Feel the fear and do it anyway used to be one of my mantra’s.  I thought it was helpful in those days to help me push myself out of my comfort zone.

Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is, of course, a good thing to do.  We are here on this planet to learn and grow and evolve.  Nothing ever grows in your comfort zone, as they say.

However, in recent years I’ve become less keen on the “feel the fear and do it anyway” approach.

Emotions give us vital information about what is safe or unsafe, what makes us happy, sad or angry etc.  Emotion is energy-in-motion and is supposed to be felt and released, not ignored and suppressed or resisted.

So feeling the fear and doing it anyway might be a useful way of moving forward on something you’re scared to do.  Or it might be a really unhelpful way of moving towards something that isn’t actually right for you.

As part of my Transformational Coaching practice, I often use the Inner Child Process which is a powerful way to help you connect with unconscious layers of stories learnt in childhood which have created stuck emotion, limited perceptions or disconnection from your physical body as a survival mechanism.

Working with your “inner child” with your eyes closed, the process allows you to communicate with the unconscious mind.  It uses the Quantum Theory of there being no time and no space to alter your reality; past, present and future. The approach works with the whole self; the emotional, energetic, mental and physical dimensions, and can help to heal old, unhelpful stories and limiting beliefs and perceptions, to support you to re-discover your authentic self.

As I’m always healing and working on my own “stuff” in order to be a safe and “clean” container for clients, I like to describe this ongoing inner work as reparenting my inner child; she’s not going anywhere and is always going to have needs and wants that are my responsibility to meet in order to practice and embody self-compassion.

My Inner Child is effectively my ‘felt sense’.  She is the child within me who tells me when she’s scared about something.  And, as the resourced adult, it is my responsibility to create a safe space for her to feel whatever she is feeling so she can release it.  It is my responsibility as the resourced adult to listen to her, validate her needs and set boundaries to show her she is safe and loved.

But in recent years I’ve found myself skipping part of that process.  I’ve found myself invalidating my inner child’s needs.  I’ve found myself listening to her tell me she’s scared but not HEARING her.  I’ve found myself metaphorically grabbing her by the hand and dragging her into situations she isn’t ready for because I’m not showing her she is safe.  Whilst we might be doing “the thing” that we are scared to do, if I haven’t fully “leaned into” feeling the fear and allowed it to be released, we are certainly not doing it from a present and grounded place so we are not doing it at our best.

It’s a continuous work in progress for me to not only notice but really feel all the sensations in my body when I’m feeling an emotion to create the safe space for that emotion to be felt and released.

When we fully “lean in” to the feelings and sensations we might hear a message or we might not.  Either way, giving it ALL of our attention allows the emotion to be felt and released so we can come back into the present moment and be able to hear our intuition; be able to listen to our heart about whether that “thing” that we’re scared about doing is actually the right thing to be moving towards or not.

And more importantly, to be able to move towards that thing as a connected and integrated version of ourselves, without dragging our inner child along with us kicking and screaming.

So, the “feel the fear and do it anyway” mantra has now been replaced with “feel the fear and let it flow”.

Contact me to find out how Transformational Coaching and the Inner Child Process can support you to heal old, unhelpful stories and limiting beliefs and perceptions and re-discover your authentic self.

With love as always.

Sarah xx