FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH FEAR

EPISODE #173

In this episode of Confidence on the Go we’re chatting about:

• How I have come to learn that life is on a spectrum of fear and love, and how I have learned to lean into the love trajectory as much as possible and found freedom in doing so
• 8 proclamations for you to use to fight fear
• 11 ways that fighting through fear can elevate your life, your joy and your confidence to the next level

Just a quick hello to all of my Keep the Faith listeners out there – thanks for being part of the community of contagious encouragement.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Do one thing every day that scares you.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

SPONSORSHIP NOTE:

I am proud to be an educator and consultant for Beautycounter, a B-Corp company on a mission to get safer products into the hands of everyone.   The lack of regulation in the personal care and cosmetic industry is astounding and it is harming our health in very serious ways. We need more voices to join up on our mission. If you want to put your passion to purpose while being generously compensated, then I would love to start a conversation with you about what it means to be involved in the #saferbeauty tribe that is Beautycounter. Join the movement of #betterbeauty and message me via email to make your voice really resonate for a cause.

QUOTATIONS ON FACING FEAR:

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. Dorothy Thompson

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins. Charles Stanley

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do. Henry Ford

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom. Marilyn Ferguson

So then learn to conquer your fear. This is the only art we have to master nowadays: to look at things without fear, and to fearlessly do right. Friedrich Durrenmatt

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH FEAR:

I was what I considered both a fearful and fearless child. I would do anything anyone dared me to do that was physical – I would take anyone on in a race, do any trick off the diving board and talk to anyone. But, at home, I was afraid that happiness wouldn’t last, I was afraid of the dark, I was terrified of the monsters under my bed and I was afraid that I would disappoint my family somewhere along the way and that, as a result, my world would come crashing down around me in crumbles.

In college, I became more mindful of fear – because fear was driving my perfectionism and addictions, and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t break free. I was afraid of losing in races and in not being good enough in what I did – I was afraid in essence of being average, un-loveable and forgettable. I realized that I was learning two things from my mom – both how to be fearless (my mom will do anything physical) and how to be fearful (my mom is fearful about scarcity and well, all the normal mom things to worry about) … and I realized that I wanted to take the good and move forward with it – and then take the bad, and work hard to morph it into something good.

Moving across the world – showing up at that train station in Perigueux, France, threw me into a new world of facing fear.   I embraced it, and thanks to the support of new friends, I learned to face the fearful things about me and about my eating disorder and my personality I didn’t realize beforehand.

Once back State-side, I owed my parents $$$ and was afraid I couldn’t make it on my own. I was afraid that I wasn’t fit enough or good enough to be a personal trainer – but my mom empowered me to fake it until I made it, so every day I went into work, facing my personal fears of inadequacy and failure and made it until I really made it.

My real relationship with facing fear (and embracing fear) didn’t begin until my greatest fear happened: I was brutally raped by a stranger in a dark, seedy hotel room and thought I was going to be choked to death.   After that I was both afraid of everything and empowered to know that I had survived my worst nightmare, so that I could do anything. That year I bought my first house and was afraid at night to be alone — and then a mentor introduced Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote to me: D O O N E T H I N G   E V E R Y D A Y   T H A T   S C A R E S   Y O U.

Everything changed for me. I started seeking out fear, making friends with it, and understanding that fear fortifies my resilience and character because it tells me that if I can get comfortable with fear then I can do anything. … and this is when I learned that life is a spectrum, that everything I do is either based in L O V E or in F E A R, and there is nothing attractive about fear, so when I am wavering or second-guessing myself or unsure of what the next right move is, I always meditate on the words L O V E and F E A R and they guide me.

Let L O V E guide you.

8 PROCLAMATIONS TO CHANGE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FEAR:

I am a fear-facer.

I am bold.

I am love, not fear.

I do scary things.

I do not listen to fear because it is a liar.

I will always choose love, not fear.

I will be able to take the next step.

I will be brave, even if it is just for 20-seconds.

WHAT FIGHTING THROUGH FEAR CAN DO FOR YOUR LIFE

(Note: I say “through” fear, and not free from fear, because we will never be completely free from fear for fear is a part of life, it is simply in our power of choice to choose to engage in it and allow it to have a presence in our life)

1. Makes you a more joyous human being
2. Gives you the gift of being able to live in the present
3. Puts peace into our soul
4. Saturates our lives with more love
5. Makes us brave
6. Redefines what we think we can do in life
7. Establishes us as leaders and encourages to those around us
8. Enables us to overcome self-doubt and personalized insecurity
9. Strengthens us to do anything we set our mind to
10. Elevates the level of our self-confidence
11. Reminds us that love always wins

LISTENER OF THE EPISODE:

Hi Trish!   My name is Ari  and I am 18 years-old from Chicago! First I want to say that you are literally my biggest role model. I stumbled upon your podcast channel a couple months ago and I absolutely fell in love with it. A fun fact that connects us is that I have been taking French since middle school and I will continue taking it in college so I can hopefully become fluent. I am primarily writing to you because I would like your advice. I, too, suffer from body dysmorphia. I am being treated for it and working through it as we speak, but it gets hard a lot. See, my issue is not with my body, but with my face. When I am not smiling I feel like I have shadows from the corners of my lips to my chin that make it look like I have a drooping lower face. I have been told by many people that it is just my disorder but it is so hard for me to believe that what I see isn’t real. I am going off to the University of Michigan this Fall and I am very nervous – there will be lots of beautiful girls and beauty matters to a lot of guys and to what sorority you get in. There is just so much emphasis placed on beauty. I can hardly talk to my guy friends because all they talk about is who is hot and who is not.   I get so upset when I see a beautiful girl cross the street as I watch everyone ooze over her. I know she has problems, but it still hurts. I simply want to feel beautiful. I was wondering if you could offer me some of your amazing advice about loving the way you look, not comparing yourself to friends or acquaintances, and being confident when I go to college. I’m just scared I won’t measure up to these other girls. I know you are super busy but if you could reply to this message it would mean the world to me. Thank you so much for everything. You give me much hope Trish. Much love.

MY RESPONSE: 

-Responding via podcast because we have a whole segment of our tribe going off to college, or, if not them, moms of new college students who need to hear the answer to this request

-Be encouraged to remember that everyone feels the same way you do

-The more you love and celebrate the beauty of others, the more confident you will be

-Pray that God will help you make the right friends and that you would remain true to yourself and have the strength to not give into the pressure of trying to be someone that you are not just to fit in

-Remember that your mind does lie to you – and that you don’t have to believe it

-Never forget that you can do hard things … and learning to love yourself and see your own beauty is a long, hard journey, but that you CAN do it and keep stepping through it to learn it

ANNOUNCEMENTS

If you love me, you will write a review for my book! J That is, as long as you have gotten a copy of the book! If you don’t yet have your own copy go to any bookstore or to www.insecuritydetox.com!

Also, to go with my book, I’ve created a FREE 5-Day Detox Devotional to prepare your heart and soul to get the most out of Insecurity Detox once it arrives. Over a period of five days, you will receive five-minute devotional and prayer-centered posts right to your inbox to inspire joy, infuse you with confidence and deepen your understanding of the truth of just how deeply God loves you. Get your free copy of the Detox Devotional by visiting www.trishblackwell.com/devotional

To increase your own practice of abundance in your thoughts, allow me to be your coach for my 7-day online Emerge Experience, in which I will help you train your brain and work on intentional living so that you can really start emerging into the person you were created to be and the person that the world is waiting for. There is more than enough need for you to be the best you – the world needs you and your love. Start taking your presence in the world seriously and start emerging…you can enroll in Emerge at www.trishblackwell.com/emerge