Playing Big: Old New Way of Looking at Fear

Along the lines of how eskimos have 50 words for snow to describe the different varieties, the Hebrew Bible uses two words for fear:

• prachad - fear of projected or imaged things, fear driven by the inner critic
• focuses on future outcomes
  
• yirah - feeling that overcomes us when we inhabit a larger space than we are used to, when we come into possession of coniderably more energy than we had before

Yirah

Yirah is something to be leaned into.  It's dissolving a boundary while pachad is the fear one feels within that boundary.

I consider yirah to be similar concepts to be in the 'flow' or 'the zone.'

Playing bigger means taking emotional risks, doing things that expose us to failure, criticism or even attack.

Recommendations to handle prachad: Take a deep breath to clear prachad out and then:

• Tap into your inner mentor
• Invite love in
• Get curious
• Reconnect to your desire to serve
• Come back to the present -> prasad is about the future
• notice your breath, focus on sights, sound

The prasad that shows up in my life is the following fear fact:

Fear Fact	Shows up Like This	Journaling Questions
We are not too good at figuring out what to fear.  We tend to perceive threats where they do not exist and miss threats that do exist	"I'm afraid of embarrassing myself when I'm giving a presentation - even though there is little basis for that fear.  On the other hand, I never feel 'afraid' about wasting time over-preparing for those presentations - even though that's probably a much bigger threat to my career."	What kind of irrational, over-reactive fears invade your consciousness? In what ways do you fear the wrong thing - the dramatic potential disaster rather than the more boring (but more real) threat in front of you?

I disagree that over-preparing is a waste of time...  I'm of the mindset that "luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity" but the rest of the fear fact does resonate with me.

When presenting or speaking at meetings, my prasad is that people won't think my idea is a good idea.  They will judge me as not being smart.  I realize this stems from my mother, who could be quite judgemental, and I took it to another level growing up.

Margot Lee Shetterly, author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, recently spoke at a company event and said that the women where hidden figures because they "did not want to stand out for their differences but to fit in to be able to contribute."

I grew up in a mostly white, affluent suburb.  My parents were immigrants, who did not speak much English, who worked many hours and multiple jobs unlike the attorneys, professors and doctors that were in my community.  I speak with an accent, did not see the movie ET or have a Benetton sweatshirt as a child.

I remember one elementary school music class where the music teacher asked kids to stand up if they hadn't seen ET, which had just come out.  Me and one other girl stood up.  The other girl was blonde, whose parents were hippies and did not believe in letting their children watch TV or movies.  Like me, she was a misfit.

By the time I reached high school, I leaned how not to be a misfit by blending in, not standing out.  One of my high school friends asked me once why I cared so much about what other people thought.  I couldn't put my finger on it back then, but now realize it's something I've carried for way too long. 

Due to my ethnicity & my upbringing, I have always been different from my co-workers and even my friends.

I have learned to deal with my prachad when forced to.  When giving presentations, running meetings.  However, when I'm not forced to (i.e. speaking up in meetings) I tend to revert back to fitting in the background, not standing out.  The fear always is that my idea will not be a good idea.  Instead of realizing that not everyone will always have great ideas all the time, I take not having an idea accepted that I'm a misfit again.

That something I think is a good idea will not be perceived so by others not because it just may not be a good idea, but instead, that I don't fit in, that I don't think like other people do, which I don't.

As I'm writing this, I realize it's all a bit circular and nonsensical, but something I have always struggled with as part of my identity.

The next time I feel prasad, I will tap into my inner mentor and invite love in.  I will focus on the bigger picture, my desire to serve, to make things better.  I will work to focus on the present since prasad focuses on the future... after many failed meditation attempts, I know I have a difficult time living in the present, being present but will put time aside each day to focus on the present.

I feel yirah when I've successfully given a good presentation (e.g. Crisis Management) or had a really good meeting where key decisions are made, where there is expected resistance but due to the hard work of addressing concerns, producing results/data and being able to articulate the path forward (e.g. Return to Office).

The next time I experience yirah, I will remind myself that no one knows the answer, that we're all figuring things out as we go along.  That I've had lots of moments of yirah throughout my career and these experiences have earned my place at the table.

Ultimately, it's ok that I never watched ET when everyone else did.  That when I did finally see it, it didn't leave much of an impression on me anyway...