How high would you soar if you didn’t have fear holding you back? What is it that gets in your way, preventing you from experiencing the excellence in you? What is it that stops you from living your life to the fullest?
It may just be an imaginary cat. Please read on…
Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a workshop led by Tara Brach, psychologist and author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge.
Dr. Brach told a story about a cage full of baby rats who loved to play. One day a cat hair was put into their cage and the rats immediately stopped playing. Although there was no cat and no real danger, they never played again. Their fear dominated the rest of their lives.
Can you relate to those baby rats? How many times have you let your fear hold you back from being the amazing person that you were designed to be? Do you fixate on what could go wrong? Do you worry about what others might be thinking? Do you hold yourself back because you fear that you might fail or be rejected? If you do, you may be running from an imaginary cat.
Are you ready to investigate and challenge those fears? Are you ready to throw the piece of hair out of the cage and resume play? Maybe you are ready to not only get rid of the hair, maybe you are ready to get out of the cage altogether.
Sometimes you find that the scariest things live only in your mind.
“If your mind is not cluttered with unnecessary things, this will be the best season in your life.” -Tara Brach
Related articles
- “True Refuge” with Tara Brach (whyy.org)
- Creating an Unreal Other (toddlohenry.com)
Excellent experiment. That really shows us how our primitive driver “Safety’, can really hinder us in modern society.
Yes! Have a great weekend, Stuart.
You too Kristin. 🙂
Fear is an interesting emotion. It can be crippling to us, preventing us from taking on challenges, but at some point we should listen to our fears too. Fear keeps us from doing things that are detrimental to our well-being. As in most cases, we need to add a lot of common sense to our decision-making.
So true! Well said.
Excellent post Kristin! Fear is such a powerful emotion that if allowed to stay can truly hold us back. My life would certainly have turned out to be “much less” if the imaginary cat had not been thrown out early in life. But that said, he tends to come back, lurking close by and needs to dealt with over and over again 🙂
I hear you. Thank you for your comments.
Amazing. I enjoyed reading this. As you said, thinkig deeply about your fears can teach you many things about yourself. Thank you
You are so welcome!
Reminds me of the story of a lion kept for years in this small compound, who eventually was moved to a spacious enclosure with water and room.
The lion still paced back in forth in the same area as before.
Like us we have erected invisible walls.
In this moment happiness is possible, in this moment the ego recedes and we are perfect, capable of things thought impossible yesterday.
In this moment happiness is abundant, fear and resentment fades.
Yes. Thank you for sharing that story!
Invisible walls …
Reminds me of a Simon & Garfunkle song -” I Am A Rock – I am an island, and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries”
Love the song.
So true – this is truly something that we all need to be reminded of. Sometimes, we even cultivate fear and grow it to the point that not only is it fear of an imaginary cat; it is the biggest, meanest, most horrible cat to ever live, just waiting to pounce on us. Thanks for sharing Kristin!
You are very welcome, Reese.
Thank you for the great post Kristin.. I love the line ” sometimes the scariest things are only on our minds” how true is that? Have a wonderful weekend 🙂
You too, Tina.
Reblogged this on Truth Bearer and commented:
“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom: (Luke 12:32).
Thank you so much for sharing this with your readers.
You are welcome, Kristin. God blesses
I love this. What a fantastic sentiment. For me, this one is back to the base roots of the blog. Keeps me growing.
Great!
Most people live in prisons of their own making. It is not their circumstance that keeps them shackled but rather their fears.
Very true!