By Kimberly Berg
Observer Columnist
Dear Kimberly,
I have a two-part question for you.
LA is such a busy city with so many people. Yet sitting in traffic it’s usually one person per car and it feels very lonely. What can I do about this feeling of disconnect? Also, what is the best way to shift fear into courage?
-Feeling alone and stuck
The reason for your thought of “disconnect” is more about you believing that you shouldn’t be in traffic and in the chaos of the city. You have placed the feeling of being alone (the blame) on the environment rather than what your experiencing within yourself, which is abandoning what you want to do with your life. The abandonment was something that started many years ago. Use your car time to contemplate what you wanted to do with your creative life several years back, a project you thought you had to do with others. You gave up on it. Perhaps it felt daunting, or just too big for one person, one girl, to handle? That loneliness can transform into your freedom of expression. Use that alone time in your vehicle for creative imagination and exploration into what you want to experience.
There are different levels and experiences of fear, therefore; courage may not be the first response but the 2nd or 3rd. So, I believe the first response is inquiry.
When you feel a sense of fear overtake you ask, “What are you (fear) trying to protect me from?” Once you've located a thought that feels true, you can supply yourself with some understanding, maybe a bit of compassion and gratitude for listening to the fear and what its trying to accomplish. Now you might be ready to transform fear into courageous actions. For example:
The fearful thought is: I am afraid to move forward in my life/in my career (on my own). So instead of doing things that fill your day with forward movement, you participate in other activities and then feel guilty and think you lack courage or are lazy. But what if the fear is protecting you from an unconscious belief that doing it alone means that you’re capable and therefore will remain alone? Since you ultimately want connection and partnership, you sit in fear, hoping to attain your goal of connection. Make sense? This is where self-knowledge can become deeply empowering.
What if you could get that connection from the act of partaking in the things you’d enjoy? What if taking an action that moves you forward in your life/career is about creating self-trust? Building self-trust means saying, “yes” to what you want to have in your life; and in doing it alone you meet new people along the way that you haven’t met yet.
Ultimately, this is not about a lack of courage. You’ve taken many courageous steps in your life…this is about creating a deeper level of self-trust.
Send your Questions to Kimberly at kimberlykberg@earthlink.net.
Check out Kimberly at http://www.kimberlykberg.com and http://www.psychicfortunes.com
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