The Ageless Fear Factors Burning Us Out (or down)

I've worked with people aged 8-80 over the last thirty+ years.
What I find to be consistent across all ages are these two burning struggles:
Fear of judgment
Fear of rejection

These fears (I've found) often stem from a sudden shift from feeling visible and important to feeling invisible and emotionally disoriented.

I've seen the invisibility or disorientation monsters take shape to burn or paralyze us most often in two ways:

1) After you dare to voice an idea or express emotion, only to be laughed at or bullied.
2) After an unexpected job loss (or relationship), you invested years of your life and felt safe, competent, confident, or cared about.

Even if you've reached an evolved state to feel that 'nothing anybody says bothers me' when life delivers unexpected blows (like, "Hey, honey, I don't love you anymore. I want a divorce"), suddenly, you might find yourself caring a great deal about what others think, or you may languish in broken-heart status for years for fear of another round of what you experienced as rejection.

Our chronological age doesn't automatically make us immune to suffering emotional setbacks. It isn't just the changes in our physical bodies that can disrupt our self-esteem. What we know by heart about self-care practices doesn't mean much where self-expression is stifled.

And have you noticed? Not all that has not killed us works automatically to grow us stronger in confidence or courage about who we are.

Sure, we may be strongly functioning after surviving an emotionally devastating hit...but can we say we are in high-quality standing with intentional flexibility to grieve and grow in dramatic situations beyond our control?

Life, as we know it, is ever-evolving- often in a direction we didn't see coming- and that which we dislike wholly. We may have mastered stifling our fears--and is it any wonder we're exhausted?

Adults share similar fears and stress as the youth around us. Most of us are too distracted and exhausted to notice the magnitude of others' struggles--including our kids--to be able to offer the kind of kindness and help we say we want to pay forward.

In my life skills children's programs over the years, I learned much about how we handle adult STRESS affects them...

In one program, the students' top internal conflict came from a yearning to tell their parents how stressed they felt (about homework, being bullied, feeling shy) and the burden they felt to create additional stress on their parents if they were to speak up.

Here are a couple of reveals from the feedback these kids gave to an interviewer once they were able to release fears and exercise emotional vulnerability through my principles and techniques:

One girl said:
"I would say that it [the program] makes me feel like I'm free because at school I'm sorta shy and I don't really talk that much, but here I can let my emotions free so it's not tucked inside of me—and it makes me happy!"

How often do we adults want to feel 'free' and happy? Could our fears of speaking up and stifled emotions be at play to stop us from feeling free or happy more often?

One boy said:
"It gets really [stressful in school] I mean you can talk about your problems here [in Dare to Dream]; I mean, you can experience your dreams! You can really feel like you're someone in this
world. I mean, it's really nice to just relax and be who you are in this class."

Whatever our age, it's hard to feel relaxed in any environment where you feel like you don't matter--because maybe your family abandoned you. And it's tough to dare to dream when the only thing we imagine is the worst outcomes moving forward.

It took these kids' courage and vulnerability to speak their truth in the program (using the principles and practices)--and as a result, they felt more confident to speak to their parents (or teachers) without fear of causing them more stress.

It takes the same step forward with the adults I work with to get results--often, the adults are tougher to crack themselves open, as they feel shackled in self-conscious energy or shame. All it takes is a trip back to an early learner beginner's mind to reimagine what's possible!

Not every internal struggle requires therapy, but seeking one out for problems severely impacting your health and relationships is essential.

Any inner conflict is subject to linger and affect others if your pattern is to push through it alone repeatedly. Sometimes all it takes to break through to peace of mind around uncertainty or fears is a proven technique and a professionally trained coach to help you get from who you are today to who you'd love to become for yourself and others!

Brian Tracy, well-known motivational speaker and author of Eat That Frog, who has written extensively on a wide range of personal development topics, says:

"Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and organize your life around it."

Imagine if today's priority was to set peace of mind as your highest goal. How might you organize your life around it?

At the personal level, when it comes to perseverance, I've found:
The on-purpose hustle and fierce commitment to keep going don't guarantee simultaneous peace of mind! You can run forward consistently, but if your soul is worn thin in the process, it's where regret will finally blow past you to beat you to the finish line.

Imagine a world of adults and children living in truthful harmony with each other--even with all the running around we do.

Whatever age you've reached, whatever gender, however spiritually evolved you feel in response to life, fears of judgment and rejection remind us we are humans who need to connect, feel important, and feel seen and heard. Feeling alive isn't just feeling emotions but learning and practicing expressing or releasing them in healthy ways. The next time these fears erupt and threaten to burn or paralyze us, we must ask, "Is peace of mind still a priority?" If it is, our only next step is to resurrect it immediately with action toward it.

For Peace of Mind, Support, and a Relaxed Zone to get through your struggle with these ageless fear factors of judgment or rejection (and many others not mentioned in this article), CLICK HERE.