Such are the words of my mentor, Mary Morrissey, and they are true. Great ideas are stopped dead in their tracks unless someone has the courage and the persistence to pursue them. 

There are all sorts of reasons that we don’t take action. The main one is fear. Maybe we don’t think we are capable of doing what needs to be done. Perhaps we believe it when others say “it can’t be done.” We are inspired, we plant the seed of the idea in our mind, but then we pull it up before it has any time to take root in our life. We believe more in our limitations than we do in our inspirations. The truth is that we all experience fear. No one has ever succeeded at something new without experiencing fear. The key is to overcome that fear and turn it into a stepping stone. 

Okay, so you’ve decided for something and then fear comes along and rears its ugly head. What do you do?  You look right at it and say, “I know what you are!” Then tell yourself, “There is something in me that’s greater than this fear and I can move past it.”  

Fear is actually the border of the reality that we know. Imagine that you are driving your car at night, traveling down a road that you’ve never been on before. The headlights allow you to see a certain distance, but beyond their range, you don’t really know what’s out there in the distance. But as you continue to move down the road, more and more is revealed to you. The headlights illuminate what is known and continue illuminating more and more unless you stop in fear of something you can’t see from your current position. As long as the headlights stay on, you can continue moving ahead with confidence. It’s only by moving ahead that you can reveal more of what lies ahead!

A strategy to deal with fear, therefore, is to keep moving toward your goal one step at a time. We turn our fear into faith. There’s a story about a young Native American man who goes to his chief because it is time for him to go out on his vision quest and he is frightened. He has to leave the village and go out into strange surroundings where there could be bears and other wild animals that could attack him. He admits to the chief that he is afraid, saying, “I want to do the vision quest, but it’s like there are two dogs inside me fighting. One who says I can and one who says I can’t. And they are fighting and fighting and I am frightened and confused. What should I do?”

It’s only by moving ahead that you can reveal more of what lies ahead!

The chief very gently puts his hand on the young brave’s shoulder. He looks him in the eye and says, “The one who says you can will win.”  The boy responds, “How do you know that?” The chief replies, “Because that is the one you will feed. One you feed and one you starve.”

So, how do you feed your faith and starve your fear? You do it by directing your attention towards what you want to feed. That attention will magnify it and strengthen it. 

Fear is our companion through life, whether we like it or not. We control it by not giving it our attention. The Law of Attraction tells us that thoughts held in mind reproduce after their kind. On a farm, the seeds we plant will yield the fruit of that seed. Apple seeds will bear apples. Pear seeds bear pears. Corn seeds bear corn. In the same way “fear seeds” will bear fear that will result in constriction and containment. You need to deal with fear, but only because in order to move forward, you need to take the next step in that direction and not stop dead in your tracks. 

I heartily welcome your comments and questions!