The Truth About Choosing Fear Over Joy
Are you hiding from joy?
Would you rather feel fear or joy?
My answer is joy. That might be the obvious answer for you too. However, is that actually your reality?
Fear rules over the minds and hearts of more people than joy does. If joy is a foreign concept for people then it becomes even more unlikely that they will ever feel it. Unless of course, they make the decision that making an effort to feel joy will indeed make your life better now and later.
But most people don’t make this decision for a few reasons, (1) they don’t know it’s available to them, (2) fear and discomfort out rules any possibility of better emotions, and (3) they want to feel joy but “something” is in the way.
1. People who don’t know that joy is available to them usually are too consumed by their fears of growth and change. Therefore, convincing themselves that joy is not an option for them.
This most likely comes from developing this belief sometime in your life.
Because of this, all these people look for are instances in life that have supported the idea that fear is all they have and will ever have/feel.
This creates such a strong association between change and fear that joy probably isn’t even in their vocabulary. This doesn’t mean it will never be, it’s always possible to change this but it takes that conscious awareness that joy is a possibility and not a missed opportunity.
2. If you are someone foreign to joy you may fear joy because it is unfamiliar.
People will not allow themselves to experience the phenomenon of joy because doing something different, allowing joy into your life is almost, if not more, scary than no joy at all.
Why?
Because if we are not used to feeling or experiencing something there is a level of discomfort in the thought of changing from your comfortable normal state to something you don’t have any proof of actually working. In other words, it’s an unknown state and we as a culture have long associated intense amounts of fear to the unknown, even if there is good in it.
So, Not familiar = unknown = uncomfortable = fear.
If we are not familiar with something our first reaction is that it makes us uncomfortable. When we feel uncomfortable there is an element of fear that comes up for us because of that cultural association I talked about.
The amount of fear one feels towards the discomfort depends on how comfortable you are not knowing something. Of course, there are few people who love it! But most would say that the unknown and feeling uncomfortable is a feeling they would rather avoid.
And that avoidance is exactly why people are unconsciously more comfortable in their fear than in joy if they have never had experiences that showed them joy was available to them (especially as a child).
We are more likely, as a species, to avoid things that make us uncomfortable so we can avoid feeling the fear, uncertainty, and whatever else you pair with that state.
Therefore, joy is avoided.
3. But maybe you want to feel joy. You want it A LOT but something always seems in the way of feeling it!
If this is you, the first question I want you to ask yourself is where are you looking for joy?
If we feel like something is in our way or we feel “stuck” and can’t make progress towards what we want it’s a subtle signal that we need to change our approach.
If you are someone like in #2 where joy has always been foreign to you, you can’t continue doing what you’ve always done and expect to feel joy.
If you are making attempts to feel joy by changing your external world or waiting for something to happen to you feel it you can’t expect to feel joy.
If you are really ready to enter the joy state you have to do something different and that involves possibly getting a little uncomfortable. (that’s why people often remain in the fear I talked about in #2).
Therefore, if you are feeling like something is in the way of joy examine where you expect it to come from, how you are going about feeling it, and if there is any fear still getting in your way.
It only takes a second to make a decision that prioritizes joy.
So, would you rather feel fear or joy?
❤️🌻 Thank you for reading!
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