Going live and still alive.

5 steps to make your fears work for you

For a long time, I avoided what scared me. 😮

When I went to camp at twelve, I chose the canoe trip over hiking because I didn’t want to be the last person up the mountain, streaming sweat and tears after everyone else bounded straight uphill for four long days. 🛶

I never took computer science in college, because everyone said it was “so hard” that I worried I wouldn’t be able to get an A. 💻

It took me a decade of work experience before I gave my first upward feedback to a manager, for fear of getting fired. (Can you believe it?) 🧐

And yet, here I am, feeling like a Corgi-Shepherd mix (all looks, no stature). Why?

The Messy Human is live today! 🥂👏🏼🎉

I’ve been afraid the lightning bolt of public judgement might strike me down, leaving behind unfinished projects and a whiff of good intentions. But, apparently, I’m going to live.

I guess this shouldn’t quite surprise me, because over the years I’ve learned that fear can be a strategic tool, if you use it wisely.

And yet… here I am, my heart still pounding.

Fear is what I call an “emotion guide.” 🧭

You’re going to hear me talk a lot about using your feelings and emotions as guides. They provide such useful information it’s a shame not to pay attention to them; to dismiss them as disruptive states only the weak give into.

“Emotion as guide” is a foundational component of my Messy Human practice. As healthy, happy, Messy Humans, we don’t deny our feelings. We validate and mine them for the gold they offer; the help they provide.

Here’s how fear helps. Fear was once useful to save us from lions, tigers and bears (oh my)! Now it’s useful to alert us to risks and dangers of a different kind, helping inform our action plans. ⚔️

Almost everyone knows fight-or-flight is triggered by scary things. This response lies within our sympathetic nervous system. A whole bunch of chemicals and hormones are released, shutting down most of our brain and body except for exactly what we “need” to cope with a threat. (If that threat were, say, a mugger or a cheetah).

To get out of fight-or-flight you must activate the parasympathetic nervous system, otherwise known as rest-and-digest. You can activate that system with paced breathing, stretching, meditation, body awareness scans, cardio, patting a pet, hugging a loved one, or even something more ohhh, I don’t know, *spicy.*

(We’ll talk about all these practices more in upcoming newsletters.)

But the kind of scary things most of us deal with on a regular basis are much more diffuse than a mugger or a cheetah. More long term. Maybe more recurring.

Take the fears I faced every time I started to work on creating and executing a launch plan for this newsletter: that I wasn’t good enough and would be judged. And turns out, my icky inner mugger could not be tricked if I hid behind a tree. Nor could I outrun this cheetah.

Since I was stuck with them right inside my head, these bogies could have led to endless procrastination and eventually, abandoning the project completely. A sort of slow motion flight response.

But by using my emotion guides, I let my fear make me more inspired instead.

Here are five ways I took advantage of the useful guidance baked inside my fears to get over my scaries and get into action, eventually launching The Messy Human on this day of our lives, March 13, 2023. (Eeek!)

1. Listing my fears and my “don’t wants”

Self acceptance is a foundational aspect of Messy Humaning. That includes accepting and validating one’s feelings. In doing so, you calm the part of yourself that feels bad for feeling bad. It gives you a chance to hold space for what is, and examine it with a hint of distance and a lot of compassion.

When I considered what I was afraid of, I found three things on the list. They pointed to specific outcomes I didn’t want.

1. Inadequacy. I didn’t want to waste my own or other people’s time creating content that wouldn’t move the needle. I was afraid that if I launched this newsletter I would be exposed as a fraud. After all, my masters is in Economics, not Psychology. I am not a therapist.

2. Unpreparedness. I did not want to be stressed, short on time, perpetually in a state of uncertainty, and generating sub-par content due to time pressure. I was afraid of living in the spin cycle by starting before I was ready.

3. Judgement. I didn’t want to be put “on blast” by the internet or have my perspective publicly shredded. I was afraid of wrangling with people who thought my approach was useless, “woo woo” and fluffy, and who would prefer overworking and over-doing in the name of achievement, versus seeking a more balanced model.

Not fun stuff to think about. But holding space for it was important so I could do the next steps.

2. Identifying the desires within my “don’t wants”

Within everything we are afraid of, lies a beautiful idea. Our most protective self encircles the vulnerable dreamer within. Our vision is the core nugget we can mine from our fears. It can become our new focus.

In light of this, I explored what each of my fears could tell me about what I did want to happen. The key was to consider the inverse of my “don’t wants” and re-write them as “big wants,” or desires.

1. Being afraid of inadequacy highlighted my desire to offer value to my readers, grounded in experience, research, and facts. I envisioned bringing a new level of insight and synthesis with my writing. I had a bold vision of touching hearts and minds through my words.

2. Being afraid of unpreparedness highlighted my desire to eliminate unnecessary choices and busywork from my day-to-day, thereby freeing me to focus on creative work. I had a vision of consistent creative efforts leading to growth.

3. Being afraid of judgement highlighted my desire to interact with a universe of people pulling in the same direction I am. I had a vision of finding my community - those who want to shift how the world views achievement, success, and growth and who are ready to change the game for themselves and others.

When you start to see the beautiful things that your fears are trying to protect, you can thank those fears for doing their job. Then you can tell them their protective services are no longer required. Your fears can take a rest.

Because now that you can see it clearly, you have a chance at your big vision, bringing in other helpful emotions to propel you ahead, like hope and joy, generosity and care.

3. Connecting desires to actions in my control

Strengthened by a big vision and a flood of positive feelings, there were many actions I felt ready to take. Whole worlds within my grasp.

It’s possible to experience overwhelm at this stage because of the expansive possibility here. So this is the time to figure out the right actions.

Turning my “wants” and my big vision into an action plan (some might even call this a strategy), meant connecting the dots between my desired outcomes and the actions that would lead me most directly there.

This let me de-prioritize or skip other actions and created a sense I was on the right track, further releasing my fears.

1. The goal of delivering high-value content helped me decide on my style of writing. It comes from a personal perspective, but blends in helpful science-backed research and impactful spiritual practices. Specifically, the ones my life experience led me to discover. This is something uniquely mine.

2. The goal of prioritizing creative work and scalability after launch helped me come up with a check-list of content, tools, systems and templates to create before launch, all of which would streamline my efforts.

3. The goal of finding the right audience and community helped me hone in on who I wanted to write for (you!), and come up with language and a plan to help you learn about me and discover that we are a good fit for each other.

4. Calibrating to my strengths and letting go of the rest

As a recovering overachiever, my jump-into-action side is pretty beefy. I’m sure yours is too.

Don’t let your inner transformer overdo it. The action engine is running now, but you need to stay in low gear so you have time for play, fun, rest, and connection in your one and only life. This is some of the hardest advice for me to follow, after I give it to myself!

My tendency towards pushing too hard could easily have led into a mega project planning session, that then led to years of prep work before launch. Just think of the to-do lists! Yaaaas! But no.

I needed to take a beat to adjust my expectations and plan. This is where I reassured myself of all I am capable of, all I had already done, and how much less I would need to do than I had built up in my head.

For this exercise, I listed the reasons why my downside fears were unlikely and why I was already set up well. Then I firmly decided just how far my action plan really needed to go. (Hint: not as far as I think!)

1. Fearing inadequacy is fearing something that’s untrue for me. I have years of experience, and my approach to challenges has always included research. With this in mind, I can focus on what I already know and have already experienced. I don’t need a PhD or to read fifty more books before I can start.

2. Fearing unpreparedness is reasonable, but I lean towards over-preparation. Knowing this, I’ve decided to be only moderately prepared for my launch. It feels crazy, but I’m going to do things a little messy around the edges and be gentle with myself. After all, this newsletter will be a lot better if I take my own damn advice.

3. Fearing judgement is real. This is the internet. But my friends have my back. And as far as finding my online community goes, I’m going to trust I’ve been clear enough to draw in the right connections. After learning more, I might adjust the language I’ll use to talk about you, and us, and our relationship, but not before I get real-world feedback.

5. Asking for support

With this fear-busting, risk-mitigating, work-minimizing strategy in place, I felt confident continuing to move forward. But I still needed some real-world test-drives that would prove my action plan was headed in the right direction.

1. I joined Making Good Happen, a friend’s small business marketing collective.

2. I reached out to several friends for feedback on how to talk about my newsletter in public, on social, and LinkedIn.

3. I joined an alumnae group from my college, full of like minded peers in leadership development, coaching, and behavioral psychology - the very humans I want to connect with IRL and online.

If you find you’re facing fears, try these steps to let your emotion guide help you. This works well as a journaling exercise:

1. List your fears and your “don’t wants.” Validate each one that comes up as honest, worthwhile, and useful. They’re here to help you survive and avoid fucking up. So thank these fears for trying to protect you. Hold space for further reflection without trying to shutting down the emotion.

2. Identify the desires within your “don’t wants.” What is the inverse of what you don’t want - aka what DO you want? What does that outcome look like? Explore the beautiful vision hiding behind the clouds of fear. Allow in your hope. Notice any desire to gift your vision to others. Let a sense of generosity towards your self and others propel you forward. Offer your fears a rest.

3. Connect your desires to actions within your control. There are specific choices that will increase the likelihood your big vision comes to life. Prioritize these. You’ll minimize risks and feel more relaxed, knowing your action plan leads in the right direction.

4. Calibrate to your strengths and let go of the rest. Don’t let your inner overachiever win. Remember all you have done and all you know how to do. Realize less is needed than you think. Spend time myth busting your downside risks - they’re less likely than you worry. Now, let go.

5. Ask for support. Who do you know, what groups could you join, and what friends have your back? Go in search of a few people and communities that offer the support and feedback you need, and join in!

I hope you’re convinced fears can be informative and helpful. In a way, they’re nice friends. They’re trusty little “emotion guides” if we let them do their job and then go take a rest. Because after we give them the space to reveal what they’re guarding, we don’t need them anymore. Then it’s our turn to lead.

With fears released,

-Marisol