Paralyzed by fear

An electrical storm rolled over head, just as I was heading to bed. As I lay there, hoping for rain, I had a horrible thought... Did I close my car windows. I'd been on the road all day, back to back meetings and I was drained when I finally got home, and I just couldn't remember.

So I got up, stuck clothes on over my sleep wear and went to check.

They were shut.

The lightening was impressive but I could hear the distressed cries of my little girl. She hates storms. She doesn't understand what they are. So I scooped her up and took her inside, heart pounding and took her to the one place she feels safe in the house. Murmuring to her I opened the linen cupboard and put her inside, leaving the door ajar and went back to bed to listen to the storm.

My little girl is a cat. My daughter was already tucked up in bed... But as I lay there drifting between the rolling thunder, it took me back to my childhood. I didn't understand what people meant when I was told the meteorological explanation of thunder. I just knew that I was scared.

I'm one of 4 kids, but there was always space in my parents bed and that particular stormy night, dad had tried saying that the storm was just air colliding... But I still didn't understand, so he said it was God and his friends playing ten pin bowling upstairs.

When I could 'understand' I was no longer paralyzed by fear.

My little girl, on the other hand would never understand, so she will always be stuck during periods of stress.

While the memory of my 5 year old self made me smile, I had lots of time to think.

Why do we get stuck?

One of the main reasons is because we are afraid of loud noises. We jump from crisis to crisis without stopping to understand what we are doing. Repeating the same behaviors because we don't know any better and not willing to change anything.

Because that is the second thing we fear...

But what if we change stuff and we fail?

But what if we change stuff and it works... But the voice says but that means I have to repeat those successes and what if I can't...

Sometimes I think we are all living life like miss Belinda hiding in our own version of the linen cupboard. Doing OK with the day to day stuff until something we don't understand, scares us and we bury ourselves until we feel like coming out again.

One thing I do know, thunder and lightning is not as scary when you can see it.

When you can see it, you can begin to understand it. So -  

• Take any problem that scares you.
• Turn it in to a project.
• What do you need to know?
• Who can you ask for clarification?
• How can you apply your new understanding to the process?
• What else do you need to know?

 Seek to understand, then apply the new information and you can move out of the linen cupboard.