“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ― John Lennon

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” I’ve heard this question one too many times in life already. So many times I’ve reached the point that when I’ve been “afraid” or fearful of something, I think something is wrong with me! I’m sure that I’m not the only one out there in the world that feels this way. I look at other people figuratively walking on tightropes across canyons and wonder what they did to eliminate fear! They must have some special secret.

All this time, I think I should have been taught how to live WITH fear instead of how to avoid it. You see, I have come to realize that EVERYONE has fear or is fearful of something. What separates those that walk out on the rope from those that become overwhelmed is the genuine acceptance that fear exists but does not have to dominate our actions. In the words of Jillian Michaels, they feel the fear and do it anyway. Life becomes a transformation from fear to action-oriented adrenaline. The “fearless” sense the fear but keep moving forward, while those dominated by fear sense the fear and STOP to think about it, which eventually turns into delayed action or complete inaction.

As John Lennon says, we should love ourselves enough to believe that we are bigger than our fears and believe that we are more capable than our scariest nightmare leads us to believe.