The simple shift that stops you repeating the same patterns in love, money, and everyday life.
The human brain evolved to use fear for one thing: to respond to an immediate threat or danger, something that can harm you and that exists only right here and now.
When fear is about the future or the past, your brain cannot act on it.
So it does the only thing it can: it turns the fear into a “problem” for you to think about endlessly.
When a problem shows up in your life, it is simply the symptom of a fear your brain has created.
Why Solving the “Problem” Doesn’t Work
Most people try to deal with the symptom. They try to solve the problem through thought and effort. But the more you do this, and the more analysis and information you pile onto the problem, the more firmly it stays in place. Often it only makes the problem worse.
Even if you do sometimes force a solution through sheer effort, if the fear remains, it will return somewhere else. This is why people repeat the same patterns in relationships and life and continue to feel stuck and unhappy.
My Own Experience With This
This used to frustrate and confuse me when dealing with my own problems.
In my relationships I would try therapy, counselling, retreats, courses and hours of talking through our issues, going around in the same circles. But things stayed stuck.
In my business and financial life I went to seminars, read books, had coaches, set goals, created plans and strategies and took massive action every day. But I never really got on top of the problems – and despite making a lot of money I ended up losing everything and becoming homeless.
Trying to solve a problem, or get a result you want, without dealing with the core fear is like trying to heal an infected wound by simply covering it with a band aid. Unless you clean the wound first, nothing else you do will stop it from getting worse and ultimately taking over the rest of your body.
This is working on the surface while the real driver remains hidden.
When it comes to fears, the difficulty is that most of them are subconscious.
The result is always the same: stress, anxiety, frustration and problems that won’t go away.
A Quick Quiz to Reveal Your Hidden Fear
Think of the problem in your life you would most like to solve and answer the following questions as honestly as you can:
- Does the problem cause you to feel any negative emotions such as dread, anxiety, disappointment, sadness or worry?
- Do you spend a lot of time thinking about what to do to solve the problem?
- Do you spend a lot of time looking for a solution to the problem (books/videos/coaches/therapists)?
- Do you feel that solving this problem is necessary for you to be happy in your life?
- Do you think that simply walking away from and giving up on the problem is not an option for you?
If you answered “yes” to most (or all) of these questions, it is likely that the subconscious fear driving it is one of the following (or similar):
- Fear of being alone, unloved or abandoned
- Fear of regret (“what could have been if I’d only tried harder”)
- Fear of not living your dreams and making the most out of your life
- Fear of loss of freedom
- Fear of not having enough money
- Fear of what others will think (“they talk about success but look how they have failed”)
Can you see which of these resonate the most with you? Which feel the strongest?
These are the fears that are holding you back and keeping you stuck with your problem.
The Irony of Fear
Here is the real irony about holding subconscious fears:
The very thing you are afraid of is what you are experiencing right now.
Look at the fear or fears you identified. Isn’t this true?
If you’re in an unhappy marriage, isn’t it true that you feel alone and unloved?
If you’re afraid of not having enough money, doesn’t it make you deny yourself things you really want because you think you might need that money for something else?
Think carefully about this. Often these things are not easy to spot. It can be useful to have someone you trust help you see what is not obvious to you (but is clear to them).
It says in the Bible, “That which I feared has come upon me.”
But this is not biblical, this is biological.
The Story Trap
When your brain is caught in a fear – not of something that is happening but of something that could happen – it is caught in what I call the Story Trap, where the mind tries to solve imagined futures with words instead of letting instinct deal with reality.
Your brain is trying to do something it was never designed to do, which is to think its way out of a story it has created.
And that is why you feel – and stay – stuck in the problem.
The only way to truly solve a problem is to remove the cause: the fear behind it.
When that fear dissolves, your brain can finally do what it is built for. It can respond clearly to what is actually happening now and bring you what you need to move forward in a natural way.
What to Do Next
This is what my work is all about: showing you how to let your brain do this “cleaning” itself, without years of trying to rewire your thoughts.
If one particular fear stood out for you as you read this, stay with it for a while. Notice how often it appears behind the problems you keep trying to fix. That is where real change begins for you.