Let's talk about the word fearless.
I don't like that word, and I don't like
any of the bumper sticker mentality that goes along.
That's very in Vogue right now about being fearless.
I don't like the violence in the stuff about punch fear in the face,
kick fear in the ass shoe fear whose boss put your foot on the neck of fear today.
Like all this stuff, it's so confrontational and it's so aggressive.
And what you're fighting, of course,
what you're punching in the face is really a version of yourself.
Right? And I feel like it's not super great idea
to go through life punching different aspects of yourself.
That leads to a lot of pain and a lot of suffering.
Fear is one of the ingredients of being a human being.
And I want all of the ingredients
in my life because I want to be a complete and whole person.
And that means sometimes being really afraid.
And that's all right.
It's part of the landscape.
And one of the misconceptions that I think we have about fear is that we resent it
and we hate it and we want to fight against it, and we're mad at it because we
feel like it's ruining our life and we don't want to have it.
And the one thing that we're missing often is a baseline of gratitude toward it.
There's no gratefulness in us to our fear.
And that's not cool because
you and I and every single person that we know, we are here alive at this moment
because there was some point in our lives where our fear saved our lives.
Probably you can think back to that moment right now.
Maybe there were many moments. Get out of the ocean.
The waves are too big. You're not that strong a swimmer.
That's a moment where fear is trying to save your life.
Do not get in the car with that guy.
Like, remember that time you didn't get in the car with that guy
because your fear said he's been drinking since 03:00 this afternoon,
and there's something scary about his whole being right now.
I'm not getting in the car with that guy times where your fear said,
I'm not walking down that street to prove that I'm brave.
I'm not going to walk down that street that doesn't have a single street light
on it in the city that I've never been in before.
No, I'm not doing that.
No, thank you, stranger at the party.
I'm not taking that pill that you're about to have me.
Right.
And you're also here, by the way,
because your ancestors, going back to the first time we stood up
from primates, were able to survive long enough
to procreate and create, like, the lineage that birthed you because of their fear.
There's this essential gratitude that I
think you have to begin with whenever you're dealing with your fear.
And so when my fear arises,
the very first thing I do is thank it because I know what it's trying to do.
It's just trying to help me. It's just trying to protect me.
It's just trying to keep me alive. That's it.
That's a really amazing gift.
And so the first thing I say is thank you so much.
I know you're just trying to save my life.
And thank you, by the way, for all the times that you have saved my life.
I really appreciate it.
But right now I'm just trying to write an essay.
No one's life is in danger.
My writing isn't always great, but no one's died from it yet.
It's okay.
So you have to sort of have this really respectful conversation with your fear.
And I also always say to my fear,
I recognize that you're part of the family of the many selves that I am.
You're welcome to stay in the room.
But I just need to explain to you that in this endeavor that we're about
to do right now, you don't get to make any decisions, but you get to be in the room.
You get to be in the room. I saw this woman on Facebook recently.
I had talked about this,
and she brought it to her fifth grade art students in Saudi Arabia and told them,
we're going to have to allow fear to be in the room, but we don't allow fear
to actually make decisions about our creativity.
And the kids came up with this idea to invent something called a fear chair.
And she put a picture of it on Facebook. And it was beautiful.
And it's a chair that they all painted
together, and they all wrote all their fears on it.
And then they put it in the corner, and that's where fear gets to sit.
So they make space for it.
I think the most peaceful people that I know and the most wise people that I know
are the ones who have created enough internal space to be able to allow all
the parts of themselves to coexist despite the contradictions.
So they have room for their creativity.
They also have room for their fear.
They have room for their dignity.
They also have room for their shame.
They have room for the parts of themselves
that are glorious and divine and wonderful.
And they have room for the parts
of themselves that are petty and jealous and ridiculous.
Right?
Like they create this big, huge auditorium of a landscape inside themselves.
They don't kick any parts out because guess what?
You can't kick them out.
They're going to be in there forever.
So you give them a chair and you let them
sit there, and you even let them have a voice,
but you don't let them control the story that you're trying to engage with.
And most of the time, what you do is engage in a very
empathetic, very patient conversation, telling your fear what you're going to do
now and explaining why it's okay and saying like, look,
I know you're freaked out, but this is what we're going to do
and it's a firmness, but I always say it's not a paternal firmness.
It's like if I hear another noise out
of your kids, I'm going to hit you with this belt.
It's not that, right.
It's a maternal firmness that says, I'm going to open the closet now and show
you that there's no monsters in there, all right?
And now we're going to go back to doing what we were doing.
It's loving but it's firm and it's inclusive.
That's the trick.
Fearlessness is never something that I've ever aspired to.
The last thing I'm going to say about is this.
I've met a few fearless people in my life.
They are psychopaths, they are insane.
You look in their reptilian eyes
and there's some very important part of their humanity that's missing.
They are a danger to themselves and other people.
They are not who I aspire to be and they're not who I want you to be either.
So make room for your fear. Love it.
Thank you. Put it in the corner and a nice chair.
Make it comfortable. Give it a cup of tea and then go onward
with whatever it is that you know you're meant to do.