This past weekend I had an afternoon get-together with family and friends. I was extremely excited to meet a young woman who was being brought by someone very special to me (almost like an adopted son). He believed that this could be the special one for him. Sitting across from me, I saw a young woman who seemed so sad and lost in her own thoughts. She clearly had stress by looking at her body language and her aged face and was carrying a heavy load which was weighing on her every action.
Being an RTT Therapist, it is my nature to gently probe and allow the person to open up to me. We got to chatting and she slowly opened up to me.
She was afraid of the future, afraid to make the wrong choices, fear of love, fear of everything in front of her. The recent economic news, fear of following her parents and getting divorced and fear of the unknown. All of these had become a weight she had been pulling around with her. Scared of all the things that could potentially go wrong and of the world out there that she didn’t completely understand. Simply she was focusing on what she didn’t want, the “what if” way of analysing the future.
This type of fear has a clear title, it is called anticipatory fear and didn’t just happen overnight, this had come from weeks or months of battling thoughts in your mind and subconscious. All her fears are normal, natural fears and I will tell anyone reading this the same advice I gave her:
Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited about what could go right. All these fears and “nightmare” scenarios are coming from projecting your own thoughts into the future and imagining something bad. Turn the “what if” around; “what if” you love your choices, “what if” you find the love of your life, “what if” you meet amazing new friends, “what if” you discover that the world out there is amazing, “what if” nothing bad happens?
Lori Deschene said it best, “Don’t let your fear paralyse you. The scariest paths often lead to the most exciting places.”
All my love,
Leanne Hellon