Trapped By Fear

So, a while ago I was in a Zoom meeting for my course at university and after completing some work, our tutor asked if anyone wanted to share their ideas with the rest of the class.

Naturally, as you do in a zoom meeting, everyone had their mics and cameras off and didn’t want to contribute but I thought to myself, “Hey, you know what? I should be brave and speak up. It’ll help with my communication and I’m just talking to a computer screen.”

So I begin to move my cursor just over the unmute button so I could start speaking but… I just couldn’t press the button. I felt in the time it took me to move my cursor from one side of the screen to the other, my mind became flooded with all the worst possible outcomes that could occur.

What if I stuttered over my words? Or my voice became shaky and people could tell I was nervous? The closest thing I could compare it to would be sleep paralysis.

You’re conscious and your mind is aware of what you want your body to do but for some reason, your body can’t carry out those actions. Like something is holding you down.

And it’s something that I realised was a major factor as to why I never really ventured outside of my comfort zone when I was growing up.

That fear of failure or something not going the way I want it to go would constantly prevent me from doing a lot of things I wanted to do.

Maybe you could relate. Let’s say you see someone who you find attractive and you want to go over to speak to them, but then those thoughts of, “They’d never like me so there’s no point in trying,” start to creep in and become so prevalent that it’s just easier to not go through with it.

I’ve always looked at our mind and our body as two separate entities. Like a pilot and a plane. You see, our minds are incredibly powerful and capable of many spectacular things, and our body is the vessel that carries out the desire of the mind. But when we start to condition the mind to believe that it is incapable of doing incredible things then our body will always reflect that attitude.

If a pilot were to position the yoke downwards, the plane would plummet towards the earth because the pilot is in control.

You’ve probably heard the saying, "You can do anything you set your mind to”, and, while it is cliché, I believe it to be true. But with things you see on social media, the opinions of others, and past experiences, there’s always the thought of never being good enough.

And if we’re not good enough then what’s the point in trying? If I’m not cool enough then what’s the point in trying to make cool friends? If I’m not smart enough then what’s the point of doing well in school?

The truth is, we have always been cool enough, we have always been smart enough because we are enough. Don’t allow the fear of not being good enough to stop you from reaching the potential of your infinite mind.

Going back to my Zoom meeting, in the end, I managed to muster up the courage to unmute my mic and explain my work, and to be honest, I was still nervous. My voice was shaky, and I could feel myself getting embarrassed. But somehow, I said what I needed to say and made it to the end.

And sometimes that is the best thing you can do. Just do it. You don’t have to be the best at it or the smoothest, but by just doing it, you begin to eliminate those thoughts in your mind that said you couldn’t.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

-Nelson Mandela