Fear as a Compass

In my twenties, I practiced Pick-Up quite intensely. That’s learning how to be better with women, which ultimately meant getting my life together, cleaning up my past, and being honest.

I remember one particular summer, it must have been 2014. Me and my friend Martin created what we called The List of Social Destruction. I think it contained twenty-five or thirty tasks which we committed to doing. I don’t remember all of them. But I do remember some:

• Walking down the street with female underwear over the face

• Begging for money until we had 5 Euros (which we then gave to homeless people)

• Hitting on a male shop attendant 

• Laying on the floor in a mall for 30 seconds (The Tim Ferris classic)

• Asking a women directly for s*x

We did all of it over a month. It was a nice tingling boost of confidence each time.

Unfortunately, that confidence did not last very long.

The high faded and I found myself with the same insecurities and patterns.

Looking back, I now see why. 

You don’t have to create discomfort on purpose

There were a lot of actual things I was avoiding in my life. Things I was deeply scared of or horrified by but had to look at. And I think I co-created that list to distract myself from what I was actually scared of and instead made scaring myself on purpose a pseudo-courageous sport. 

Here is what I mean by that:

At that time, I knew I had to stand up to my parents. I knew I had to tell my exes that I cheated on them. I knew I had to come clear about stealing at work. I knew I had to figure out what I actually want to do with my life (the scariest thing of all) and be more honest, daily. 

Creating arbitrary things to scare myself did not fix any of that.

Maybe it helped a little to see that truth and get clear on the real work ahead. 

Fear points towards the path

My good friend and teacher Dr. Brad Blanton often told me:

“Sometimes you need to do what you are scared of in order to get the power to do what you actually want to do. Avoiding difficult things will cost you energy and life.”

Over the last decade I learned to use fear as a compass.

Where there is a lot of fear there is also a lot of love. Or a lot to reclaim in terms of aliveness, vitality, and power to act. Fear inevitably points at the work ahead. If your heart beats when you think about saying something or talking to someone, that’s the way to go. 

One of the scariest of all things for most people is to have honest conversations.

But that’s where the gold is:

Bottled-up emotions that block us from interacting presently with other human beings and keep us in re-creating the past.

What conversations are you avoiding?

Here’s a little suggestion for the New Year.

Instead of pushing forward and learning new things and booking ten workshops, pause and really listen to your inner voice: What are conversations you deep-down know you would benefit from having? Things you are avoiding and circling around by being busy or having fun?

Listen to the rationalizations of why it’s not important or can’t be done.

“Yeah, but I don’t need that person in my life. I don’t want to close to them. Yeah but she is an energy vampire. Yeah, but in this case it can’t be done. My mom would get a heart attack. Yeah, but they should contact me first. Yeah, but I tried so much. Yeah, but I don’t want to hurt them.”

That’s all symptoms of fear. 

And the bigger the fear the more certain we can be that there is something to gain on the other side.

When we face it, we step into the zone of heightened presence and power. We go into the unknown. And very likely, we will emerge from there with a new boon or blessing for our life*.

We could call it true power, integrity, or love.

Happy New Year.

* That paragraph is inspired by Joseph Campbell’s writings on the Heros Journey.