Are You Ruled By Fear?

Yesterday, I returned home from a dream business trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina.  The trip was amazing on so many levels – but for me personally there were some breakthroughs where I was able to recognize the times in my life that I let fear rule my decision making and the outcomes lay somewhere between bad to disastrous.
So my question to you today is this:  are you ruled by fear?

Let me explain.
I remember a discussion with my brother after I graduated from high school and we were talking about my choice to play soccer at Western Washington University.  My brother had graduated from WWU the year before and he told me that the soccer team ran 5 miles every day for conditioning.  I thought there was no way I could run 5 miles, so I decided to not play soccer – which was something that I was passionate about playing.

Or the time when I chose to not jump in water because of fear, and it caused me to lose my pinky on my right hand.

Fear as a motivator can have dire consequences.  We can get stuck in places, jobs, relationships, etc and realize too late that the decision wasn’t right for us.  Sadly, often it’s too late to change and we feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I’ve reached a point in my life where I am choosing to not let fear guide me.  Here’s another situation that has ruled my life for decades.

When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to go to Europe for 2 months and live with the girl that had been my families exchange student the previous year.  It was a great experience to live in Germany for 2 months.  During the summer, we went to Holland for 2 weeks and the family wanted to ride horses.

I had never been on a horse prior to that day.  Well, my horse decided to bolt into traffic next to the freeway and it scared me so badly that my fear of horses would make me sweat and back up – even if they were behind a fence.

That’s a serious fear, wouldn’t you agree?
I’ve had many friends who have offered to teach me to ride horses, and I’m sure it would have been a safe situation, and I would have loved to have gotten over my fear of horses, yet I continued to let fear rule my life regarding horses.  This last week, on my trip to Argentina I was with 70 other entrepreneurs and we were offered this amazing experience to learn to play polo.  And that meant being on a horse.

I was in the moment, and acknowledged my fear of horses, but decided it was time to get over it.

Sweaty palms and shaking hands as I approached the horse, I let the guide know I was very nervous.  But, he stayed with me and made sure the horse behaved itself and helped me to get over my fear.

By the end of my time on the horse, I was breathing normal and riding the horse without assistance!

How many times in your life can you directly correlate a decision you made and later regretted because you were led by fear?  We all have them.  Here’s a crazy thing – my decision to not play soccer because they had to run 5 miles every day – well, I’ve since run 2 full marathons and 5 half marathons.  5 miles is nothing.

I am blessed that I am able to recognize those moments that I let fear dictate my actions because I am able to rationalize through those moments and make a decision based on facts, not fear.

And then you start to realize that each decision you made was important at that time – because without that decision, you would’t be where and who you are today.  Had I played soccer, I wouldn’t have my 2 kids.  Had I jumped in the water, my business wouldn’t be heading in the direction it is today.  Everything happens for a reason.  The important thing is to recognize that decisions based on fear, rather than fact can change the direction of your life.  It might be good – or not.

From my experience, living with fear as your guide can cause you to miss out on wonderful experiences and not be true to who you really are.  Truly, and with sincere wishes, if I can help you with your decisions for a massage or personal trainer vocation, please reach out.  Bodymechanics School is truly life changing for so many people – myself included.  I would love to help you figure out how to start living your life, helping people feel better and improving lives for countless people.

Live life with purpose.
Shari Aldrich, LMP
President
Bodymechanics