3 Things You Must Know Before Joining ANY Network Marketing Opportunity How to Know if Fear Has Infiltrated Your Body

What’s Hiding in Your Mind?

Posted by MatthewNeer on Sep 17, 2009 | View Comments

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Scared-Free_From_Fear Would you consider yourself to be a fearful person? Most people would probably answer no to that question, yet fear is one of the most common hindrances that people struggle with today. The reason for this discrepancy may surprise you: fear can easily disguise itself as seemingly logical beliefs, thoughts and feelings so you may not even realize it’s there.

Rather than using the word fear to describe their feelings, many people might choose words like doubt, concern, worry, anxiety, uncertainty, hesitation, apprehension, procrastination, distrust or unease.

Ultimately they mean the same thing as fear. There is a thought, feeling, belief, or possible outcome that makes you feel uncomfortable or threatened and you will instinctively avoid things that make you feel that way.

Here are some common fears that could be hiding in your mind:

Fear of Failure

If you have ever held back on a goal or avoided taking action that would lead to a positive outcome, you may have been fearful that you might fail. Fear of failure can be subtle because our minds can come up with endless excuses why it’s not a good time to take a risk right now, or how the odds don’t seem to be in our favor, and so on.

Fear of Success

It’s hard to believe that anyone could be afraid of success (isn’t success usually a good thing?) but it’s far more common than you might believe. Most often it’s not the success itself that people fear, but rather all of the responsibilities and uncertainties that come along with success. If you worry that you won’t be able to handle these things, you will resist putting yourself in a position where you would have to face them.

Fear of Rejection

Fear of rejection is usually related to low self-esteem, but may show up in subtle ways. You may lash out at others when a possible rejection is imminent; sabotage relationships so you can be the one who rejects the other person instead of them rejecting you; or you may simply withdraw from social interaction to avoid the possibility of being rejected at all.

Fear of Not Being Good Enough

This is another fear that is connected to self-esteem, and it often affects everything you do in life. You may avoid making changes to improve your life; settle for a dissatisfying job that pays less money than you are capable of earning; or continuously sabotage your goals. If you don’t believe you deserve to have better life circumstances you won’t allow yourself to create them.

ebook300 Once you have identified one or more of these fears, you can begin diffusing them with mind and body techniques that will calm your emotions, relax your body and get your thoughts flowing in a positive direction again. For most people this will be an ongoing process because our minds become conditioned to respond to fear stimulus and it will seem to happen automatically for some time. However, getting into the habit of addressing the fear in new healthy ways should set a new pattern to minimize the conditioned responses and even eliminate them over time.

Alternatively download the new Free ebook – 22 Powerful Tools To Transform Your Fear Into Happiness, Peace and Inspiration.

Free From Fear – Crammed full of valuable tips, exercises and ideas – it could be the most important ebook you read this year.

Stay Tuned For The Next Installment Tomorrow…

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amuths

Hello Mathew,

your post about Fear is so incouraging. No matter where I look, many people are guided by fear. I always thought that I don't have much fear as I would jump out of a plane (with a parashoot:), travel the world by my own, oved to new countries not knowing anybody etc....

but when I got quiet and really listened insite , I found quite a few places full of fear and nobody was more surprised than I was...

Just wanted to share that we all seem to have "weak spots" knowing about them is the first place to make them work with you instead of against you...

I found your post very helpful and engouraging...
thank you...Adriane
lorihanselman

Love your post, Matthew! Thank you for such great content-I'm learning so much from your valuable contributions!
MCByrne

Hello Mathew, I really agree with what you are saying, because I feel it is true,
it's a very good article and I look forward to reading the next installment, and I will download the new Free ebook.

ATB
Martin Byrne
brucebackman

Hey Matthew…good stuff. I also learned…hmmm I guess it was back before kids maybe 17 years ago…that there were really only two emotions (fear and love). In fact the book of John in the Bible says that perfect love conquers all fear.

I know that there are fears that we are often not aware of even but the answer is always the same. I sometimes find myself fearing things (you are right…we like to call it being anxious or worrying) that I don't know anything about. I look at a bit of the future and believe that I know how it is going to turn out…then I realize how ridiculous that is and the fear oftentimes goes away instantly. Other times my mind won't let it go and it comes back from time to time and that is when I need to understand what it is I am actually fearing and deal with the reality of it.

I tend to turn to the One who is Love and let Him take care of it in those cases. Then I get back to living the moment that is at hand and forgetting the fantasy of the future that my mind had contrived.

It is hard to fear in the moment because the only fear that arises while living moment to moment is the fear that drives us to action. As soon as we have risen to action there is no longer power in the fear.

On the other hand…love is all about living in the moment. It is about experiencing the beauty of what is happening and experiencing as much of it as we can…especially the people in our lives. Fear doesn't have much of a chance to control us when we are "abiding" in the moment because it cannot get a handhold on us. It relies of the false "promises" of the future to gain access to us and ultimately to gain dominance.

Anyhow…just a few thoughts…thanks Matthew! I will retweet for sure!
MatthewNeer

Ahh Bruce, you are already on the path to freedom. Now when I say freedom here I mean freedom fro your mind, which in turn will lead to freedom in a TON of other aspects of your life.

When you can separate your mind from your thoughts, or even turn your thoughts off. That is when you are truly in the moment.

I am in this state of mind every single day when I go skateboarding. When I am doing flip tricks down 10+ stairs there is no possible way I can have any thoughts going through my mind, and if I do you better believe I'm going to beef it!

This is the exact same process that all the star athletes call "The Zone". It's simply a state of mind with no thoughts where anything is possible. It's how you push the boundaries of what is possible with the human body.

What's crazy is I had been doing that since I was in like 7th grade when I first started skateboarding. I think I fell in love with that state of mind and that's what made me fall in love with skateboarding. But I had no idea what that state of mind was until just recently this year.

The thing that did it for me was reading a book called "The Power Of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. It's a MUST read if you wanna learn more about the power of the subconscious mind.

To An Open, Conscious Mind,
Matthew Neer
debbiewood

Hey Dude! Great post. We're all afraid of something, but when it holds us back, that's when we have to look at it.

I was always afraid of what other people thought of me. Tough one to get over, but now, pshhhht.... don't care a bit! They don't pay my bills.

Thanks for the great advice!
MatthewNeer

That's right Debbie,

Once ya stop caring about what others things amazing things begin to happen in your life and your business. It's crazy how as soon as your stop "needing" people they just seem to come to you out of no where.

Matthew Neer
terrypetrovick

Hey Matt,

You touch on a subject that a lot of people struggle with.

In my opinion it really comes down to our ego.

Once we learn to let go of what other people think us we actually free ourselves to be who we really want to be.

There's another great book that has had a real positive impact on our family. It is called, "Loving What Is" by Bryon Katie. This will teach you how to question your thinking.

Thanks for your leadership!

You have a choice so, make it a better than terrific day!

Terry
MatthewNeer

I totally agree with ya brotha, it is always the ego that gets in the way of your true self. Once you become conscious of the fact that ALL negative feelings and emotions are caused and created by the ego you can no longer be unconscious by letting them control who you are.

If people can just remember to say "hey this is my ego talking right now, it's not really me." then they would be a better place.

Furthermore, that would explain the worlds fascination with violence and other such negative emotions. Most people are so identified with their egos that they cannot help but be consumed by those feelings.

Your a wise man Terry,
Matthew Neer
AskJohnChatman.com

F.E.A.R = False Expectations Appearing Real

This was an old saying that one of my first mentors would always tell me and it finally began to sink in that we truly make fear within our own minds.

Let's take for example the fear of following up with a potential business partner once you have shown them your business opportunity. Why do so many folks fear this? We as individuals ask for things every day. What should it matter whether or not so and so joins us in whatever endeavor we are building? In reality it doesn't.

When you can take the focus off of yourself and TRULY focus in on the benefit that the other person will receive from your association, product, or opportunity then you will really come to realize in fact we are not meant to fear. We are meant to love.

To Our Success,

John
MatthewNeer

You hit that nail on the head John,

What you said it completely true. People fear the follow up, and ironically that is where the fortune is. But why do they fear that? In my experience it is because they come at their prospects all wrong. They come at them with that needy feeling of "please join my business so I can make a commission" mindset.

Whereas if you could simply turn that around and come into any given situation with strong confidence and put the prospect into the interview chair then the tables will turn and all of a sudden when the prospect sees that you don't need them, they begin to want you. Crazy how the law of attraction works...
Ayanna Murray

Matthew! Thank you for this post! I love to sing, but for about 2 years I hid my gift out of fear of "not being good enough" Then this past year I decided enough was enough---I wasn't going to let it keep me from using my gift.

Since then I was invited to sing at a wedding and most recently sang to a friend who who was on his death bed---dying of cancer. Before I sang to him, I said, "Chris, I'm not sure if you knew this, but I sing, and I would like to sing for you now. After my song was over, he said in a faint whisper, "wow, I wish I knew that." His words have marked my heart forever.

You see, I had worked with him for many years and kept my love of music in the dark. Chris is gone now. He doesn't have any more days on earth. But I do and I have determined not to lose another one to fear! Thank you for reminding me of my commitment!!
MatthewNeer

Wow Ayanna,

That story is quite meaningful. I'm glad that you were able to finally overcome your fears and become the person who you've always wanted to be. It is so powerful when you stop worrying what others think of you.

I'm happy to have inspired you, it's what I'm here to do.
Matthew Neer
David King

Great post bro!

Fear is OVERRATED!

I was watching something yesterday and learned that all emotions either come out of fear or love.

Love conquers all fear!

Good stuff bro!

David

p.s. retweeted ;)
MatthewNeer

Thanks David, you couldn't be more right. Fear is what holds people back in life, if they could simply learn how to turn it around you can use fear as a motivated. Feed off the fear and use it to do extraordinary things.

Love DOES conquer all.

Matthew Neer