Replace Fear Of The Unknown With Curiosity

From our little daily inspirational calendar this morning:

Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.

Transitions of any kind used to scare the hell out of me. It’s the unknown that got me every time.

While change can still make me squirm in my seat sometimes, it now also intrigues me. Makes me wonder. Even excites me a little bit because… endless possibilities.

I have actually come to appreciate and embrace the experience of jumping into whatever is next with grace and openness instead of cowering in fear.

It wasn’t always this way. I mean, who wants to actually turn toward and look directly at what scares them? My style was to run the hell in the other direction, pronto.

It was a turning point for me, an “Aha!” moment.

One day this occurred to me:

Jumping into something isn’t the same as jumping off a cliff.

The change-means-danger story that my mind has made up isn’t necessarily true.

A mentor told me to make a friend of the horror. Stop running from it. Look straight at it and open my mind. Take a good, long, honest look at it. Get curious about it. Have a chat with it. Is it really as scary as I think?

This doesn’t mean recklessly jumping into things without regard for safety. Jumping off a cliff would obviously not help me move through changes in a healthy way.

However, consciously, intentionally choosing to turn in the direction of the fear and facing it head on brings opportunity to learn and thrive. Courage.

The more I replace fear of the unknown with curiosity in practice, the less I am fearful next time.

In this way, I’ve been finally able to overcome being paralyzed by fear, one little baby step at a time.

Peace.