When fear doesn’t sound like fear
Sometimes it is hard to tell when fear is talking to us. We don’t always get that red flashing “do not enter, it’s scary here” sign. We aren’t necessarily talking about the fear that we feel standing outside of a haunted house or staying up all night with the lights on after watching a scary movie (I say this, not from experience, because I am definitely a scaredy cat when it comes to these things so I stay away entirely).
But what happens when fear sounds like something else? What happens when the things that fear says sound like solid advice we should follow? When fear speaks to us, it can be really tricky. Fear knows how to disguise itself as peace. And even though the phrases can sound similar, make no mistake that only one will leave you satisfied. So what are some of these tricky messages that we can hear?
1. Fear says, “This is enough; you don’t need anything else.”
I hear this one a lot in my life. This statement comes when I am thriving in my life. It comes when motherhood and marriage give me those perfect days. Because those perfect days are often the ones where I don’t want to work on this dream. It sounds like a nice sentiment. It really does, and I am so grateful for my family. My marriage and family will always be a top priority, and experiencing those to the fullest is one of my dreams.
But I will never be truly happy without something else. I cannot have achieved all my dreams. I believe that our lives are for the purpose of chasing our dreams. Maybe that culminates in one grand purpose for us, or perhaps it is a bunch of smaller purposes along the way, but I believe we are supposed to constantly chase dreams because, through that, we will grow to our fullest selves. Being a wife and mom has always been something I wanted, but it was never all that I wanted. When fear comes to me and says, “This is enough,” it is trying to convince me to settle. Fear knows that if I stay in this bubble long enough, then I won’t know what to do if the day comes that it pops. Fear wants me to be lost, and fear actively wants to prevent me from reaching my fullest potential.
Fear says this to make us feel guilty for wanting more. Fear says this so that we feel shame leaving behind a good life, even though we are striving for a great one. Peace says this when our work is finished. Peace wants us to rest in the knowledge that we accomplished what we meant to do. Fear wants to hold us in place so that we never try to begin with.
2. Fear says, “You are better than this.”
This one comes a lot when we enter the grind of chasing our dreams. Maybe we give up a well-paying, highly respected job in the corporate world to start working for a non-profit. Maybe we accept a promotion at work that requires intense training. Maybe we put our writing out there in the world only to receive harsh statements about both our writing and ourselves. As with every dream, we enter a desert. There will always be a “stick to the plan” stage when it comes to achieving our dreams, which brings both highs and lows.
When the lows come, and we have to grind through, we can often look nostalgically back at our lives before we started dream chasing. Fear tells us that things were better before. Fear tells us that we shouldn’t have to go through this grind. Fear tells us that the work we are doing is beneath us. This message doesn’t come in the boundary-setting fashion that peace brings.
This message comes purely to allow our ego to get involved and stop us from doing the good work that we want to do. Fear wants us to return to our comfort zone by trying to convince us that putting in any real, hard effort is beneath us.
3. Fear says, “You don’t need to know anything/ You need to know everything.”
These are two sides of the same coin. Fear can say we don’t need to know anything. Studying, learning, networking, and putting ourselves out there are scary things to do. Fear says this when we attend a conference by ourselves and feel completely out of depth when the sessions break for people to get to know each other. Fear says this when we have to turn down a night out with our friends to study for a big presentation. Fear says this when we research our dream and realize that it will take a lot of entry-level learning work before we ever get close to our end game.
On the other side, fear can say we need to know everything. We’ve talked about this a little bit before. We will never know everything before starting a venture. Fear wants us to stay in place and tries to keep us still by filling us with doubt about our capacity. Fear makes us believe that we can’t succeed unless we are perfect, and the only way to be perfect is to know everything upfront. We become paralyzed by the idea of making a mistake that we never step forward.
When peace says this to us, it is trying to convince us of our capacity. Peace tells us that everyone makes mistakes, and we are no exception to that rule. Peace wants to grow our confidence to know that we don’t need to be perfect to step out into our dreams.
4. Fear says, “______ is your number one priority.”
This is a big one for a lot of people. We all have our priorities, and most of the time, we have those priorities sorted out in our heads. When we try to do something new and shake up our lives, fear tries to remind us that faith, kids, etc., are our number one priority. Thereby convincing us that we should not take this step toward our dream because it will take time away from our number one priority.
Peace says this to protect our boundaries. Peace wants to make sure that we are putting first what we want to. This helps stop us from getting caught up in over-exerting our time, energy, and money in something that we don’t believe in. When fear says this, it is manipulating us into giving up on what we should be doing. Having faith as our number one priority doesn’t mean spending 24 hours a day in our place of worship. If family is our top priority, that doesn’t mean we sometimes need a break from our kids. In many ways, these priorities can either be our reason for doing something or our excuse for not doing it. It all depends on whether we want to listen to fear or peace
Fear says that faith is our priority, so we should not veer any energy or attention away from religious activities. Peace says that faith is our number one priority, so we should work to grow in all that the Creator intended us to be. Fear says our kids are our top priority, so we should spend every moment together. Peace says that because our kids are our number one priority, we have to set an example for them of what it means to chase our dreams.
It’s easy to say that we want to overcome fear. It is hard to actually overcome it. Fear is clever and tricky with its tactics. Fear knows exactly how to disguise itself with the noble intent of peace. It seems simple enough to tell the difference between the two because when peace speaks, we can relax and breathe a sigh of relief mixed with joy. When fear speaks, we feel a shiver run up our backs. When fear speaks, we feel guilt for what we are doing and shame for wanting more. When peace speaks, we feel a calmness and confidence that we are on the right track. We have to look at those feelings, though, because if we take the words at face value, then we can often get lost following the wrong path. I hope you can tell the difference when these tricky sayings come into your mind so that we can step out in peace to chase our dreams rather than hide them away in a box to satisfy fear.