.

Fear is so different from only being worried about something. I can worry about the weather for instance. Will the weather support the plans I have for today. Will I be in time or not? Oftentimes it is enough to look at the sense and the nonsense in the worry and you can put it in perspective. And since I can’t change the weather, why worry about it? Just take it as it comes and adjust your plans accordingly.

 

Fear is something different. My fears sometimes paralyses me and hijacks my thoughts. My heartbeat goes up, I start sweating. When fear gets to me in the night, it’s even worse and gets bigger and even more scary. There has been moments where I even started hyper ventilating, so overwhelming was the fear. Fear sometimes feels like a huge and scary monster, one that you can’t beat nor escape from.

 

For a long time, I thought my biggest fear was related to my sons addictions. The biggest one was the unbearable thought the police would come to the door to tell me he was gone. That fear made me do many things to try and avoid that, to make him stop his drugs and the alcohol, yet of course, that didn’t make any difference.

As hard as it was, I had to learn to let go of that fear since I could not influence it. I had to acknowledge I was powerless in this situation and that I had to stop giving it so much of my energy, of my power. This way I could learn to be with it, instead of fear it.

When I think about what my biggest fear is at this point in life, it clearly is falling back into burn-out.

I was in a burn-out for a very long time and it clearly was the toughest time in my life. Tougher than divorcing my first wife, tougher than loosing my dad when I was only 21.

I was just married for 6 weeks to Daphne and bang, there it happened. I pushed it and pushed it for years as a single parent, owning my own company and my body refused to continue like this. Though the circumstances changed a lot, the body now claimed its rest and recovery. A long a dark time started where my life was actually at risk. I also felt horrible for Daphne because she didn’t sign up for that. Yet she didn’t give up. It took several years to recover and claim my life back. I’m super grateful for my life so losing all that again, is clearly my biggest fear!

 

I thought I was unbeatable, and I’m not. I thought there was no limit, yet there is. I thought I could get away with it, and I didn’t.
My biggest fear, in a way, is now a big friend. I still frequently push it, yet I’ve learned to also listen better to my body and take breaks. As a daily act of self-care, I take early morning hikes with my dog. I spent time in nature to recharge. I’ve learned to spend money on myself to enjoy life, to live adventures and to create memories.

 

I’m sharing this to encourage you to think about what your biggest fear is and what relationship you want to have with it. Is it going to rule your life or will you listen to the message it has for you and partner-up with it.

It’s your call.

 

© 2022, Alex Verlek

 

P.S. By the way, a specially designed ‘A Whole Person Model’ is one of the coaching tools I will be presenting during my in-person full-day masterclass for coaches held in Zeist, The Netherlands on the 21st of May 2022. If you are interested in joining, please do not wait too long.  Accredited with 7 CCEU’s by ICF.

For all the details & online booking click here