Assassins of Joy: FEAR

Morning all :-)

I decided to take a completely different tack today and have a look at one of the things that stands in the way of joy (love & work) FEAR...arghhhhhhhh!

Fear comes in all shapes and sizes from mild worry to wild panic, sometimes it's predictable and other times it just creeps up on us unannounced, either way it's usually no fun and is an assassin of joy. Where fear is present joy is absent.

Fear has some peculiarly debilitating physical effects, dryness of mouth and loss for words, mental fog, shortness of breath, and sometimes a heaviness of limbs. It's difficult to be joyful when fear is around.

But what is fear?

I heard an explanation once that explained it like this. Fear is...

F alse 

E xpectations

A ppearing

R eal

I like that. From my own experience I know that my fear level often rises when I have less than complete information or when I'm speculating about what could happen in a future situation. Nine times out of ten the reality is never as bad as I'd feared.

So what do we do about fear? how can we lose the fear and gain more JOY? Here are a few ideas

1. Work out what's true and focus on it (what we know for sure)

2. Work out what's false and let it go (what we know isn't true) 

3. Work out what we don't know and commit to find answers (what we are unclear about)

If we commit to work with the truth, let go of what's not true and search for answers about what we don't know, hopefully this will keep us grounded in the present rather than the future or past, which is the only place we can actually do anything with anyway.

So where are the joy-less bits of your day today? are they joy-less because of fear? what are you going to do about that?

Banish fear & live JOY-FULL-Y today!