When Fear Keeps You Playing Small

Headspace Studio. Hi, friends. It's Rosie here. Welcome to "Radio Headspace" and to Thursday. So the other day I was on the phone with a dear friend who had just taught an online class or rather tried to teach it. She opened her Zoom room, waited, and no one showed up. She told me the story through tears. I know it's not about me, or maybe it is, but it feels so personal, like what's the point of putting myself out there? My heart hurt for her. I've been there too many times to count. Today we're talking about fear, not the dramatic, loud kind that screams and panics, I'm talking about the quiet kind, the kind that whispers, don't try, stay here. You know this place. The kind that convinces you that standing still is safer than taking risk. Look, most people I know are risk averse, myself included. We all have that fear. I've been aiming to remind you of just how sneaky and powerful this can be. In fact, one of the earliest workshops I ever put together had a whopping one person register. One. And then that person canceled. I remember sitting there with the workbook I had spent weeks creating, staring at my empty screen like, well, okay then. It hurt. And I wanted to crawl into a hole and never try again. I think a lot of us that want to start or try something have experienced this, that feeling of anticipation, waiting for people to join a live or come to a class. When you have your slides ready, you've done all the work, you're feeling good, the whole vibe, you're genuinely proud of what you created. But as the clock ticks past the start time, no one shows up. No one. Ouch. It's hard to not take it personal. In fact, I remember one of my mentors telling me, it's not personal. But it felt very personal. Like all the doubt I had about being seen, about taking up space was being confirmed by the silence. I started questioning everything. Was I too much? Not enough? Was I irrelevant? But then somewhere between disappointment and shame, I realized something. The fear I was feeling wasn't really about that one workshop, it wasn't even about people not showing up. It was about what I believed it meant about me, that I wasn't good enough, that I didn't matter. And that's what fear does, it attaches itself to meaning. It builds narratives that keep us small. It keeps us from trying, keeps us from picking ourselves back up after we fall. I told my friend after she expressed all of her feels, "Do it again," I said. Do it again and again until you feel like you can do it in your sleep. Of course, this gave her pause, but I know how committed she is to her new venture, and I believe in her. Fear will keep you hungry in an empty room....