If Only I Had the Courage…

How many times have you thought to yourself “If I only had the courage!”?

The courage to make that change, take that chance, speak my mind, say No to something that doesn’t inspire me, or say Yes to something that does.

“Arrghh, if only…” we tell ourselves as we weigh up the risks, and focus on all that might go wrong. Desperate to avoid nagging feelings of regret, we do our best to rationalize why sticking with the status quo isn’t so bad. While we clutch onto whatever evidence we can find to ease regret and keep doubts at bay. All the while somewhere, deep inside, we wish we’d been braver.

Talk to anyone in the twilight years of their life and they are likely to tell you that when they look back on key decisions in their life, they wish they’d acted with less timidity and greater boldness. Many people—old and not so old alike—have shared with me how looking back on even just the last 10 years they can see how they underestimated themselves too much, played safe too often and, if given the chance to do it over, would have leaned more toward risk and less toward caution.

Which is why I am passionate about challenging people to rethink risk, to expand the vision that they have for their life and to be more courageous—in work, in love and in life. Having witnessed the possibilities that can open up when people decide to stop playing safe, I know that even the most timid souls and risk-averse worriers can act with courage. That is, to take action in the presence of their fears and doubts, not in their absence.

Living With Courage Means Living Wholeheartedly

The word courage comes from the French cor, meaning heart. So at the core of courage is choosing to live wholeheartedly—to bare your heart wide open to the full spectrum of experiences and emotions; to stop letting fear run your life, and to start owning your power to create, achieve, become and contribute all that inspires you.

But how do you move beyond the platitudes and T-shirt slogans about being bold and living fearlessly? How do you actually take that brave audacious leap of faith over a chasm of fear?

You start by asking yourself “For the sake of what?” You see, nothing worthwhile is accomplished with a guarantee of success; risk is a toll, which life exacts en route to any meaningful endeavor. So finding the courage to risk demands being super clear about ‘why’ you are doing it in the first place.

We are wired to focus more on what we have to lose than what we might gain. Therefore, before you can find the courage to risk losing something—whether it be material security, social status, professional pride or admiration—you have to be crystal clear about what it is you want to gain in the process. “For the sake of what?” are you going to lay your reputation, your pride, your status and vulnerability on the line? Only when your desire for something transcends your desire for safety [and comfort] can you rise above the fears hard-wired into you to protect you from such dangers.

Your ‘Why’ is what gives your life a sense of purpose and lies at the intersection of your talents, passions, values and skills. It’s what fuels you and what fills you. It’s the ‘why’ that propelled Anthony Crowley to give up the security, status and trimmings of a job in the advertising industry to pursue his passion in the performing arts. A gifted musician, playwright and artist in his mid-twenties, Anthony decided he didn’t want to look back on life wondering ‘What if?’ While Anthony’s name is not up in lights beside Lloyd-Webber’s [yet], his plays and musicals have been presented and awarded around the world. Not only does Anthony draw enormous satisfaction from his work, but he provides a powerful role model for his children and many others on what it means to live your passion.

Confront Your Fears, Rethink Your Risks

Fear often gets a bad rap, but it serves the vital role of alerting us to potential threats to our safety, protecting us from harm and pain. However, in today’s culture of fear, we can unwittingly find ourselves living in its shadow, unable to distinguish those fears that are genuinely serving us from those that are stifling our actions and limiting our experience of life.

Every day, we are bombarded with reasons why we should feel afraid. Fear of economic recession. Fear of job loss. Fear of losing our savings. Fear of radicalism, fundamentalism, government, racialism, terrorism, isolation, mutant viruses, violence, identity theft, global warming… the list is long.

Marketers prey on our fears, the media prey on our fears while politicians play on our fears. Fear sells products. Fear sells papers. Fear wins votes. Fear makes profit. Fear grows power. And fear fuels fear. That’s why, in a world that is so filled with fear, refusing to be a pawn to fear, to play safe and to think small, becomes an ever more courageous act.

As I shared in my latest book Stop Playing Safe, research psychologists have identified four key mechanisms that undermine our ability to accurately assess risk, and take those ‘smart risks’ needed to create the opportunities, influence, prosperity and success that we want.

Why Do We Play It Safe?

While there are many different psychological processes at play, there are four core ways we are ‘wired’ to play it safe:

1. We overestimate the size of risk

We misjudge the likelihood of losing something we value over gaining something we would like even more. In short, potential losses loom larger than potential gains.

2. We ‘catastrophise’

We exaggerate the potential consequences of what might happen if things don’t work out. Our imagination runs riot and we come up with all these dramatic and drastic worst case nightmare scenarios which, in reality, are extremely unlikely to occur. What would actually happen is that we’d quickly intervene if things started derailing to shore up potential losses.

3. We underestimate our ability to handle risk

This is a core factor for many people who second guess and doubt their ability to handle bigger challenges. My experience working with women is that women are particularly susceptible to this and often doubt themselves and their capabilities far more than they should. It drives them to veer away from opportunities and challenges rather than lean toward them because they doubt their ability to handle them well. As Mark Twain once said, “I have known a great many troubles in my life, most of them never happened.” Such is the power of our imagination!

4. We discount, downplay or deny the cost of inaction

How often have you heard someone justifying why they didn’t take a chance or make a change with something like “Things aren’t that bad” when you know that they are actually pretty miserable with the status quo? My guess is, likely a lot. Too often we tell ourselves lies about the cost of not taking action because we are too afraid to take it. The truth is that when things aren’t going well, they usually only get worse if we do nothing. While there is always a risk to taking action, there is also a risk to inaction. Getting real about the cost of inaction is essential to find the courage to it.

The result of these combined psychological mechanisms is that people often end up being overly cautious; unwilling to take the very risks needed to create more meaningful lives. However, when we shine a light on our fears and become truly present to the cost of inaction [and believe me, there is always a cost!], we loosen the grip that fear has on our psyche, improving our ability to accurately assess risk and discern the smartest path forward, even if not the easiest or most comfortable.

What Would You Do if You Were Being Truly Courageous?

It was six weeks before her wedding day when Anne, a doctor, called me to say she was having major second thoughts about whether to proceed with her wedding. While she admired the man she was going to marry, she’d become increasingly uninspired by the idea of spending her life with him. When I asked her how she felt about ending the relationship and calling off the wedding she insisted, “I can’t break it off—it would kill him. It would kill me too!” Anne’s fear of the fallout from breaking off her engagement was understandable, but—as I pointed out to her—just because it was an incredibly hard thing to do didn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.

After much soul searching Anne made the very brave decision to break off her engagement. She didn’t die. Nor did he. While she said it was the hardest thing she ever had to do at the time, what it taught her was that she was more courageous than she thought. That knowledge emboldened her to pursue her dream to join Doctors Without Borders. Nine months after calling off her wedding, she was managing a remote hospital in Darfur that served internally displaced Sudanese refugees. Since then Anne has not only married a man she is inspired to live her life with [and is soon to have their first baby], but has done extraordinary work in supporting the world’s most needy.

So before you read any further, ask yourself this: “What would I do if I were being truly courageous?” Go on, take a minute to close your eyes, breath deeply and sit with the question. As you do, give your imagination permission to soar and then open your heart to wherever it takes you. However large or small, daunting or seemingly insignificant it is, just know that within you lies all the resources you ever need to live your answer. One day, one hour, one act of courage at a time [however small it may seem.]

How to Find Courage in Life

When it comes to fulfilling your potential at work—to making the full contribution you are capable of and being rewarded for it accordingly—there are two core fundamental mindsets that separate those who experience deep career fulfillment and success from those who don’t. The first mindset is based on the premise that the risk is to be avoided; the other that risk is to be embraced as a crucial element of success. I call these mindsets the risk-averse Fear mindset and the risk-ready Courage mindset. One is driven by fear of what could be lost, the other by desire for what can be gained.

While there is no doubt that some people are naturally more comfortable taking risks than others, science has proven that courage is a skill and, like all skills, it can be learned and developed to a level of mastery with consistent effort and commitment. When you choose to develop a courage mindset, your psychological courage muscles are strengthened every time you use them. You sharpen and shape your courage skills every time you intentionally choose to step beyond what is comfortable, put yourself at risk and bravely render yourself vulnerable to something you fear. Courage is ultimately a mindset. So is fear. Read Let’s deal with fear.

The table below lists 10 core attitudes of a courage mindset along with the corresponding attitudes of a fear mindset. Think of a current challenge or opportunity you are facing. As you read through the list of risk-averse mindsets, ask yourself what conversations and actions you could initiate to approach each one with a risk-ready courage mindset. I encourage you to write down your answers as they come into your head… before they leave again!

When you focus on what you don’t want to happen, you psychologically enlarge the holes in your safety net, amplifying timidity into full-blown terror. As I stood on that trapeze platform looking down, the holes in the safety net beneath me seemed to grow larger by the second until my imagination had me falling right through them.

Somehow I convinced myself to focus. I took a few very long, deep and deliberate breaths, then I leaned out from that platform to grasp the trapeze bar. Off I flew letting out one mighty scream along the way.

Having dared to fail countless times in my life, and having succumbed to self-doubt and fear nearly as often, I know all too well that courage is not a one-off decision. You don’t just choose to be courageous and then never have another moment of cowardice or even hesitation. No, becoming more courageous is more about moving in the direction from which courage calls.

Some days you’ll feel like you’ve just hit the ball out of the park—you’ve been bold and assertive, spoken up to your boss about the new role you’d like to take on, volunteered to lead the next sales meeting, signed up for a marathon … you’re on a [courage] roll. Moving in the direction of courage! Then on other days… you’re not. You keep your mouth closed during meetings even though you really don’t agree with what’s being said. You shy away from ruffling anyone’s feathers. You’re operating from fear, moving away from courage. Such is life. It’s about having more courageous days, than fearful ones.

Trust Yourself: You’re Capable of More Than You Think

When I started my second career in coaching [which later evolved into speaking and writing], I had four children under the age of six. I remember being a little overwhelmed at the idea of starting a business with such young children, particularly since I was living in another country at that time with no family support network around me. But I was passionate about pursuing a calling, and I knew that if I did nothing, I would look back with regret. I also believe that we can hardly tell our children to pursue their dreams if we don’t first have the courage to pursue our own.

What I learnt over the ensuing years is that too often we let our fear of “not having what it takes” keep us from taking the actions that would enable us to realize we have everything it takes. That doesn’t mean that we can conquer our own personal Everest in a day, a month or a year. But if we take one step forward toward whatever it is that inspires us, over time, those baby steps lead us to new places, new experiences, new opportunities and a greater realization of just how much we can accomplish if we set our mind to it.

New research has lent credence to the words Lao Tzu wrote 3000 years ago: “People are capable of more than they think.” Whether backpacking around the world on my own at 21 for a year, having a fourth child [a definite leap of faith!], or starting to write my first book Find Your Courage with four children under seven at that time, I’ve learnt that when we doubt ourselves, we limit ourselves. Only when we dare more boldly can we ever harness the potential that resides with us and fully share our unique talents with the world.

Courage Means You Embrace Uncertainty

My dad, a humble farmer with a generous heart, always cautioned me: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.” He meant well, his words were guided by his desire to protect me from disappointment, but his advice was not for living a wholehearted life. All change, even change for the better, is uncomfortable because it demands giving up what we know for an uncertain future. That’s why so many people choose to stay in jobs they loathe, in relationships that leave them lonely, and to quote Thoreau, “Living lives of quiet desperation.”

Afraid of uncertainty, people choose the inevitability of things never getting better because they are afraid of the possibility that they may end up worse than they were before. However, as you journey through life, unless you are willing to trade the familiarity of the status quo for the possibility of a better one, you run the greater risk of short changing yourself. When you let your fears drive you to settle for less than what you really want, you sell out on what you could be. All the while dreams retreat, passion wanes, doors close, talent sleeps and life passes passively by. It is the ultimate tragedy.

Exit Your Comfort Zone

When I first left my parents’ small farm at 18 to move to the city for university, I was part terrified, part excited, and completely outside my comfort zone. As I found out then, no worthwhile aspiration can be accomplished from within our comfort zone. Only in giving up the security of the known can we create new opportunity, build capability, and grow influence. As we do, we expand the perimeter of our ‘Courage Zone’, our tolerance for risks and confidence to take on bigger challenges in the future.

There is no doubt that there are real dangers we need to be cautious about. But in our overcautious, competitive and accelerated world, there are also countless opportunities. None of them lie in our comfort zone [none of the really great ones!]. Only those who refuse to cower to fear and are willing to take risk will see and seize those opportunities and reap the rewards they bring. When you dare to do the very thing you are afraid of, you’ll find the universe conspiring for you and presenting opportunities that always [and only] lie on the other side of your comfort zone. So live by design, not default, taking one action every day that moves you outside your comfort zone, however small or insignificant it may seem.

Think Big; Start Small

Of course, it usually takes less than a minute after connecting with an inspiring vision to feel overwhelmed by the size of the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Which is why, however audaciously big your dream, you need to start by breaking it down into smaller shorter-term goals, with doable ‘bite sized’ actions, that you can achieve.

“You don’t have to see the whole stair case. Just the first step.”

— Martin Luther King

Identifying the first few steps is a strategy that has worked for many clients of mine, including Julie Webber, an IT professional, who shared with me that she wanted to advance in her company and take on larger leadership roles, but wasn’t confident in how to go about it. “So what’s the first thing you could do?” I asked her. “I could volunteer for a leadership role in my professional association… They’re always asking but I’ve held back because I was afraid of not being good enough,” she offered up. “And I could say more on conference calls,” she added, “since I usually stay quiet.” Today Julie is blazing all sorts of new trails for herself because she thought big, but started small.

Closer to home I can share with you how I’m also managing overwhelm in pursuing my goal of launching my own online TV show Raw Courage TV. I can assure you that the size of the gap between where I am, sitting in my office, and the vision I have for it five years from now [Oprah, watch out!] is vast. So I’ve begun with small steps:

• Chose the name
• Bought the URL
• Engaged a website designer
• Scripted the first 10 episodes
• Sourced videographers
• Reached out to my hit list of people I’d love to interview
• Set up the social media pages.

It’s a huge undertaking, but as I know that unless I start doing something, even if I’m not quite sure of every step ahead, one year from now I will be better off than if I wait to figure out exactly what’s needed before taking the first one. Likewise, if you find yourself moving into overwhelm, focus on what you want to do the next day, or week. Then next week, do the same thing. Repeat as necessary!

Summary

Action is the most potent antidote to fear. The only way to rise above it is right through the heart of it. Accordingly, living courageously is not the absence of knots in your stomach, a lump in your throat, chattering teeth or sweaty palms. It is feeling your fears to the core, and then standing tall, breathing deep, and stepping forward in their very presence. Only then can you come to know that you never needed to feel afraid to begin with. As Anais Nin once wrote, “Life shrinks or expands in proportions to one’s courage.”

Be brave, you can do more than you think!

A version of this article was first published in the May 2014 issue of Complete Wellbeing. Updated on 6^th June 2023

The post How to Find Courage in Life appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

One such excuse arose soon after my first meeting. Our beloved Mumbai city had faced its worst crisis on 26^th November 2008 when a handful of terrorists unleashed unprecedented violence on its unsuspecting citizens. There was shock, pain, anger, fear—not just in Mumbai but across India and the world. I, too, was disturbed and angry and was trying to make sense of the tragedy. A trusted friend was among those who lost their lives in the massacre that had lasted four long days. My mind was confused, my heart was in pain. Yet, I wanted to feel love and practise forgiveness. I kept Dada’s strong emphasis on forgiveness in mind but it seemed extremely difficult to put into practice in that instance. So I decided to reach out and ask him directly and he graciously agreed for a one-to-one meeting.

The 1000w smile

As usual, being in his presence was, in itself, soothing enough that the mind became peaceful and all questions vanished. His smiling face was like a 1000w bulb that banishes all darkness from your heart. His humble demeanour aroused in my being a sense of compassion that cannot be described. All I can say is that feelings such as anger, anxiety, hatred and resentment have no place in presence of the light of compassion.

Suddenly, I knew that everything that was happening was in divine order. The apparent injustice pervading the world isn’t something to be angry about or afraid of. What is needed is to connect with the source of wisdom that in intrinsic in each of us and then follow its guidance. I realised that the world out there is only a reflection of my inner world and so all change must begin with me. The world will change when I do.

I was silent. Dada’s loving presence had worked its magic. Since all my turmoil melted away, I let my mom, who had accompanied me, interact with him. She had been very keen to meet Dada and he, too, was delighted to meet her. He made sure she felt comfortable and heard. That’s the thing about him—his love doesn’t discriminate. Since then, every time I met Dada, he never failed to inquire about my mom.

Message to the world

Later, I requested him to say a few words, a message for the world, in the wake of the terrorist attacks. I had carried an amateur video camera, just in case he agrees, which he did. As I turned on the camera to record, Dada began speaking, compassion and love oozing out of his every word. His message was just like him: simple and practical, yet extraordinarily profound. In his impeccable diction, he underlined the importance of faith and urged people to focus on cultivating character. He said that there is an invisible force that is always with us whether we know it or not. If we have faith in this force, we will have courage. And with courage, we can meet any challenge, no matter how arduous or perilous it seems. (Watch the video clip below)

Dada, the epitome of love and compassion, himself merged with the invisible force exactly a year ago. Of course, he is still available to you whenever you feel the need for his loving guidance. Just tune in with faith.

Watch: Dada’s message on the important of cultivating character

The post All you need is faith appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Story of the Lion and the Fox

There was once a man who prayed relentlessly for divine awareness to bring him lasting joy and success in his life. Finally, after months of praying, his effort bore fruit. As he went to sleep, he dreamed that he was wandering in the forest looking for enlightenment.

The next morning, taking the dream as a cue from God, he headed to the woods and meandered there for several hours looking for some sign that would provide answers. That’s when he spotted a fox with no legs lying between two rocks in a cool place.

Curious as to how a crippled fox has been surviving, he hid behind a tree and waited until sunset and was surprised to see a lion come and lay meat before the fox. “Ah, now I understand,” the man thought. “The secret to success in life is to trust that God will take care of all my needs. I don’t need to struggle to provide for myself. All I have to do is simply surrender.”

Two weeks later, weakened and starving after applying his newfound “wisdom”, the man had another dream. In it he heard a voice say, “Fool! Be like the lion, not like the fox.”

A Powerful Lesson on Serving

There’s such a powerful lesson in this Zen tale for everyone who walks the path of self-discovery. Life is a fine balance between surrender and service. The crippled fox was in the state of surrender because of his physical inability to do anything. The lion, on the other hand, was capable of hunting; he was in a position to help the fox and was doing exactly that.

When I am fully capable of helping myself and others, I have the opportunity to be the large-hearted lion. At such times, I need to act courageously, move forward with conviction and do all that I can to the best of my ability. I must not look for an excuse to shy away from action. I must be careful not to resign myself to a difficult situation and recognise the strengths I possess. Besides, being of service to others is a privilege. When someone needs my help, it means I am being given the opportunity to use my gifts and I must be grateful for that.

When to Surrender

There are also times when I actually find myself in the position of the crippled fox—absolutely helpless regarding a situation. Such times—when there’s simply no way out—are times to practise surrender, which is another way of saying that I must simply relax and allow life to unfold. Such surrender is an act of faith, and comes from a deeper understanding that whatever is happening is exactly what is supposed to happen. How do I know that? Because, it is happening! As Byron Katie says, “When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100 per cent of the time.” I might as well accept what is. Then, a lion may or may not be on his way to rescue me—that’s not my lookout. My job is to make peace with my situation, however undesirable it is. Because, life has its own way of working out.

My great challenge, of course, is to guard against the tendency to underestimate my inner strengths or assume false weaknesses as an excuse for inaction. When I do so, I am behaving like the man in the above story who acted like the crippled fox even though he was really a mighty lion.

The post Story of the Lion and the Fox appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

For a while, the cat was happy and relieved but soon he became afraid of a ferocious dog in the neighborhood. So he again sought the miracle man, who turned him into a dog. But the dog began to fear the panther who lived in the nearby cave. So this time the magician turned the dog into a panther thinking that this was the last time he’d see the distraught creature. But it was not to be. The panther, with all its strength and abilities, still lived in fear—of the hunter. When the miracle man learned this, he turned the panther back into a mouse, saying, “Nothing I do for you is going to be of any help because you have the heart of a mouse.”

This allegory has a deep lesson for those of us who, like the mouse, are always afraid. So many of us live in perpetual fear: fear of not having enough, fear of illness and death, fear of rejection, fear of losing their loved ones, fear of failure, and even fear of success!

It’s An Internal Matter

People try to protect themselves from threatening situations and circumstances by building a cocoon around them. What they don’t realize is that no matter what they do to change their circumstances, their terror will not go away. That’s because, it resides inside their heart.

The mouse in our story never learned this lesson. He kept seeking external solutions to an internal problem, changing his form while his essence remained unchanged. Each transformation brought temporary relief, but the underlying fear persisted because he never examined what was happening within.

The real problem is with the irrational fear of uncertainty that keeps us wanting to cling to everything in our lives—money, possessions, relationships, reputation, you name it. The miracle man is reminding us that this fear has little to do with the outer world. We may acquire good health, lots of wealth, and a great social standing—but will continue to live in fear unless we strengthen our hearts. In other words, we may acquire the body of a lion, but it’s of no use if we continue to have the heart of a mouse.

To be sure, I am not referring to the instinctive, physiological fears that all of us feel when we sense physical danger. Such fears are necessary—they helps us identify and stay away from legitimate threats.

How To Deal With Fear

The only way out of the cage of your fears is to face your mental and emotional insecurities—your personal demons—head on. When you do so, they disappear, leaving you free as a bird. This happens because up close, you see the fears for what they are—an illusion created by your thinking.

When left unexamined, fear becomes your master. It dictates your choices, limits your possibilities, and keeps you small. But when you turn toward it with curiosity rather than avoidance, you discover that the monster you’ve been running from is nothing more than a shadow on the wall.

Seen from this perspective, the miracle man’s final act wasn’t cruelty—it was wisdom. By returning the creature to its original form, he was saying that true strength cannot be given; it must be cultivated from within. The heart of a mouse will always find something to fear, no matter how powerful the body that houses it.

You have a choice, then: you can continue to live as mice, scurrying from one fear to another, or you can do the deeper work of transforming your heart into one that is much more courageous.

Try this next time fear grips you

Instead of panicking or running for cover, stay with the feeling—allow it to immerse you in its flavour. Observe the feeling without condemning or judging it. Try to touch it, feel it, smell it. What’s the texture? Does it have any color? Any taste? Like Pema Chödrön would say, get intimate with your fear. Get to know it inside-out. Doing so will strengthen your heart and fortify your spirit, and fear will never again be your nemesis.

Here’s a Step-by-Step Guide to Dealing With Fear

Freedom from fear isn’t complex, but it does requires persistence. Here’s how I suggest you begin:

1. Don’t escape. The moment you feel fear rising, resist your first instinct to escape. This is where most people fail—they immediately look for distractions or ways to avoid the discomfort. Instead, plant your feet and stay put.

2. Turn toward the fear. Face it directly. Look at it the way you would examine an interesting object. What does this fear actually feel like in your body? Where do you sense it most strongly?

3. Get curious, not critical. Don’t judge yourself for being afraid. Don’t try to talk yourself out of it. Simply observe what’s happening. Is your heart racing? Are your palms sweating? Notice these sensations without trying to change them.

4. Get behind your fear. What does it want to protect you from? What story is it telling you? Often, you’ll discover that your fear is based on something that might happen, not something that’s actually happening right now.

5. Breathe with it. Don’t breathe to make the fear go away. Breathe to stay present with it. Each breath is a way of saying, “I can handle this feeling.”

6. Practice regularly. Start with smaller fears before tackling the bigger ones. Each time you face a fear instead of running from it, you strengthen your heart a little more.

The goal isn’t to eliminate fear—it’s to change your relationship with it. When you stop being afraid of fear itself, you develop the heart of a lion.

Last updated on 15^th July 2025

The post The Real Source of Fear (And How to Face It) appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

The Serenity Prayer is not just for recovering alcoholics. It contains empowering truths for all of us. We need to know the difference between what we can change and what we cannot change.  We need to have the courage to change the things we can, the strength to accept the things we cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

For a long time, I didn’t know the difference between what I could and could not change.

I thought my beliefs could change things that were unchangeable, such as my son’s physical disability, my husband’s struggling business, and my personality. Now I know that my beliefs cannot change biology, economics, or inherent character traits. But I was young then, and I thought, “If I believe I can, then I can,” just as the main character in the children’s book, The Little Engine That Could, believed he could huff and puff and pull himself and his cargo up a large mountain in spite of being a tiny train without much horsepower.

By the time I reached midlife, I realised there were some things I could not change no matter how much I believed I could. I was an introvert who would never gain energy from being surrounded by people no matter how many books I read, seminars I attended, or hypnotherapy sessions I underwent. The sun would rise in the east no matter how badly I wanted it to rise in the west so that it would beat down the warmth on a particular side of my house and fill my rooms with natural light. Furthermore, I could not change the basic needs of a romantic relationship, no matter how much I believed I could.

There was a deep security in being married

My boyfriend didn’t want to marry me

I thought I would be OK with my boyfriend not wanting to marry me.

I had spent my entire life as a married woman until I experienced a midlife crisis and left my family to pursue a romantic relationship with another man. Women who had survived similar crises told me that I should negotiate with my lover the terms of our romantic relationship. I did not. So, when my lover said he never wanted to get remarried, I didn’t think much about of it. After all, my first husband too had said he never wanted to marry and yet we ended up married for over 23 years. Why wouldn’t my lover be the same way? After all, he was a man, and aren’t all men the same in romantic relationships?

That was my belief.

After my divorce came through, I realised I did want to get married again. I had spent my entire adult life cradled and coddled in a stable family unit in which the members all cared for one another. There was a deep security in being married. What I didn’t know at the time was that the need for security was a woman’s greatest need in a romantic relationship. It was a biological need that could not be changed.

After three months of this push and pull in our romantic relationship, we hit a wall

But my boyfriend did not want to remarry. He had stated his intentions upfront and was dismayed by my sudden change of heart. What I didn’t know at the time was a man’s greatest fears in a romantic relationship were to feel inadequate and controlled. My sudden desire to remarry felt controlling. It appeared to him as wanting more than he was willing to give, which left him feeling as though he was not good enough for me.

After three months of this push and pull in our romantic relationship, we hit a wall. If nothing changed, we would have to break up. But we loved each other; why were we so miserable?

I didn’t give up

That’s when I realised there are things you can change through your beliefs just like there are things you cannot change. I just had to have the wisdom to know the difference.

Since I could not change how my boyfriend and I were biologically wired, I would have to change something else. If my boyfriend’s greatest relationship needs were to feel in control and adequate, then I would have to meet those needs. If my greatest relationship need was to feel secure, then my boyfriend would have to do things to ensure my security.

If my boyfriend outlived his life insurance policy, then I would be back to feeling insecure

I was, naturally, able to relinquish control in the relationship, having been trained by my father at a young age on how to let a man be the leader in a family. But I wanted a man who would open doors for me, pay for dinner, and make love to me all night. My boyfriend didn’t open doors for anyone and although he did pay for dinner, he no longer had the biological desire to have sex every day. He was older than me and wanted only companionship. He wanted a girlfriend whom he could create memories with.

Insecurities abound

I had to change my beliefs about what traits constituted a good boyfriend. Was it more important for him to open doors than it was for him to be kind? Was it more important for me to be taken care of than it was for each of us to take care of ourselves? Did I have to have sex in order to feel loved?

My boyfriend, on the other hand, struggled with the ability to make me feel secure. When I explained to him why I suddenly needed to be married because it provided the security I needed as a woman, he offered an alternative. He would change the beneficiary of life insurance policy from his ex-wife to me. That way, if he died, I would not become homeless. At first, it seemed like a viable compromise, but then the life insurance policy only extended for a handful of years and would not be renewed. If my boyfriend outlived his life insurance policy, then I would be back to feeling insecure. I could be kicked out of the house I shared with him at any time because I did not own the house jointly with him. I was just a girlfriend who had no legal rights to anything that was his because I was not married to him. And the tension between us grew.

If you change your beliefs, you can change your life

For a long time, I tried to bridge the gap for him. I bought a wedding ring and pretended we were married to create a false sense of security so I could continue peacefully within our romantic relationship.

Still, deep down, I continued to feel insecure.

My moment of epiphany

One night, after another fight, I blurted out, “None of this would be a problem if I felt loved enough.”  If I could feel loved, then I could feel secure. I would no longer need to be married. He nodded in acknowledgement.

My belief of “I need to be married” had changed to “I need to be loved.”

Over the next few weeks, I noticed several things had also changed. When we were shopping, my boyfriend asked me to setup a joint account for the rewards points at the grocery store. A month later, he added me to his video rental account.

Slowly, my boyfriend took steps to show me that I was loved and included in the long-term picture he had for his life. It never would have happened if I hadn’t changed my belief about what I needed in order to feel secure. If you change your beliefs, you can change your life; you can get your needs met; you can find happiness.

Now, I no longer wake up at 3am worrying about my boyfriend dying after his life insurance policy expires. I sleep soundly and trust the future because every day, in every way he discovers another way to show me that he loves me.

The post How I saved my love life by changing my beliefs appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Wallenda’s feat—one of his seven world records—made us think about the purpose of the safety nets we so routinely seek in our everyday lives. Are they coaxing us forward, offering us the protection we need, or holding us back? So we asked Wallenda, a 37-year-old father of three, for his take on safety nets, and he graciously shared with us the wisdom gleaned from a legendary seven-generation family of high-wire artists. “Our minds are extremely powerful,” he told us. “You can learn to control what comes in, and filter out the negative. Fear is negative. You can either be overtaken by it, or you can overcome it.”

Performing without a safety net, to Wallenda, is more of an assertion that he is in control than a scary reminder of what could happen should he lose it. It’s not that he has a false sense of security, or a cavalier attitude toward risk. But we found that what Wallenda does applies just as much to those of us who prefer to view the Grand Canyon by tour bus—a grit mindset that can help us conquer the comparatively mundane risks each of us face in our lives. It comes down to becoming, in essence, your own first responder: identifying worst-case scenarios ahead of time, then training yourself what to do if and when they occur. Should that moment arrive, you will have the training—and the confidence—to calmly respond, rather than hastily react. This is where guts, resilience, initiative and tenacity truly payoff.

All it takes is mindfulness—an ability to zoom in on the problem at hand.

“Some are born with grit, and it comes easier,” Wallenda allowed. But, he went on, “we are all growing, all the time. You can gain more and more of it, or you can also lose it if you don’t practise it. Scary is not in my vocabulary. Fear is really just a deep respect. I clearly remember the first time I grasped this: I was six or seven years old and sitting on my father’s shoulders while he was riding a bicycle across the wire. I had been around wild animals in the circus all my life—elephants, tigers, chimpanzees—but I was never afraid of them. I was raised to respect them, knowing they could kill me. On top of my father’s shoulders that day, even though I knew it was something my dad could do in his sleep, I still felt this jolt. I understood that I could either sit there and shake and tremble, or tell myself to be calm and collected. I chose not to be scared. I realised that I’m in control of my mind—my mind is not in control of me.”

Although performing on the high wire has long since become second nature to Wallenda, he continues to respect what could hurt him. That keen awareness and respect, in turn, has taught him to prepare for the worst so he can do his best. He and his team spent five years studying terrain and conditions in the Grand Canyon before undertaking the stunt described at the beginning of the article. While there was no way to predict how much fine desert dust might settle on his two-inch-wide cable the day of his walk, or how powerful the upward drafts of hot air from the canyon floor might get. Wallenda prepared himself for those conditions and rehearsed manoeuvres he could do in response. Before the Grand Canyon walk, he practised for hours every day in his Florida backyard, using wind machines to create 91-mph gusts—stronger than any ever recorded in the canyon itself.

When Tropical Storm Andrea slammed ashore in Florida a week before Wallenda’s historic walk, he seized the opportunity to experience the unpredictability of the fierce storm by practising on a 35-foot high wire in the wind and rain. When the momentous day came and Wallenda found himself making his way across the gorge and feeling the wire bounce beneath his slippered feet, he reminded himself: You trained for 90-miles-per-hour winds, even though they never get above 60 here. You prepared for this; you know what to do. As he neared the other side, Wallenda broke into a sprint, and nimbly leapt back onto solid ground, before going home to ponder what challenge to take on next.

When confidence becomes a muscle memory, panic is replaced by peak performance.

Don’t fear disasters, plan for them

Flight attendants are trained to evacuate a jumbo jet filled with passengers in 90 seconds or less [in the United States, it’s a federal requirement]. Airlines and training academies drill trainees over and over again using realistic mock cabins and simulated emergencies, such as a crash or fire.

Lee Yoon-Hye put her training to the test on 6th July 2013, when Asiana Flight 214 hit a seawall on approach to San Francisco International Airport, broke apart, then cartwheeled down the runway and burst into flames when the jet’s fuel ignited. You might remember seeing news images of Lee: the petite 40-year-old cabin manager from Seoul, South Korea, could be spotted carrying passengers to safety on her back. What you didn’t see was the phenomenal grit she displayed inside the Boeing 777 cabin, where an emergency slide had deployed within the wreckage, trapping terrified passengers. Lee grabbed an axe so that a co-pilot could puncture the slide. Seeing flames erupting in the back, she tossed a fire extinguisher to another crew member as she began herding passengers to safety. All but three of the 307 people aboard the plane survived. And not surprisingly, Lee was the last one off. The San Francisco fire chief hailed her as a hero; doctors later discovered Lee had been assisting the evacuation with a fractured tailbone.

“We followed our training,” she modestly told reporters afterward. “I wasn’t really thinking, but my body just started carrying out the steps needed for an evacuation.”

The fear and trepidation most of us face in our daily lives falls far short of having to save trapped passengers in a burning plane or potentially free-falling to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Yet we routinely rig our lives with the kinds of safety nets that would suggest otherwise. If you wait to act in a situation until it’s risk-free before venturing a toe out onto your own proverbial high wire, what you’re really risking is a lifetime frozen at the starting line.

A woman creates a multimillion-dollar business she started online in her dorm room, while her ex-boyfriend shows up at the class reunion with a job he hates and vague proclamations about waiting to get all of his ducks in a row. Sound familiar? Perhaps you fantasise about taking salsa lessons but refuse to sign up until you lose 12 kilos because you want to look good. Or you’re heartsick over your town’s plans to level a small old-growth forest for a strip mall, but can’t summon the time, energy, and political savvy to fight it. Rolling over is a lot less painful than falling on one’s face.

Too often, our typical default setting is to fear disaster, rather than actually plan for it. And that, Nik Wallenda tells us, is the true catastrophe.

“It’s easier to settle for what’s comfortable than to push on and excel,” he explains. Too often, we live life avoiding what we fear, a hundred times a day. And what we fear often comes down to failure or rejection.

If you wait to act in a situation until it’s risk-free before venturing a toe out onto your own proverbial high wire, what you’re really risking is a lifetime frozen at the starting line

Get rejected

When hypnotist Jason Comely invented an online game called Rejection Therapy a few years ago, one of his stated objectives was to teach people “to be more aware of how irrational social fears control and restrict our lives.”

The game had only one rule: You must be rejected by someone every single day. In fact, rejection equalled success in the game. If your target didn’t reject you, and instead granted your request, it counted as a failure because you evidently didn’t ask for enough.

Chinese immigrant Jia Jiang came across the challenge after quitting his tech job in Austin, Texas, to devote six months to pursuing the dream he had hungered for ever since Bill Gates had spoken to his high school in Beijing: to become an entrepreneur. Four months into his six-month sabbatical, though, Jiang looked down at his vibrating phone in a restaurant to see a devastating text message from the major investor he thought he had on the hook to finance his start-up: No, was all it said. Jiang excused himself to go outside and cry.

“My choices were rejection or regret, and both stunk,” Jiang recalled in a TEDx talk that has since made him a YouTube sensation. Jiang considered cutting his losses and going back to a “real” job two months early. “But in the end, I chose rejection and kept going, and the world was never the same again.”

Intrigued by Comely’s game, Jiang decided to desensitise himself to the pain of rejection by challenging himself to endure one hundred days of rejection, and record it on a hidden camera for his video blog. He immediately began racking up points. Costco refused to let him talk to its customers over the store intercom. A stranger declined to loan him a hundred bucks. FedEx wouldn’t send a box to Santa at the North Pole. “But then a funny thing happened,” Jiang reported. “I started getting yeses.” He knocked on a stranger’s door and was granted permission to play soccer in the family’s backyard. A guard let him dance Gangnam-style on the building’s security camera.

Then there was the time Jiang walked into a random company and asked to speak to the CEO. “Why?” the receptionist wanted to know.

“Because I’m going to challenge him to a staring contest,” came the reply. And he was invited in to see the CEO.

[The CEO turned out to be a her, and she won.]

Rejection, Jiang discovered, had turned him into “a better communicator, a better negotiator.” And the customary sting he had experienced upon being rejected had been replaced by a feeling of liberation that he found exhilarating, pushing him to take ever-greater risks.

When Jiang strolled into a Krispy Kreme shop to request doughnuts customised to resemble the Olympics logo, an obliging employee said she’d see what she could do, then returned shortly to proudly display her creation—a box of five-interlocked doughnut rings in the Olympic colours. “It’s on me, get out,” she said with a grin when Jiang asked what he owed. Jiang’s hidden-camera video of that encounter drew so many viewers on YouTube that the media took note, and the rejected Jiang became a star.

His experiment, Jiang told his TED audience, “taught me to see rejection eye to eye and remain calm, and see it as what it is. It’s not this monster bag of hurt that I thought. It’s not some universal truth about who I am. It’s just someone’s opinion, and it says as much about that person as it does about me.”

There’s a big difference, Jiang pointed out, between remorse over not having done something, and rejection. Rejection is getting shot down and surviving; remorse is never taking flight in the first place.

He has yet to hear back on his hundredth request—an interview with President Obama—but Jiang did score a yes he never foresaw the night he received the text message that had crushed his dreams: he landed a deal to publish a book about the power of rejection.

Facing constant rejection can be devastating. But it can also be the impetus you need to work harder than you ever thought possible.

The customary sting he had experienced upon being rejected had been replaced by a feeling of liberation that he found exhilarating, pushing him to take ever-greater risks

Draw on your inner resources

Selling a cartoon to The New Yorker magazine takes a Herculean amount of diligence, dedication, stamina and grit. When Bob Mankoff first started out as a cartoonist, he submitted thousands of entries to The New Yorker before one was finally accepted for publication. Almost 30 years later, after penning some 950 New Yorker drawings, Mankoff is the cartoon editor of the magazine. He and his team laboriously sift through as many as two thousand entries a week, knowing that only 17 or 18 of them will make the cut. And many of the submissions are from regulars, talented artists who face an acceptance rate of only 10 per cent.

Yet they refuse to give up, drawing on a reservoir of creativity and wit that seems to be limitless. Mankoff believes their creativity is actually fuelled by The New Yorker’s low acceptance rate; like a gambler’s high, the artist never knows when, and which, of his drawings will be a winner. “Every so often,” Mankoff told us, “you will get that jolt of positive reinforcement to fuel your resilience.”

It is often exactly the motivation artists need to reach deeper into their creative imagination and spur their sense of grit.

Go with your guts

The hypercompetitive tech industry, with its take-no-prisoners culture, seems to breed a lot of introspection about grit. As a female engineer in the testosterone-driven Silicon Valley, senior Google manager Sabrina Farmer frequently battled self-doubt and harsh self-criticism. She realised that questioning or downplaying her capabilities had become second nature. When an acquaintance mentioned plans to run a triathlon, Farmer instantly responded, “Oh, I could never do that!” Later, she found herself wondering: Why not? What made me say that? She summoned the grit to sign up for the race, train and compete, then went on to run a marathon. It wasn’t, she confessed later, something she particularly enjoyed, but the insight it gave her was well worth the effort and agony. She realised that her habit of belittling herself served as an air cushion from failure’s hard falls. But that emotional safety mechanism was also holding her back.

Farmer attributed her tentativeness to what psychologists call “impostor syndrome.” In her book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, Valerie Young writes that people with impostor syndrome tend to dismiss their accomplishments and abilities “as merely a matter of luck, timing, outside help, charm—even computer error… that they’ve somehow managed to slip through the system undetected, in their mind it’s just a matter of time before they’re found out.” And it strikes successful women more than any other group. It’s what prompted actress Jodie Foster to confess on 60 Minutes that she thought her Academy Award was “a fluke” and that “everybody would find out, and they’d take the Oscar back. They’d come to my house, knocking on the door, ‘Excuse me, we meant to give that to someone else. That was going to Meryl Streep.’’’

Now, when Sabrina finds herself clinging to the safety net of self-doubt, she stops to ask herself three questions:

1. What is the problem?
2. What’s the worst that can happen?
3. Is the worst-case scenario real, or just my perspective [an emotional response]?

She then pinpoints what it would take to fix the problem at hand. If it’s a tool or skill she doesn’t have, she figures out how to obtain it. Using this approach makes taking on something unfamiliar a challenge to solve instead of a humiliating failure waiting to happen.

Linda’s favourite impostor story was of the time she almost got her bough of holly decked one Christmas when she jingled the wrong bell. A struggling actor in her mid-twenties, Linda was just getting by on a string of part-time gigs, giving piano lessons, teaching music theory at City College of New York, acting in off-off and more-off Broadway shows, etc. When the extremely wealthy head of a yogurt dynasty offered fifty dollars—more than half Linda’s rent!—to play Christmas carols at the family’s annual holiday reunion, Linda grabbed the gig. But there was a problem.

“I was a poor Jewish girl with, shall we say, a limited repertoire of lyrics that included the words ‘Jesus,’ ‘saviour,’ ‘Christ,’ or ‘Bethlehem,’” she recalls. “But I was a pretty good sight reader and I needed the 50 bucks, so I took the job, and bravely walked inside an apartment so huge it had its own zip code.”

The yogurt patriarch turned out to be a formidable man in his early 50s who clutched a baton in one hand and a scotch in the other. He demanded to know if Linda knew all of the 37 carols he placed on, the beautiful Steinway concert grand she was about to play.

“Well, not really,” Linda answered, a tad too honestly. “But I’m a quick study.”

Scrooge McYogurt turned several shades of purple, he was so angry. “He leaned over to me—I can still smell the scotch on his breath—and warned me that if I played just one wrong note, he would bodily throw me out the door.”

Linda might have succumbed to the impostor syndrome in that moment and walked out. But she was so incensed by the guy’s attitude toward her that she decided to prove her competence instead of questioning her qualifications. And her inner sense of grit served her well. She played not just well, but brilliantly. Not only did she play every note perfectly, but she began to improvise and embellish the music, dazzling the party guests with her impassioned interpretation of each tune. “By the time we got to ‘Silent Night,’ there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Family members surrounded me at the piano singing with me and asking me to stay long past my allotted time. And the best part? Scrooge McYogurt gave me an extra 50 dollars!”

And she came home with far more than a bulging pocketbook: “What I learned that evening was that even when I took the risk of going out on a limb, doing something I wasn’t really qualified to do, I was able to step up to the plate, stretch my limits, and accomplish more than I ever thought possible. Instead of feeling scared, I felt emboldened. I ended up proving to myself that, just maybe, I had underestimated my talents and abilities.”

So our advice? When in doubt, ring those bells!

Take a Leap

Robin faced down her own imposter syndrome moment when she was approached in 2013 by a recruiter seeking a CEO to run the American Legacy Foundation, one of the nation’s largest non-profit organisations. Legacy, recently renamed the Truth Initiative, was the antismoking advocacy group that had been established in 1999 as part of the $206 billion Master Settlement Agreement—the largest civil litigation in history between the major tobacco companies, 46 states, the District of Columbia, and five US territories. The recruiter needed to know within 30 days whether Robin was interested.

Accepting the job would mean dismantling every safety net Robin had. It would mean leaving the advertising industry, where she had focussed her professional efforts for her entire career. It would mean leaving a for-profit enterprise for a non-profit one. It would mean leaving her native New York, her beloved friends, and a career’s worth of business contacts for Washington, a city where she knew almost no one. Robin’s husband, Kenny, would have to quit his job as a hospital administrator and find a new position in DC. Everything in her life added up to that one thing we all set out seeking: security. “It was absolutely terrifying to think about leaving all that, to take a step off the edge and challenge myself again.”

When the Kaplan Thaler Group merged a year earlier with Publicis New York, we went from an agency of 250 people to one with 700 employees. Much as Robin welcomed the chance to lead Publicis Kaplan Thaler, she realised that after many decades working in the same business, what she really craved, as scary as it seemed, was the chance to have a “second act”, one that would bring an opportunity to learn something completely new and use her years of marketing experience to do something that would have a positive impact on people’s lives. Linda assured Robin of her heartfelt support and told her to “go for it”.

So Robin picked up the recruiter’s letter, and with the deadline a few days away, wrote a passionate response. Going from selling shampoo to saving lives seemed like an unfathomable leap. On the other hand, Legacy’s “truth” public education programme for teens was legendary. The campaign had won every major award in the ad industry and had been proven to have prevented 450,000 young people from smoking in its first four years. As she drafted her response, it became clearer and clearer to her how strongly she felt about the organisation’s crusade. She saw herself as twice victimised by the tobacco industry, first as a pack-a-day teen smoker duped by cigarette manufacturers who hid the long-term health effects from the public, and second as a marketer whose entire field was tainted by the money and muscle of Big Tobacco.

Robin knew how hard it was to quit—she had stopped smoking for two years and then relapsed, before kicking the habit for good at the age of 28. Though we had never represented tobacco at Kaplan Thaler Group, no one in advertising could escape the shoot-the-messenger backlash from consumers who felt horribly betrayed by advertising campaigns promoting smoking.

She finished writing her letter and went to bed. You know what, Robin, that’s probably the end of that, she told herself.

But it felt good to convey how the tobacco companies had made people in advertising look deceptive, manipulative and dangerous.

“Of course they’re going to hire you,” Linda predicted when Robin told her what she did. And after a couple of gruelling rounds of interviewing, Robin had indeed beaten out more than one hundred candidates and got the job.

Accepting the new position was both liberating and terrifying, all at once. Peering down into that metaphorical career canyon, Robin steeled herself by flashing back to the toughest question that had been thrown at her during the final interview with toe board of directors, when she had been asked how she would feel about running a controversial organisation whose rich and powerful foes might well decide to go against her personally. It could, she was warned, get very ugly. Her answer, immediate and straight from her native Bronx roots: “Bring it on.”

Excerpted with permission from Grit to Great by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval and published by Crown Business

The post Why you should give up your safety nets! appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Like all children, I grew up on a healthy dose of stories about courage. My personal favourite was the Tintin comic series. The young reporter’s greatest quality was his courage. It led him into all sorts of trouble but also helped him triumph against all odds. But the one story that stands out as a symbolic tale of courage is that of The Cowardly Lion, a character from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Cowardly Lion believes that he lacks courage compared to other lions, when the truth is that he always acts courageously in the face of threatening situations. He finally discovers that courage was in him all along, and that he was simply unaware of the fact. It is his self-image that makes him believe that he lacked courage.

I don’t have to tell you that without courage, none of us can be happy. When fear directs our choices and decisions, our potential remains untapped and we live an unfulfilled life. And yet most people live like that, behaving as if they lack courage. Like L. Frank Baum’s lion, which was undoubtedly inspired by the human condition, they don’t realise that courage is something that we are all born with.

Perhaps the over-glamourised version of courage that we witness in the media makes them believe that it’s all about being loud and audacious. But, as author Mary Anne Radmacher says, “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow”.

This month, Margie Warrell, the best-selling author of Stop Playing Safe and Find Your Courage, tells us how we can go from mere platitudes about courage, to actually living fearlessly. “At the core of courage is choosing to live wholeheartedly—to bare your heart wide open to the full spectrum of experiences and emotions; to stop letting fear run your life, and to start owning your power to create, achieve, become and contribute all that inspires you,” she says. She teaches us how to create a mindset that embraces uncertainty. She encourages us to step out of our comfort zones as that is the only sure shot antidote to fear.

So take action this month and claim what was always yours. Read the cover story, and then go, do something you always felt like doing, but never thought you could. Later, don’t be surprised if you find a familiar face smiling back in admiration—from the mirror!

The post May 2014 issue: Living wholeheartedly appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Asking for Help Is an Act of Courage

We’re all afraid to reach out and ask for help because of a reason. We share with each other an unconscious thought­—if everyone else appears to be doing okay, I should also appear okay and be able to manage without asking for help. A cry for help is considered sinister and something to be avoided. To appear weak frightens us. When we can bring those or similar thoughts up into our consciousness and recognise them, we can begin to let them go. Then we are able to be honest with each other and create mutually helpful relationships quite naturally.

Have You Ever Cried in Public?

Canadian poet, Shane Koyczan wrote, “Openly crying is like taking a vacation from the ‘everything’s okay’ mentality that the world wants everyone to adopt.” It’s high time we all take a permanent vacation from that fake worldview and become more authentic with each other. Asking for help isn’t necessarily as straight-forward as we believe it to be. Among my friends, the general consensus about what holds them back from asking for help was ‘not wanting to be a burden’ or ‘appear weak’. So, when finally there comes a point that one does ask for help, those beliefs are triggered, strengthening a particular pattern. We might spend our life making great efforts to be sure we never need ask for help, which can result in catastrophe if we let the pressure of trying to be that person get to us, and have it all go unchecked. Or we might find ourselves asking for the same help over and over. Each time we find help, there’s temporary relief but in a matter of time the same problem plagues us again. Old, conditioned reasoning kicks in, making us believe we must be stupid or lazy because we can’t manage on our own. These sorts of thoughts connect us to a universal victim/tyrant energy, a potent and pervasive pattern that runs our lives.

Crowdfunding and My Fear of Public Humiliation

As I write this I’m in the middle of a crowdfunding campaign to publish my book the Steps, a new paradigm in healing for our time. Crowdfunding is essentially a large number of people contributing small amounts of money in return for ‘perks’ and the opportunity to participate in the manifestation of an idea. When crowdfunding was suggested to me, I dismissed it because, truth be told, I was terrified of the prospect of public humiliation. What if nobody contributed or so few did that I’d look like a fool? What if people ridiculed my project or called me bogus? All those subconscious fears surfaced. Then two women from opposite sides of the world sent me an Internet link to a TED talk by Amanda Palmer, titled The art of asking.  I took it as a sign to take on crowdfunding. What I have found through this experience is that crowdfunding is about much more than financing your project.

It can be the sort of ‘openly crying’ that Koyczan wrote about. It’s like jumping into fire to publicly ask for help in this way. For me, it has brought to the surface every fear of asking. It has allowed me to release unconscious patterns of thought so that I no longer attract circumstances into my life that allow me to play the victim. Bruce Lee said that a goal isn’t necessarily something to be achieved, but is somewhere to aim. Instead of scaling back and playing small, I took the courage to set my crowdfunding budget high enough to achieve my vision of the Steps and risk my biggest fear of looking foolish. In the process, I have freed myself from any fear of humiliation.

Have the Courage to Look Foolish

We don’t all need to launch a crowdfunding campaign to release the unconscious patterns that hold us back from asking for help. We can just begin noticing. We can become our own calm witness to unconscious beliefs and the patterns we create that hold us back. A lovely way to practise asking for help is by asking your guides or angels—even if you don’t believe in guides or angels—you can ask and notice what is triggered, what fears come up to be looked at. The more you have the courage to risk looking foolish or weird by asking your guides for help, the more you will be able to ask clearly for what you need in the physical world. Support networks will appear, what you need will turn up. When you discover this for yourself, you release the victim/tyrant energy that enslaves so many. And as we each free ourselves from these binding energetic patterns, we create a world where everyone is acknowledged, cared for and freed completely from whatever holds them back from asking for help.

The post Asking for Help Is an Act of Courage appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.