Inner voice I Dance I Rise

This week’s letter is a special one to celebrate Halloween, and in doing so, recognising our F.E.A.Rs that paralyse us, preventing us from living the life we truly desire and that is almost within our grasp.

Last Saturday, I carved my first pumpkin…ever! Can you believe it? I had never ever carved out this little orange…vegetable, fruit, legume? My carving acolyte and I decided to call it Percy! Percy the Pumpkin! Check him out in the pic above! It was a magical moment!

Halloween doesn’t really exist in French culture as it really is an Anglo-Saxon thing. So, as a kid, I never enjoyed trick or treating, carving pumpkins, or any of the other accoutrements of Halloween. 

I properly discovered Halloween when I studied in the US. In fact, Boston, where I studied, was a stone’s throw away from Salem, the mythical witch town. So, what better place than Salem to celebrate Halloween? I was a mummy! 

Halloween is the moment where mummies, vampires, ghosts, zombies, all sorts of scary beings come to life to threaten to take our life. They scared us and we F.E.A.R. them! 

But actually, I would say that what we F.E.A.R the most is ourselves, and the stories we build, invent, and the world that we create around what doesn’t exist.

Last weekend, I brunched with a long-term friend in this amazing vibrant vegetarian place called Mildred in Camden, London (with its punks and goths and their own scary faces). She shared that she was about to move with her boyfriend but F.E.A.R.ed this moment. It’s was funny cause I could relate to what she kindly shared, and I believe that we all can.

We all F.E.A.R. something, it is human nature. 

How can we tame that F.E.A.R.? How does this help us? What is there to learn? 

I am not talking about F.E.A.R. of spiders or heights but the psychological F.E.A.R.s of:

• Commitment

• Failure

• Being an imposter

• Being seen

• Not being loved

• Being judged

• Success

• Not being enough

• Being alone

• …and it goes!

What are those F.E.A.R.s that control you? Those F.E.A.R.s that limit you? 

Can you be limitless if you F.E.A.R.less? 

F.E.A.R.less might just be suicide as F.E.A.R. also has a purpose, to protect us from the lion in the bush, the threats we experienced 200,000 years ago, but how does it help you today?

F.E.A.R. helps us “fight” or “fly” as our system gets into shock…but it can also “freeze” us, so we then do nothing! 

Today, I want to serve you with 3 very powerful acronyms that have helped me reframe many stories.

F.E.A.R as False Evidence Appearing Real

And even worse… when they are not even evidence!

False Expectations Appearing Real…..

But my favourite one, that is very empowering and that I invite you to print and laminate to put in your wallet or somewhere you walk in front of regularly (I did!)

F.E.A.R as Face Everything And Rise

So it is time my friend to face YOUR mummies, zombies, vampires, skeletons and other creatures of your own making, in order to live the life we want.

QUESTION…

How can you dance with your F.E.A.R*?

(*Face Everything And Rise)