Ep. 12 – Fear

Hello, my beautiful friends. I’m really happy that you’re here today. I’m going to be speaking to you today about fear. What they say is fault. Evidence appearing real, you know, I’m always inspired by topics of episodes from things that are going on with my life, people around me, clients, my children.

whatever might be happening. So I know someone who mentioned to me that her friend knows she wants to get divorced. She made up her mind, but she isn’t taking the next step to start the process. So I speculate that she’s dealing with fear. So I thought this will be a great episode. So here we go. What if I told you that your divorce could end up being one of the best things that could happen to you?

I’m Doreen, Yaa, marital, and family, lawyer, and certified life coach. I’ve been coaching and consulting women for over 26 years. I’ve seen it all now. I’m. Expertise and my own personal experiences to help you turn a difficult time into your amazing divorce, whether you are thinking about divorce in the middle of a divorce or your divorce is over, or maybe you’re happy in a marriage, or you’re not even married at all.

Issue, this topic of fear is relevant to all of us. You know, what’s interesting about fear and about overcoming fear is that it is one of those things that most of us don’t like to address and talk about. No one likes to admit that they are afraid of something when faced with fear. Most of us are like, well, I’m just so afraid.

I am just gonna avoid it. Like the person who knows she wants out of her marriage, but is in fear of getting divorced because of all likely the horror stories that she’s heard, the unknown that she has to deal with. And more the thought of going through a divorce in itself and of itself is scary. I get that.

I don’t think there is anyone that goes through a divorce that doesn’t encounter fear many times along the way, fear of telling your spouse, you want a divorce fear of not knowing what your spouse reaction will be fear of how it will affect the child, the children, fear of how things will work out for you.

Financially, fear of how long it will take fear of hiring a lawyer, fear of being alone and starting over. again. No one wants to get divorced. No one goes into marriage thinking they will divorce. but sometimes life just works out that way. People grow apart. People make choices that the marriage can’t overcome like an affair or abuse.

People just decide that they are better off going their separate ways. There are many reasons people get divorced and sometimes you are not the one that even. The divorce fear is just part of the process of divorce and the fear can, and likely will continue well after the divorce decre, a sign by the court.

The question is my friend, what you do with the fear? How do you handle it? Do you ignore it? Do you buffer it away? Do you get angry about it or are you able to confront it and move through it? That’s what we’re discussing. You see fear should never be a valid reason to give up and not move forward with what you know you want or have to do.

Imagine if we all just lived in a world in which we didn’t confront our fears, no one would ever get ahead, create a business, go to school, run a marathon, say yes to a proposal. Or get divorced. We would instead just stay nice and safe and comfy in our home, watching Netflix, drinking Chardonnay and eating chocolate.

or whatever your choice of food is, you know, fear when you study it and understand it boils down to just being an inability to manage your mind and thoughts correctly, that’s it. But once you know that the beauty is that you have the choice to recognize it, and then you can make a decision to overcome it by changing your thoughts about.

Because when you deal with your fears and you’re able to get past them, you have the ability to create a much better life, a meaningful existence, and do things that you want for yourself. You can push yourself and create a life. You’re proud of. Remember my friend that this is not a dress rehearsal life.

We have one life here, one planet earth. So let’s make it the best we can deal. Have you ever heard the expression honor? Your fear? That doesn’t really mean anything though. Unless you strip it down. I suggest that we start with feeling your fear. You are like, what do you mean Doreen, feeling your fear?

Throughout my years, as a family lawyer, I’ve consulted with so many people that wanna know their legal rights and what they can expect and how to get through the divorce process. You know, I have this one gentleman who’s in his eighties now, and he has been consulting with me about six years or so. He complains about the same issues in his marriage over and.

He starts to get the strength to get out. And then he has this overwhelming fear of what the divorce will look like, fear that he is older and will be alone and on and on. He’s unable to control his thoughts. His thoughts instead are controlling him and his inability to get out of a bad marriage. He gets some movement forward, starts facing his fears and then his thoughts take over and he becomes literally paralyzed with the.

Six years later, this is a cycle. Life is passing him by. He stays in a bad unhappy marriage because he’s unable to work through his thoughts about fear. What I’ve realized is that there are many people that went out of their marriage. They come and consult with me only to be in so much fear of taking the next.

that they decide to stay. And this means staying unhappy, staying in a bad marriage, coming up with the excuses and thoughts as to why they should not leave never, or I should say rarely is there admission of being. Afraid. Let me say that I am the first one to say that, trying to make your marriage work is admirable and should be explored.

But many times it is just time to move on and fear should not stop one’s ability to do that. It’s fine to be afraid of making the wrong decision in a failure, but you’re going to need to face your fears. Head on. If you want change, it just comes with a territory. And what we need to do is just accept that fear is just going to be there.

And in spite of that feeling of fear, take action. Anyhow, you see, as humans, we are wired to avoid pain and fear. Is painful fear is one of those instincts and feelings that protects us. It is there for survival, right here are afraid of things. So you avoid things that can hurt you and mostly hurt you physically.

But you have to know the difference between a fear that something for example is physically D. Versus a fear of taking action to make movement towards a better life. So for me, I have a fear of Heights and this is a big challenge for me when I’m hiking, like somewhere in the mountains like Colorado. I know that usually if I’m somewhere where there’s mountains, unlike here in Florida, where I’m safe from mountains, that if I wanna go for a hike, I will likely encounter an edge.

And I’ll be high up and the fear just goes with it, but this fear is a good fear as it helpsss me to know that I have to be careful that I have to proceed my climb with caution on where I place my footing. So I don’t go over the edge and hurt myself or die. You know, so that fear can serve you well in protecting you from like physical harm to yourself.

What you need to learn is a difference of the fear that protects you and a fear of something unknown or uncomfortable, like taking the next step to getting divorced. If that is what you’ve decided is best for you, but just a word of caution, don’t get stuck in. How do I know that the decision is right?

Because that’s just fear giving you an excuse, right? Fear of the unknown. How would you know. Well, we’re not gonna know what we don’t know if we haven’t tried. Right. So the first thing is just to accept that the fear will always be with us. It is part of life. And so you can accept that it’s a starting point to dealing with it.

This includes irrational fear. The next thing is the thought that fear does not mean stop. I want to emphasize that for you, please. you can be afraid and you can still move forward and take action. In fact, sometimes taking action while you are acknowledging your fear is one of the most powerful things that you can do.

next. You have to realize that fears usually result of our thoughts about something that hasn’t even taken play yet. So take a minute and think about that. Unlike when I’m walking on an edge of a mountain, taking a hike and I can look. Down and see that if I don’t place my foot, right. I could likely fall off the mountain.

Most fear that we deal with, especially in deciding to stay or get out of a marriage is the fear of the unknown, the fear of something that hasn’t even taken place yet. A lot of what if. You know, the exception to fear is always the fight or flight response to something like when someone is hiding and scares you, your brain doesn’t have time to think about what’s going on.

It just goes into, let’s get out of here mode. Your adrenaline takes over revs up and tells you to run. This is a good fear as your body is telling you to take action as something is wrong. the fear I’m speaking about is the fear you feel when you are sitting safely in your home and you are contemplating something that you want to do, like moving forward with a divorce, maybe even the fears, like going to a party and mingling or starting a new career.

You know, these are just a few examples of situations that we are thinking about that fear. Takes over and paralyzes us from moving forward. It paralyzes us from reaching our. That’s where not learning to overcome. Your fear does not serve you. That’s when fear shouldn’t be an excuse not to take action to a better life.

I don’t want you to honor that kind of fear. I don’t want you to cuddle. Up with that fear. I don’t want you to spend a lot of time in that fear. I want you to understand it enough so you can realize what it is, find its cause work on your thoughts around it. And then in spite of being afraid, you take action.

Anyhow, some fears I understand. Take time to overcome so you can take. Steps and work through the thought that is usually because of the unknown and how your thought of how bad it might be replaced with the thought of how wonderful it could be. That is some work you can do. Write it down, write down all your fears, write down the good and the.

Put it into a piece of paper and put a line down it. Good, bad. If I do this, here’s the bad. Here’s the good, don’t let your brain take you to only the bad part. Don’t let your brain play tricks on you because your brain wants you to take the easy way out to stay on the road of least resistance and understand that this is what our brain does for us.

It is built that way, but as the humans, we have the ability to be rational and to think through things and make a decision. To take action. When you take action, in spite of fear, you will see that it isn’t that bad, that the fear is truly irrational and you could prove the fear wrong and truth. Be told you’re going to be fine.

You take each step and then you move forward again. And you just keep moving. The more you expose yourself to your fears, the more you. But it’s okay. When a was a new lawyer, what they referred to as a baby lawyer, some 25 years ago. Right. I had this tremendous fear of having to speak before the court and argue my case.

I used to have such anxiety. I wouldn’t sleep the night before having to go to court. I would be shaking. I would be sweaty. And in spite of this fear, I forced myself to do it time. And. Time. And again, and now arguing my case in court is like second nature to me. I enjoy it so much. I even became board certified in trial family work when I was a young lawyer and I was dealing with my fear of going to court.

I would write down all the worst things that could happen. Things like I could forget my words or someone could laugh at me. And then I would take the thought through to like, well, if I forgot my words, I’m not in harm’s way. I’m not going to die from that. The worst thing that can happen is I’ll get embarrassed.

I might get a red face and maybe someone could laugh at me. And then I would think to myself, you know what, Doreen, I can deal with this. So let’s talk about your fears. What are they, are you afraid of starting the divorce or maybe it’s being a single parent or how you’re going to make ends meet or being alone or meeting people for?

We did the exercise of writing down all the good things that could happen and all the bad things that can happen. . I want you to pick up that list again and look at all the bad things that could happen that you wrote down. I want you to look at it from a more rational approach and really think to yourself and ask yourself what is the very worst thing that can happen if that thing happens?

Your fear is likely not a matter of life or death. It has nothing to do with whether you’re going to survive or not. You know, what we’re usually afraid of is a feeling of, of what might happen. Something we don’t even know. It is the fear of the unknown. So the trick here, my friend is to think it through taking action while you’re still in fear is actually a skill that you can develop.

It’s just learning to get past your immediate reaction to avoid, to run, to hide. But what I want you to know, and to take a moment and realize is that you are not in any danger, you will be okay. My. if I didn’t overcome my fear of speaking in a courtroom, I would’ve never become a successful trial lawyer.

Even doing this podcast. I was in fear, fear that I would be criticized and on, but I pushed myself past that fear as it was important for me, for my life’s work to get back to those going through divorce. And so here I am with you, my friend, as a result of moving forward, taking action to create this podcast.

In spite of the fear I was dealing with, when I have asked clients, you know, I’ll ask them from time to time, what they are afraid of, why they’re not taking action. When I know that they have made up their mind to get divorce, many times, they don’t know, they cannot articulate. When fear comes up for you, you can make a decision on what you want to do with it.

You can decide, are you going to hide and avoid, or are you going to take action in spite of your fear, knowing that the worst thing that can happen is really just a feeling and a feeling will not hurt you physically. It may be like an increased heartbeat or getting sweaty, or maybe your body tightens.

But really that’s not such a big deal, is it? It will pass for those of you that might be afraid about getting divorced and are unhappy and miserable. I wanna ask you this. If you were uncomfortable and miserable in a bad marriage, why wouldn’t you just, instead, at least be uncomfortable and maybe even miserable at times, moving.

Forward to getting out of the marriage, you know, have you ever had a situation which we all have that you push yourself to do something you’re afraid of and then you finish it and you’re like, well, you know what? That really wasn’t so bad. What was all this worry I had, you got yourself all worked out only to find out that you survived and that it wasn’t bad at all.

And maybe. even that it was great or fun or good or exciting. And you loved something that you never would’ve tried. when I was a child, I had this tremendous fear of needles. Every time I would have to go to the doctor, I would work myself into such a frenzy. I would literally get physically sick over the thought of getting a, a shot I would tense up so badly.

And then when the shot was over, I would be like, well, it didn’t feel good. But it wasn’t as bad as all that time and energy. I spent working myself up about it. The fear of getting the shot was worse than the actual needle itself. The fear of the pain is actually worse than the pain itself. So the fear of feeling the emotion is sometimes so much worse than the emotion itself.

So we hold ourselves back from being alive from going towards what we want, because we’re afraid of how it might. And I use that word strongly might feel, just notice that my friend in your own life, what are the fears in your life that are holding you back? Be real with yourself about this? What is the worst thing?

My friend that will happen to you? If you face your fear, I would also suggest that the worst thing that could happen to you is what your life could have been. Now. Listen, what your life could have been. Would be, and should have been if you only took the chance, faced your fear and did it anyhow, but if you didn’t do it to me, my friend that’s would be the biggest shame you didn’t get to that place that you could have gotten to.

And it just didn’t happen because you didn’t take the step to get there. So think about. , that’s why I want you to write things down and all the reasons you’re afraid. It’s a great tool in revealing your mind to you. And so you can see what is going on in there, meaning your mind and that you may not even be aware of.

Then from there, you can start to change it. Start to move forward, start to rationalize it. The truth is fear is not a big deal. It’s just a vibration in your. and honestly, I believe that overcoming fear is where all the greatness in life comes from. When I look at my own life, I know that overcoming my own fear is what has made me, who I am today.

Propelled me forward to some great accomplishments, like leaving my home with $50 when I was a very young girl. And becoming a lawyer and then owning my own law firms and then a second firm and becoming a life coach and remarrying and this podcast and your true greatness. My friend is on the other side of fear.

Some of you know, you are being held back by it. Others of you may be thinking, Hey, I don’t think it’s fear. That’s holding me back. Doreen, you may be thinking that your issue is that I don’t know what I want in my life. For example, I can’t make a decision. I don’t know what I wanna do to these people, whoever you are.

I wanna gently say that living in confusion is just an excuse and a way to justify in your. To avoid fear. Think about that. Some of us are really good at living in confusion. If that is you, then you have to look at this as well. It is easy. It’s really easy to tell ourself that we’re confused or we don’t know, or we can’t make a decision.

As long as we’re saying that, then we have an excuse not to move forward. You can’t my friends avoid fear. You can’t avoid fear and get anywhere. You have to go straight through it to the other side. Sorry. As there’s just no easy way around it. You can’t go around it or under it or pretend it isn’t there.

You can’t get there by saying that you don’t know what to do. You see? The reason we say we don’t know is because we are in fear of making the wrong decision. Just another fear. Remember that whatever your fear is or fears are that you’re dealing with, they’re not going to hurt you. You will survive. You will be okay.

It just takes doing it over and over again to get past it. If you look at any well known successful person that you admire, look up their backstory. I bet that he or she likely had to overcome a lot of adversity go through and deal with a lot of fears to get where he or she is today. The truth is we all have fears.

I think that’s kind of reassuring, so no that you are human and go for it any way. My friend listen, create the life you want. As you have the power, it’s all within you. And yes, you can. All right. My beautiful friends have a most amazing week until next time. Love yourself and take care. And until next time, have an amazing rest of the day.

And remember, yes, you can buy everybody. Thanks so much for listening for tips, updates, and expert advice. Be sure to visit your amazing divorce.com. And remember my friends. Yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce. See you there. Views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by YFA family law group or your divorce law center, their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or representatives.

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