The many masks of fear

One topic I've been having many conversations on lately is fear and the many ways it shows up in life.

I've been conscious of how afraid I was of so many things since I was a child, and I tend to swing back and forth between feeling ashamed of how fearful I am and proud that I so often overcome it.

But it's only last year that I had a massive revelation about a very unexpected way that fear was sneaking into my life, quiet, undetected. And it shook me to my core.

To explain the profound truth that I discovered, I'll borrow the words of someone much wiser and more eloquent than myself.

This is how Elizabeth Gilbert explained it on a book club call I recently got the chance to be on with her (just saying that makes me feel that my life is charmed!)

Here's what she said:

"Perfectionism is just fear dressed up in a tuxedo, and procrastination is fear in pyjamas. But they're both still fear."

Isn't that the type of brilliance that people get tattooed or print on motivational posters?

Those words struck a deep chord with me and with pretty much everyone else on that call.

Because it doesn't matter where you fall on that spectrum of fear, most of us are somewhere on it.

And the great irony of life is that we spend so much time feeling alone in our fear, thinking that I am the only one.

I've always felt particularly misunderstood because my whole life, I've somehow been surrounded by type-A personalities, perfectionists and high achievers. People who never rest, set lofty goals for themselves, and are always working hard towards their next milestone.

I, on the other hand, am the furthest thing from all of those. I am not a go getter; I am not overly ambitious, and I never strive to be perfect. I am just content.

And I procrastinate. A lot. In every single way you can imagine.

That's why when I look at all of the perfectionists in the world, I've always felt lazy.

How do they manage to be at the library weeks before an exam, with all their highlighters and coloured pens lined up in a perfect row, furiously underlining and drinking in information through every pore? When I always end up staying up through the night, flicking through pages in a frenzy to sort out what's important and get to the exam on two hours of sleep?

My whole life, I've struggled and tried every trick in the book to be able to focus, plan, and get things done in advance, but I've always failed miserably.

So I just put it down to being lazy.

Until I realised that procrastination just comes from fear.

Perfectionists are afraid that they'll never be good enough, so they work their arses off and never feel that they'll be able to get things just right. Whereas procrastinators are also afraid that they'll never be good enough... so they just never start.

That realisation made me have a whole lot more compassion for myself.

And by calling out the fear, embracing it, and trying to understand where it comes from, I've made more progress in the past 12 months than in the rest of my life.

Some days, I feel like I'm on the road to beating my procrastination and that when I do, my life will be peachy.

Other days, like today, I just can't. And I freeze. Which is why I'm writing this email that should have gone out first thing in the morning at 1 am the next day.

After spending the day doing puzzles for hours, doing some cleaning, playing Wordle games, reading up on Marine Biology courses that I'm not going to take, looking up hotels for the summer that I'm not going to book today... and then when I switched off all distractions, I distracted myself with my brain, or inspecting every wrinkle, every scar, and every freckle on my fingers for minutes on end.

The thing is, when I sit down to do it, it doesn't take more than half an hour.

But then the sneaky, paralysing fear creeps up on me to make me feel that I'm not enough, that my writing is inauthentic, or worst of all, that it's just plain boring. So I physically just can't bring myself to type.

That's the thing about fear; you have to keep an eye on it.

Because when you least expect it, fear is lurking in the shadows, waiting to get an icy grip on your heart and stop it from beating your tunes.

It's a constant battle, but one that I will never tire of fighting.

Today, I choose to be brave, to live from the heart, and be compassionate with the part of myself that still needs fear as a protective blanket from the world.

Sending you all the love for the week ahead.

Paula

P.S. A brilliant man came up with the perfect phrase for me- I'm a procrastiknitter! Or I'll cook. Or read about sharks. And my house is never cleaner than when I have a deadline approaching for something I find daunting!

How about you? What are the ways that you procrastinate? Let me know!