Dear Joshua,

How do I know if I don’t want to do something or it’s just out of my comfort zone and I should do it?

Thanks
Sienna

Dear Sienna,

Fear is the answer to that question. If you would like to pet a lion but fear is keeping you from doing what you want, then that is a rational fear because you could get eaten and that does not align with your desire to stay alive. However, if you fear going out on a date with someone new because you think you might get hurt, then that is an irrational fear. You do not want to avoid unpleasant experiences. You want to learn how to frame the experience in a way that serves who your really are. This is what will bring you all that you truly want.

Let’s imagine that you would like to fall in love, get married, have a family, raise children, follow your passions, have a wonderful career or business, and experience joy and abundance in every aspect of your life. Now, how do you think this is all going to happen? You have to meet someone to fall in love right? Is the first person you meet going to be the one you’ll end up with forever? Maybe yes, maybe no. The thing is you cannot know. You have to jump in and see what happens.

If you get involved and do not like the relationship, then you can get out and chalk it up to a learning experience that has refined your preference for the next relationship. Will you get hurt if the other person ends the relationship? It all depends on how you choose to perceive it. If you believe that you are not a good person and that’s why the relationship ended, then you will feel negative emotion because you are looking at the subject in a way that is completely out of alignment with who you really are. However, if you were to choose to look at the ending of the relationship as a neutral event and understand that you are in control of the whole thing, then you will be aligned with your inner self and will not feel negative emotion.

The fear stems only from how you think you will feel as a result of attempting something when the fear is irrational. If you are offered something, it is not a coincidence, it is part of your path. If it interests you, then you can accept it. However, if you feel fear then the fear is only around how you will feel by accepting the offer. Do you understand that when you control your perception of anything and you choose to look at it in a way that allows you to feel good, then there is nothing to fear because the only thing you fear is feeling bad?

Let’s take another example. Imagine you are offered a part in a play where you will be asked to perform a long monologue. Since you enjoy acting you might be very excited by the offer. However, you might resist the offer by imagining that this part is out of your comfort zone. You might think that you are not ready (and maybe you aren’t). But the only thing you need to be ready to do is manage how you feel. What if you are not able to play the part or remember the words? Would you consider that a disaster or just part of your expansion process? If the worst thing that happens is that you might embarrass yourself, then you are simply choosing to avoid a potentially negative feeling. You are also choosing to avoid a potentially wonderful feeling. Either way, it’s your choice.

If you could manage your perception of anything, with confidence, then you could never be embarrassed or experience negative emotion. If there was no possibility for you to experience any negative emotion, then you would accept everything that you were interested in. If you have interest, that is your indication it is worthy of exploration. If you talk yourself out of it, that’s your indication that some irrational fear is keeping you from trying it. If you are worried about feeling bad as a result of doing something, then you have not prepared yourself to view the outcome of the activity as neutral. It is neither good or bad, it always depends on how you choose to perceive it.

If you are truly not interested in something that crosses your path, then you can skip over it. However, if it crosses your path, it means that you are vibrationally within the vicinity of it and if there is any interest, you can be sure it is for your benefit in some way. You may judge the outcome as bad or wrong, but that’s only because your perspective is limited and you cannot see the future. If you can learn to perceive the outcome in a way that makes you feel better, then you will have less fear in the future.

Let’s say that you accept the part and on opening night you forget your lines. You know that you studied and rehearsed and did everything you could to prepare. But when you got on stage, the words just left you. Don’t you think that would be strange? Don’t you think there might be some reason for this? It’s unlikely that anything like that would happen, but if it did, couldn’t you see that maybe there was a reason for it? If you can begin to see that all these weird things that happen that don’t make sense at the time are all for your benefit, then you could understand that it’s not anything you are doing wrong, it’s just the universe working to change you into the version of you that is ready for everything you want.

Now here’s the kicker – as soon as you realize that everything is always working out for you, and you learn to manage your perception of the events while they appear to be happening to you, in the moment of the event, you’ll change instantly, your world will change instantly and you’ll receive everything you want in the most elegant way possible. Unpleasant events are only unpleasant because you are perceiving them in a way that does not serve you. Learn to change your perspective, as quickly as you can, and everything will work out perfectly.

Joshua