Facing My Fears

I was asked by a friend awhile back to share my experiences around facing my fears on his forum.  Opening myself up and being vulnerable on a public forum is in itself a very fearful task, but I realised that my experience may be of value to someone else, so I stepped out of my comfort zone to share a little bit of my story.  This is what I shared.

We all have fears; even when we conquer them, new ones come to the surface.  I don’t think we ever really overcome fear; I think we learn to acknowledge and work with it so that it doesn’t paralyse our life.

I lived in paralysis for a long time – in a bubble that seemed perfect on the outside to the rest of the world; a bubble that allowed me to live comfortably with my paralysis in the belief that I was living a life although it was merely an existence; a bubble that provided a false sense of safety… and then one day my bubble burst.

We all live in bubbles at some point in our lives; and eventually our bubbles always rupture, because that’s what bubbles do.  My burst bubble was the ending of my 15 year marriage.  I got married very young – and spent almost my entire adult life with one person.  In the brief time between school and marriage there was not enough time for me to experience independence.  I never had a real opportunity to test my ability to stand on my own two feet.  I was too young to truly understand myself.  At an age when others were figuring out their identity I was merging my identity with another person’s and neither of us ever really figured out who we each were as individuals.

In the months that followed my divorce I was forced to face a multitude of fears.  I knew that to survive this devastation I would need to rise above my fears.  I was riddled with insecurity; and I wasn’t even sure whether I even loved myself.  I knew though, that learning to love myself was the key to overcoming this grief.  I didn’t realise it at the time, but learning to love myself was also the key to courage.  When you love yourself, you are prepared to fight for yourself; you are prepared to risk for yourself; and through that you find courage to face fears and obstacles that you might not otherwise have faced.  And then the positive cycle begins; because with every fear faced you admire and respect yourself a little more, which means you love yourself more; which means you have more courage to face more fears.

So how did I learn to love myself?  I have been fortunate to have been surrounded by the most incredible resources most of my professional life – being an HR Practitioner meant that I was exposed to quality coaching and really good personal development resources.  This obviously helped me become a better professional in my chosen career but it also prepared me to deal with my burst bubble.  I played over and over in my head conversations that I had had with other people who were suffering.  I knew exactly what the advice was that I would give to someone else in my position.  Would I have the courage to take that advice myself?  I had no choice.  I knew I couldn’t let this event define the rest of my life.  You always have two choices: you can be bitter or you can be better – I chose the latter.