Fear of Success

This anxiety is much like fear of happiness, or feeling “too good.” Plain and simple, real joy is uncharted territory for many of us. We can’t envision it and don’t know what to expect, because we’ve never experienced it~ so we tend to fear it.

I like to think of Christopher Columbus setting sail when the entire world believed that if your ship traveled too far, it would fall off the edge of the earth. What we haven’t already experienced, we tend to fear.

Many are afraid that vast monetary success will fundamentally change them into someone they can’t respect or admire. Messages and attitudes both overt and subtle from our parents about “rich people” might have made us subconsciously fear ever acquiring great wealth. The bottom line is, if you’re afraid of making a lot of money (for whatever reason or reasons this is), you won’t.

Did your parents make comments that came from envy or jealousy about “those people” who had much more than they? Were wealthy people “assholes,” and on what exactly, did they base this harsh opinion? Did your mom or dad feel a need to cast dispersions on The Rich, to help them feel better about themselves??

As children, we believe whatever our parents tell us. If this were not true, we’d have never heard of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, and we’d have had a lot fewer holidays during childhood, to celebrate enjoy.

Never fear, that great fortune or wealth will magically “change” you, because it can’t! Who you are today, is who you were at five years old. This is why we call the first 5 years of life our “formative years.” Your temperament, your personality, your nature and your sense of right and wrong were basically chiseled in stone, by the time you turned five! You couldn't change your basic nature, even if you wanted to, and that's an absolute fact.

No amount of money in this world, has the ability to alter your sense of integrity or character. You are not gonna change and become an entirely different type of person just because you’re earning a bloody fortune~ so divest yourself of this ridiculous concern!

But again, having great wealth is mostly uncharted territory for us, so it’s intimidating. We’re always waiting for that “other shoe to drop,” because we got programmed as youngsters to expect it! Some people sabotage their success when they feel close to grabbing the proverbial ‘brass ring,’ because they can’t handle the anticipation anxiety that rises up in them.

Let me explain this bizarre phenomenon, which is way more common than you might think: Being the cause of setbacks in our personal or professional life is far less anxiety-provoking, than dealing with the uneasiness we feel when we imagine “The Unknown” awaits us.

If we are the ones orchestrating disappointments or drama, we feel more in-control of the pain that lands on us rather than being at the effect of it, and risking the ‘fallout’ of shock or surprise (which makes us feel vulnerable, and that we may judge as bad or wrong, to feel).

“After good feelings, always comes something bad” became our belief when we were little. This is merely a childhood superstition~ a Pavlovian response to pain and frequent disappointments as a kid. There’s no truth or validity to this concept whatsoever.

My dad once said, 97% of the stuff we worry about never comes to fruition, and I want to help you come to accept this as absolute fact! Besides, worrying has never altered an outcome for anyone, so why put yourself through all that?!

Anxiety is a normal, human emotion that serves to alert us to danger, when appropriate and necessary. 

Below is a list of the more common anxiety triggers and the name or face you’ve maybe given yours to feel more in-control of those awful sensations and make them seem less scary. All these are addressed and dealt with, during this tutorial:

* General anxiety~ never feeling totally safe, secure or at ease.

* When you feel an ache or pain, you presume the worst: “It’s cancer! I’m gonna die! This is the start of a dreaded disease!”

* Phobias. Chronic fear of something specific: Heights, water, spiders, black cats, mice/other rodents, getting raped, being robbed, etc.

* Fear of traveling beyond a short distance from home.

* Fear of death or dying.

* Fear of success.

* Social Anxiety~ uncomfortable in crowds or social settings.

* Attachment and/or abandonment anxiety (see Social Anxiety).   

* If you’re true to yourself, you’ll be rejected/abandoned.

* If you start crying when you feel bad, you’ll never stop.

* If you don’t take care of others and their needs, they’ll see you as unlovable~ unworthy of their affection, respect or admiration.

* Morning anxiety (first thing, upon awakening).

* When life is going really well and you feel “too good.”

* The What-if’s~ fast-forwarding into the future, envisioning the worst that could happen and how you’ll need to deal with it.

* Using anxiety (unwittingly) to motivate you: “if I don’t get out of bed right now, I’ll be late for work and get fired from my job!”

You must learn to stop the reflex of mentally assigning reasons to your anxious feelings, or you cannot recover. We are helping you do this, with the following exercise! Use this in-between each video you watch, and during them, when you’re asked to participate.

*Deep breathe into any/all feelings in your body, self-soothe for 2 minutes, and stay the hell out of your head!