Getting Real About Fear

Something I wrote and submitted to a support forum, that people seemed to like, so I'm sharing it here as well....

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We all fear the unknown. We fear the known, like we fear getting too close to a
hot oven. We fear the bad, because we don't want to be hurt (what it all comes
down to). Yet oddly, we fear the good too... because improvements must always
come at the price of change.

Change can be terrifying. Particularly when we have no crystal ball promising
everything is going to be sunshine and happiness from here on out... or that the
people we love are still going to love us (or we'll still feel the same way
about them). We have fears of rejection, abandonment, ridicule and humiliation.
Fear of expectations. Of exposure.

We fear losing weight, because changes trigger every single one of our fears.

Many people think being thin is what it's going to take to make them happy. But
in reality, being happy is what its going to take to become thin and stay that
way.

Becoming happy requires moving beyond our ego and choosing Life over our fears,
because happiness is always an in-the-moment emotion.

Memories might make us nostalgic for happier times, but happiness itself is felt
in immediate response to what is happening in the Now.

While we're busy fretting about other things, or daydreaming about our fantasy
lives, we are missing Life itself. Negative thinking. Over-analyzing.
Contemplating. Worrying. Planning. Whenever we're not attending to our immediate
reality and squeezing every drop of life out of it while the precious moment
lasts... we are denying ourselves the very things we most long for:

A sense of connection. Belonging. Loving and being loved.

The experience of being truly alive.

Because isn't that what happiness really is? The joyful awareness of one's
aliveness??

We let our fears rob us of our lives. Or we don't.