Unlike my fear of laundry, that’s a REAL fear. It doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable, it terrifies me in on a visceral level. In the end, that fear will prove instrumental in helping me overcome the little, inconsequential fears and in allowing me to live the life I need to.

Even the people who have changed their life drastically, such as by starting a successful business after being underprivileged, probably also experienced some extent of cowardice toward change. Just because you feel that way now, doesn’t mean it will forever prevent you from relishing certain changes. I used to fear cleaning the way you fear laundry. I changed my perspective (well, Jackie helped a little) and now I love to clean and the transformation that occurs as a result of it.

I also think there is some value to being a coward. Recently, I have felt like a coward because I thought I didn’t have the confidence to approach someone with the intent of starting friendships. I was really questioning myself. Why do I have such a hard time making friends? Is it me? Is it them? I was really scared to even begin to explore the answer to this question. Then, someone turned this irrational fear (or what I thought was an irrational fear) into a logical scenario: Fear, or cowardice, can be very healthy. Maybe the reason I wasn’t making friends was because I don’t want to be friends with just anyone. I want to have friendships that will be meaningful and long-lived. So my fear may have been telling me that the people I was encountering would not fulfill my expectations. My reaction was completely healthy: my fear was protecting me.

So maybe listening to our fears is part of the key to, either, overcoming them or recognizing when they are telling us that certain changes really aren’t right…at least for now.