I think I finally get it. The feeling of how it feels to go through your doubt, and pain and insecurity and follow your dream, despite those feelings.
There is much advice out there to tell us how we achieve our dreams, how we can “make it work”. There is the group of people that says “manifest your dreams and then simply do it”, the next say “you have to walk through your fears”, and the third say “train your mind and body to not feel fear anymore”.
They may all work in one moment or the other, but I relized for myself, that the “walking through your fear” is the one that works best. Why? Because the other two failed me too often. They may work, when we are good in going through our fear, but they are mainly focus on the step before taking deliberate action towards our dreams.
Manifest your dreams
You can manifest your dreams. You can say them to yourself over and over again. But if you really found a dream worth pursuing, you do not need to say it out loud anymore. It is within you and those manifestations only may be helpful when you are going through your fear and the fear is holding you back. In those very specific moments, manifestations can be helpful. But it is more of a “I remind myself of the dream while there is pain and strong emotions within me”.
You can of course follow the manifestation advice where you stand in front of your mirror each morning and say to yourself the dream 10 times, but I am not sure that works. There is a therapy practice that when you have issues with a word and feel anxiously attached, you shall say it out loud for 30 seconds 30 times. Then it gets so wishy washy that you are less attached to that meaning. I wonder, if you do manifestations in front of the mirror, isn’t that a bit similar? and would you then not wash away your strong attachment to the dream? So it results in the opposite of what you initally wanted to achieve?
Well, do whatever you want, but I assure you, when you know your dream, it is enough to simply follow it and remind yourself about it from time to time so that your daily life, and daily activities and fear do not make you forget about it.
Train your mind and body to not feel fear anymore
Puh, that is a difficult one. I do not believe that this works. Temporarily it may for sure, but fear is something that is unconsciously happening. You can bring yourself into a mood of overly positivity and just put on that shiny smile and happy determination, butI believe that even though it may be working in short bursts of time, it is a fleeting practice. There may be still fear-induced moments. How do you turn them around? Is that method helping you and protecting you from those moments when fear happen to arise? and can it by 100% make sure that you do not feel anymore? I think fear is innately within us and it is nearly impossible to train it away.
Nonetheless, if you know about a method in that way, happy to hear about it.
But lets come to the third method and the only one I think works. Not only once but over and over again. Even though it is not an easy one.
You have to walk through your fears
There is fear, there is anxiety, there is insecurity. It is all there. It is within us and it is triggered in various moments. Especially those that are important to us and we do not feel confident to take them. Then there are fears, doubts, insecurity. These moments that count. These moments when there is emotion involved and there is the mind involved who tries to protect us. When there is a lot going on. And a decision is necessary. In these moments, what do you do? Do you decide to give into the fear and let it paralyze you, do you back down or do you go through the fear, heads up, and take it all in, feel it, take it in, experience it, and then arrive at a place, where you took an action and the fear decided it is safe again and stopped being there?
In my movement to New York, I come across the fear continuously. The doubt, the question marks, the arousal of emotions, the insecurity, the wondering. All there is to showing me, “oh, we are not sure if that is a great idea! Don’t you want to be better stay here and not move?”, “You need to find a job, what if you do not do that?”, “Isn’t the current city also beautiful? Why do you leave behind something so beautiful?”, “should you not settle, like every other normal person does?”. And so on. All these thoughts, all these strong emotions of feeling lost, of being close to crying, of trying to hide and do something else, till the point where I feel I lose it all and it is too much.
Yes, that is all there. And still, despite all of these reactions, I have a choice. It does not need to tear me down, to belittle me, to take me away from my dreams. Instead, I have the choice to accept it that they are all there to protect me, to be nice to me, to keep me comfortable. I get it. But if I have that dream to feel that feeling again that I have inNew York, I have to go through all of it.
Because, what would the alternative be? Giving up? Staying where I am? Not taking the risk? Living a life that is ok, but not entirely mine? Living a life that seems great from the outside by does not make me happy from within? A life that lets me dream of something else consistently?
Is this what I want to feel like at the end of my life? And also in the process of my life? That I had the chance to just take a leap of faith and follow my dreams and decided against them? Because I was not able to move through those emotions? Because I let fear, and anxiousness decide for me and finally win?
I decided life is too short to do that. And to be sad to not live life to its fullest.
It is frightening, fear-inducing, doubtful and more, but at the same time exciting, interesting and adventorous.
It is the only way to take if you want to achieve your dreams and are currently at a place that does not fit those dreams. It is the change needed to go through and make it happen even if some of the feelings on the way are not as pleasant as you hope they would be.
I love this framing Frederike - it reminds me so much of a piece I wrote a while back:
https://zantafakari.substack.com/p/the-thing-about-change - let me know what you think!
Thanks, it is a good reminder!