The fear of risk

How much do you take risks?

How do you feel about taking risks at the moment?

I wonder if your answer is “Not a lot at the moment”. It would not be surprising. After all, people are very focused on hanging on to their jobs. Recently it has been shown that stress levels at work here in the UK are sky high, as people are focused on hanging on in various ways. The recent banking crisis has highlighted the severe downside of risk. So we are focused on hanging on to our money. Due in part to the fear of terrorism, and the sophistication of the technology, we are now under more personal surveillance than ever before. So now we are focused on picking up our litter, keeping our speed down, avoiding the bus lane, not over-filling our dustbins (seriously – one local authority even puts microchips on the bins!!), not demonstrating in certain places where the police might film you, and so on. “Keeping you safe” intones the advertising, “for your protection”.

Fear-based living. You can do it if you want. But will it be fulfilling? Will it meet your purpose? Is that a good place to be?

Living in fear is disempowering. Fear is a contracted energy. It takes us where we don’t want to go: anxiety, defensiveness, suspicion, distrust, even aggression. The self-aware person can notice when fear is getting a hold and choose not to be caught up with it. After all, an acronym for fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

When we become risk-averse, when fear gets a hold, we shut down on the part of us that experiments, that tries out new things, that looks outside the box, that pushes outside our comfort zones, that expands our horizons. When fear gets a hold, we focus on those things which we fear, making them more prominent and more likely to occur in some way.

Risk is when we try out something new. Watch a child learning to walk. At some point they start to stand up without holding on to something, they wobble and they stay upright, with a big smile on their face and to everybody’s delight. They take a risk. Learning to ride a bike is similar. You might have to take the odd fall, and that can be managed by using grass, but unless you experiment with wobbling all over the place you won’t learn the art of balancing on two wheels and moving slowly forwards. A bit like life.

I’ve noticed recently how people I talk to who are considering a career change say that part of them would like to make a change but that another is afraid they will make the wrong decision. So they don’t take action on their wish. And stay stuck.

Being stuck is a common experience of people who come to the field of self development. Usually they have had enough of it.

This is when we need to find a way to test something, experiment with it. Part of the learning experience is that once tried out, we find it is not what we feared. We gain confidence and in turn become more expert at what we are doing. Inner faith builds. We re-connect with our life-force, with who we are.

There is an English saying: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”.

When we take action, the universe moves to, to support us. All sorts of possibilities emerge that we were not previously aware of, that confirm us in what we are doing, to point the way, to help us towards our goal. It’s like everything has reconfigured itself. People who find this confidence say they are surprised how things seem so possible now. They say they feel optimistic, that the horizon has expanded, that their belief in what is possible in their own potential seems suddenly so different and so much better.

It is a shift of perception. That is a power each of us has within us. Like we discovered when we first learned to walk. “Out of the mouths of babes…”.