I’m going to start a short series on emotions, because in my day-to-day work, I find that most people, number one, don’t understand that all emotions are good, because they’re just trying to tell you that there’s something you need, or that you want, that you’re not getting.
We’re going to start with the big ones, and I think I’ll probably cover four or five of them, but the biggest one, but the biggest one is fear, and that’s what we’re going to start with.
First, let me define fear. Fear is telling you that you feel insecure or that you don’t feel safe. There’s many nuances of fear and we use a lot of words to express fear, some of which you may not think are directly related, but they are. They also may indicate behaviors that we have that indicate fear.
So things like anxiety or nervousness, blame, shame, vulnerable, avoidance, procrastination, jealousy, unworthiness, perfectionism, and defensiveness. All of these can describe the underlying feeling that is driving these words and all of these words are just synonyms for fear.
So fear in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. You need to, number one, decide, is it based in reality? And if it is, how are you going to resolve it? What are you going to do to make yourself feel safe and secure?
And when you can recognize these feelings in yourself and learn how to manage that fear, then you can also then start being aware of that emotion in other people and be a facilitator, perhaps, in helping them resolve their fear or making the situation that you’re in feel more comfortable for them.
I’m Roberta Fernandez, Your Ability Activator.