Mojo Monday - Fear is Not a Time to Freeze: It’s a Time to Listen and Show Up

In this week's Mojo Monday, Carly talks about fear as an example of finding emotional balance. There is always a message in our emotions, but we often aren't listening. When we do listen, we find that even our most intense emotions are pointing us to what we deeply care about. From there, we have a compass to point us to the path to take and how we can show up fully, even when we feel like running the other way. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Everyone, it's Carli Taylor here for this week's Mojo Monday.
So if you want to be free of anxiety and
fear and negative self talk, you know, all those emotions
and thoughts that we spend so much energy trying to
get rid of, then really, when you think about it,
nothing in your life would matter because the flip side

(00:31):
of it, if you want to make those uncomfortable emotions
and uncomfortable thoughts disappear, you also have to take away
the joy, the love, the excitement, the happy thoughts. Life
would become this shade of gray and you would feel numb.
It would really be like riding a rollercoaster with no emotion.

(00:53):
So the people around you are screaming with fear or
screaming with excitement, but you you would feel nothing. You
just sit there with his blank look on your face.
And that's not living fully. We can't live a life
free of emotion, and this is what seems to be
the struggle. Our humanness means we feel, and to feel

(01:17):
is both amazing and it's also really painful. And emotions
rise and fall, light waves, they come, they go up
and up and up, they peak, and then they subside.
Even an anxiety attack. For an examples like a huge wave.
So it builds and builds and builds, and on average
it takes around ten minutes, sometimes longer before it begins

(01:39):
to ease, but it never sticks around forever, and as
unbearable as it can feel at the time, it will
never keep climbing. In fact, the more we try and
fix it, or fight with it or get rid of it,
the bigger the wave can feel. There's a culture that
we've developed in the West, and there's very blurred line

(02:00):
between what's a normal human response to life's events, to
life's circumstances, and what's actually a disorder. And we are
offered endless parts that promise relief, but those pasts don't
necessarily lead to a happy or meaningful life. So here's

(02:20):
a reframe. So let's take fear, for example, and this
could be anxiety, sadness, anything, any emotion, any uncomfortable emotion
that shows up. Ask yourself, what does this say about
what I truly care about? So if you fear being alone,
if you fear being lonely, maybe it's because you deeply

(02:42):
value love, friendship, and connection. If you feel fear of
failing an exam, a job, interview or a project. Maybe
it's because you value achievement, or you value doing meaningful
work on making a contribution, or maybe it could be
around identity and integrity. So fear isn't something to get

(03:03):
rid of in these cases, and it's not an emotion
we always recognize right away. So often it shows up
as anger, frustration, or even avoidance. But underneath fear is
a compass pointing towards what matters most. So it's not

(03:23):
a stop sign. Maybe it's more like a giveaway sign,
a signal to pause, to slow down, to notice, and
to ask yourself, what is this pointing me towards? Because
without that compass, we can lose our way and end
up in even more pain and an avoidance and in inaction,

(03:44):
and that doesn't lead anywhere. We need to steer us
back to what gives our lives meaning and purpose. And
this isn't an ability that some people have and some
others don't. And it's not about making excuses for yourself.
It's like, you know, well, that's just me and that's
just how I roll. It's a skill that we can

(04:05):
all practice, even the most sensitive among us, and I
put myself in that category. We can learn to pause
when fear shows up, to take a breath, to notice
it with curiosity, step back from it and ask, well,
actually not ask oh my god, how do I get
rid of this? But what is this showing me that

(04:27):
I care about? And how do I need to show
up right now? The more we practice, the easier it
becomes to balance that discomfort of fear or whatever uncomfortable
emotions showing up with clarity of what it's protecting us from.
So to feel fear is to care. To be anxious

(04:47):
is to care. To love is to fear rejection. To
have goals is to fear of failure. To care for
families to feel this fear for their well being. To
lead is to feel fear of letting others down. To

(05:08):
show up fully is to feel fear of being judge.
So you kind of getting the picture here. There's these
two sides of the coin. And we often talk about balance,
especially work life balance, But what if we started talking
about emotional balance, and that means learning to hold both
sides of these coin of this coin, the discomfort of

(05:29):
fear and the values that it actually reveals, because it
reveals so much about you that you may not be
seeing yourself, Because when we balance the pain with purpose,
that means that we can free ourselves to use our
precious time wisely. We can show up not just despite
the emotions, but alongside them, living more fully human and

(05:54):
being more fully ourselves. So this week, I invite you
to notice when fearsh up or anxiety or sadness or
whatever emotion is, that's that's super uncomfortable for you. And
rather than panicking and asking how do I get rid
of this? Try asking what does this tell me that

(06:15):
I care about? So I hope you found that valuable,
and I hope you all have a great week, and
I will catch you next Monday. See ya.