This is Part 2 of the series How to Live in the Unknown without Fear. Read Part 1 here.
There are many practices to create the right mindset required for stepping through the Fear Barrier into the Growth Zone. These next 8 are based on how I live my life. Note, I am not fearless! I do feel fear sometimes, so I am constantly managing my fears to take the required action to create the change I desire.
1.Surrender to Sitting in the Void of the Unknown
Accept that you don’t know what is going to happen in the future. We never do in fact. Therefore, in reality, we are always in the unknown. Sometimes we think we know and sometimes we can be pretty sure that certain things will happen … but never 100% until it actually happens. Even with psychic ability, we still don’t know what will happen in the future for sure.
Once you can accept that we all live in the unknown and that all we can do is make decisions in our present, you will be able to surrender to where you are.
You are where you are and what has happened has happened.
So let go of your stress and worry because it does not achieve anything other than make you feel anxious. A good way to come to grips with reality is to change your perspective as to “why” things are happening. I find it helps a lot to trust that all is happening for my highest good and for some god reason, even if I can’t see how in the moment.
Work towards keeping your intention to:
- be prepared to sit in the unknown
- let go of your imagined negative outcomes and your fear
- relax into where you are at the moment
- realize there is no point stressing about the current situation
- look for the lesson in what is happening for you
- feel and express gratitude for what you do have
It is really important to be present and surrender to the fact that you don’t know, so you can let go and allow your life to flow.
2. Focus on what you want – Positively and Optimistically
This is where your intention comes in. What you focus on is what you get, according to the Law of Attraction. So, set your intention for the positive things you want to happen, think about how good you will feel when they do and stay optimistic that it will all come to you.
Focus on the positive outcomes … but don’t be attached to them. That is a hard one to explain but I hope it becomes clearer in the practice Reduce your Emotional Attachment to an Outcome.
3. Create Intentions, not Expectations, that allow Flow
You’ve probably heard it a hundred times and thought, “But yeh, what does that mean I do?”
Basically, it means you give up your expectations of how things should work out and where you think you should be.
Stop trying so hard to:
- control how things are going
- make things happen for you
When we expect certain outcomes, we set ourselves up for disappointment when those expectations are not met.
… And they often aren’t.
How many times have you been upset by what didn’t happen because you set up an expectation for yourself that it should? Or vice versa, by what did happen when you didn’t think it should?
An intention is different to an expectation.
An expectation means that is the only outcome we are prepared to accept.
An intention is putting an outcome we desire out to the Universe, whilst still accepting that it may or may not occur exactly like we want it to.
We specify what we want and let go of our emotional attachment to it happening. It is a toughie for sure and one I still struggle with … on a regular basis, especially when it is something I really, really want.
Let Go and Let Flow.
4. Reduce your Emotional Attachment to an Outcome
When we attach all our good feelings to a certain outcome, we energetically block all the other possibilities. We can only think that the outcome will make us feel good or be good for us because we have decided what is best for us and what will make us happy. Truth be told, we don’t know everything at the time and there is a source of energy (I call it the Universe energy or you might call it God) that is guiding us and can deliver outcomes that we could never even imagine.
Have you ever let go of your control and found wonderful things happened to you that you had not considered possible, or even thought about?
This is why not having an emotional attachment to a certain outcome allows us to be open to other possibilities. This openness enables us to go with the flow, even if it doesn’t turn out exactly how we want.
By the way, all the time and energy you put into that moment of disappointment for what did or didn’t happen as you wanted ie did not meet your expectation, delay your future satisfaction in what is coming to you.
Only when you are open to changing your behavior or consider a different opportunity, does that opportunity have the chance to make it through to you? That is how we let flow.
We only think we know what is the best outcome, but we don’t actually know other alternatives and how they may work better for us. We may not be able to even comprehend what we could have if we set our intention and allow the energy of the Universe to flow for us.
This has been totally relevant for me this week. Although things are going well generally, that doesn’t mean everything is happening as I want it to. Only yesterday, 5 days before I had to compile all my final documents for submission for my visa application, I found out that I don’t have all my business plans and supporting documents in the required form for the visa application.
This means I can’t submit them at my booked appointment on the 4th September. So I had to change the appointment and the next one available is 22nd October. I was devastated by the delay and did have a bit of an emotional meltdown over it. Now I have to decide between:
- Do I complete my visa application still and submit it at the October appointment and maybe be able to go back to France in December or January,
or
- Do I keep the airline flight I have booked for October 14 and go to Nice for another 3 month stint and then London again? I would then spend that time building up my coaching business to come back to Australia to apply for the visa later next year.
Decisions, decisions, decisions! And they are big life-changing, high-risk, complex ones. More about the visa saga in my next blog. All I can say is there must be a very good reason for me not submitting my visa application right now. I don’t know yet what it is but I need to remain open to the possibility and get over my disappointment at it not going the way I wanted.
5. Take the Path of Least Resistance
Someone gave me this piece of advice a long time ago and, at the time, I wondered what it actually meant. It has taken me many years to really “get it”. It means, if things aren’t working out, if they don’t feel comfortable, if you keep coming up against resistance, like dead-ends and brick walls, then stop pursuing along that path. Try something different.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Find another path … with less resistance where things flow more smoothly.
Explore different options and take the path that seems the easiest to follow – where things do work out, where good things that you hadn’t even thought about happen. And if that doesn’t happen on your next path choice, after giving it a good try, then stop, take count and re-evaluate. Keep trying until you find the right path.
What are signs of resistance?
I rely mostly on my intuition and my gut feel to work things out these days. It has proved me right time and time again. It is my most intelligent guide.
What is a great way to tell if I am listening to my intuition or disregarding it?
Our intuition serves as our guide to help us know when we are in alignment for our right path. Things that are meant to be often fall into place easily, sometimes to our surprise. If you are feeling uptight or anxious or even just uncomfortable about something, it is probably your gut feeling or intuition letting you know that you are not on the right path for you. You are actually feeling the resistance.
I remember years ago I was offered a great job as a sales manager. It was really good money and I wasn’t working at the time … but something felt wrong. My gut felt tight and stressed. I turned that job down and immediately felt relief, like a weight had lifted off me. I later heard things about that company and the person who would have been my immediate manager that confirmed I had made the right decision. Sometimes the resistance is in your body. Listen to it and take heed.
The more you follow your intuition, the less anxiety and physical stress you will feel. Those stressful feelings will be replaced by feelings of contentment, fulfillment and happiness when you are following your intuition on your yellow brick road. You will feel more sure about what you are doing and question yourself less. You will feel a grateful feeling of easy flow.
6. Staying in the Present with Gratitude
It is important to find as much as you can to be grateful for and express your gratitude often.
The more you can find to be thankful for, the more you will have to be thankful for.
Take time each day to identify at least 3 things you are grateful for and express your gratitude aloud or, better still, write it down in your journal as per The Mindfulness Ritual. This will help you recognise when you are feeling in positive flow and when you are feeling resistance and out of flow.
As you feel more and more gratitude for what you do have, you will probably notice yourself saying “I feel happy” … even when nothing miraculous or hugely exciting has happened that day. 🙂
7. Take Action to Create What You Want
Always take action. When I say “Sit in the unknown”, I don’t mean give up and stay there forever. Move, do something, create and just take action to move forward. Be messy and willing to make mistakes. It’s all part of the journey. Action is the only way to reduce the unknown to become known which, in turn, allows you to grow and expand in yourself and life.
If you really don’t like your present situation, then the points above become even more important. Take whatever action you need to create the change you desire and allow yourself to dive into the unknown willingly. When you create change in your life, you open up to a much bigger unknown space as you step out of your comfort zone and into the Growth Zone. Go for it I say!
8. Focus on the One Next Step!
I was actually amazed at what happened once I made the decision to sell and move to France. Things started falling into place and opportunities opened up for me that I hadn’t even thought of before. Nevertheless, it was was still accompanied by feelings of overwhelm at all I had to do in a short time period.
To combat those feelings, I had to make a list of all I needed to do and outline a plan of when I needed to do it by.
Then I executed each step, one at a time. I approached my new life just one step at a time – although sometimes they were very big steps I must admit – like having a total knee replacement when my house went on the market.
To avoid succumbing to the overwhelm, especially when making such big changes in life, I kept my focus on the one next step that I needed to do each day and even each moment of the day. Now that is especially hard for someone who may well have ADD and gets distracted very easily – but my plan kept me on track. Okay … and a bit of discipline.
Just focus on that one thing you need to do, think about or decide on next. Then when that task is done, look at the next single step. Having a plan with my list of To Do actions made it much easier to follow this process. Sometimes I also found that that one next step I needed was actually to take a rest and do nothing for a short while.
It makes life so much easier than trying to change your world all in one go. As they say:
Conclusions:
So to sum up, don’t avoid the unknown … welcome it with open arms for all the new opportunities it can bring to your life. It is all about your mindset, which is really what my 8 practices are about – adopting the mindset that will allow you to create the life you want.
If you would like some coaching to help you adopt this mindset and create the change you desire in your life, send me a message. I’d love to work with you.
