You’re Afraid of More Than You Think

Question: What’s your greatest fear?

Let me guess your answer: Public speaking. Flying. Heights. (My answer: balloons. I’m not kidding. Really. Don’t ask.)

Allow me to suggest a few answers you might not have considered: Intimacy. Vulnerability. Abandonment. Confrontation.

It might not be the stuff of your nightmares, but it is the stuff that’s haunting you during your waking hours.

It’s true: I’m more comfortable addressing a room of 250 people than standing in close proximity to a balloon animal-making puppeteer at a kid’s birthday party. The latter is a much greater test for my deodorant’s strength.

But do you want to know what terrifies me even more? Sharing my real, honest thoughts with you, especially when they aren’t happy or positive. I don’t like appearing imperfect either. Then you might not like me. You might tell me I’m bad or go away altogether. I’d really hate that, because then I’d feel like I’m unworthy.

A fear of helium-inflated latex might be awkward and embarrassing at times (it has earned me some puzzled looks, to say the least), but those other fears have been much more limiting and harmful to me, because they cloud my relationships and day-to-day interactions.

Those fears have caused me to do things I didn’t want to do, feel things I didn’t want to feel, and left me feeling guilty when I dared go against what someone else wanted me to do. As you might have guessed, I was walking around feeling a whole lot of misery.

Now, my life is all about identifying, facing, and overcoming those fears. I’m working on it every day, and I still fail at times. But you know what? I’m a whole lot better.

Keep coming back here … I look forward to sharing my journey with you, and I want you to share yours too, no matter where you are now.

What are your greatest fears?