Freaking Out? Here’s 5 Ways Elizabeth Gilbert Deals with Fear

I recently interviewed Elizabeth Gilbert for our Emerging Women Podcast on the subject of Creativity and Fear (the focus of her newest book, Big Magic, due out in September). The fact that this wildly successful woman still struggles with fear gives me hope! The insights Liz shared in our conversation are not just for artists and writers. They can apply to any of us who are working on our passions, whether in business or at the writing desk.

Liz’s key to embracing fear: “It’s really about working with your fear and around your fear, without denying it and without attacking it.” But how? Check out these excerpts from my most recent podcast conversation with Liz: Creating Big Magic – Part 1. 

5 Ways Elizabeth Gilbert Deals with Fear:

1. Remember that fear has no toggle switch

“Fear is so old and so important that it’s not subtle,” Liz says. “It’s a toggle switch—it just goes on and off.” It lacks nuance, which is so important to creativity and authentic leadership. Its only function is survival.

But she respects fear. “It’s a viable and important human action,” she says. “But it also can get in your way when it comes to creativity, because creativity always asks you to enter into realms with uncertain outcome, and fear hates that. Fear always tries to shut that down.”

There are times and places where fear is very valuable. But when it comes to creativity, we need to put fear into perspective.

2. Start a conversation with Grandfather Fear

It starts with this wise advice Liz gives: “Without trying to get in a war with fear or pretend that it doesn’t exist or be ungrateful to it, we have to have a conversation with Grandfather Fear every time we begin a new creative project.”

Pretending that you have no fear is crazy. Hating fear is reactive, because we’re here as a human race because it helped us survive. It’s important to bring a healthy respect to the conversation, but have the conversation nonetheless.

How does Liz do it? She says to Grandfather Fear: “I know you’re scared because I’m going to expansively do something with an uncertain outcome, but we’re going to do it anyway.”

3. Bring Kid Sister Curiosity into the conversation

Liz talked at Emerging Women Live 2013 about how helpful it is to personify all the different emotions inside of her. In the podcast, she brought up the usefulness of that same technique when dealing with fear.

“I’ve got Grandpa Fear with the hand on the hand brake being like, ‘No one leaves this house!’ and ‘You kids get out of my yard!’ but I’ve also got the really reckless kid sister – Curiosity – who has no sense of consequence and wants to say “yes” to everything.”

Can you recognize those different parts within you? Now that you’ve said “hi” to Grandfather Fear, can you introduce him to Kid Sister Curiosity? Liz says that if you can, and you let them talk to each other, you can begin to approach wisdom.

4. Trust your Central Self to moderate

“Somewhere in me there’s a self who, if I’ve gotten enough sleep, if I am eating well, if I am in a relationship that’s nourishing, if I’m taking care of myself, and if I’m calm and still, can effectively moderate between all of these modalities,” Liz says.

You can tell Kid Sister Curiosity that you love her free-spirit, but to remember that someone has to pay the bills. And tell Grandfather Fear that you appreciate him looking out for you, “but you can put the shotgun down – those are just trick-or-treaters.”

She stresses the importance of recognizing the YOU that is in charge. And if you’re taking care of you, then you can trust yourself to hear all sides and move forward.

5. Keep doing the work

“Inspiration doesn’t owe you anything,” says Liz. Once you’ve found a balance between fear and creativity, you still have to do the work. She gets the good sleep she needs to start fresh. She sits down at 7am to write. She invites Inspiration to the table and then she gets to work.

“But it’s not like the Annunciation where suddenly an angel comes into the room,” she says. “It’s a drag, but I don’t sit there thinking, ‘Hey, you didn’t come to me! I asked you!’ I put the message out. They know I’m there. And I’ll just sludge through it.”

But the beautiful part? She says, “I’ve got one ear open, ready for the unexpected thing.”[inline]twitter-logo-ew[/inline]

She’s “ready for the sentence that I didn’t know I could write. Ready for something to change. Ready for something to grow.” And she’s teaching me to bring that open conversation to business, too.

Want more ways to deal with Fear? Get a free download of Power Practices Vol. 1 – Women Who Are Changing the World, and tune in to women’s leadership expert Tara Mohr’s “When You Don’t Feel Ready.”

Sahar Paz Celebrates Her Independence

On the 4th of July, we couldn’t help but remember the story Sahar Paz told at Emerging Women’s Power Night Boulder.

Not just because Sahar is a firework of a woman. Which she is. “Smokin’ is the word that comes to mind,” said Emerging Women founder Chantal Pierrat.

When Sahar walked out on the stage, she was absolutely owning it. Don’t believe us? Just take a look at her amazing shoes:

But she didn’t start off owning it.

Sahar was born in war-torn Iran, where she never knew from one day to the next if all of her classmates would show up at school, or if the sidewalk in front of her apartment would still be there. She got the feeling that if she just stayed very quiet and very still, everything might be okay. Despite the bombs.

When she moved to America as a young girl, she was stunned by 4th of July fireworks displays. How could these sounds mean celebration and Independence when to her the soundtrack of explosions had always said live in fear and know your place?

In that environment of fear, her personal inner voice was shamed and shushed out of existence before she was 10 years old.

Instead, she aimed for perfection and quiet in an attempt to mitigate “the burden of her existence.” As she got older, the voice of perfection turned into wanting to please not just parents, teachers and friends, but also men. She habitually turned to others to define her value.

Looking around, the direct line to that value seemed to be MONEY.

Her tireless work ethic eventually took her to a corner office in NYC, complete with a view of Manhattan and the Queensboro bridge – the whole bit. From the outside, she appeared to be living a  “Sex and the City” life. She was check, check, checking all the boxes, but she was not happy.

What was once a hopeful sadness turned into a hopeless depression.

But Sahar turned things around. How did she do it? She found her voice.

“We all have a war of words within. I learned how to get out of my war way faster because I was dealt a lot of shit way earlier. But that’s probably the only difference between you and me.” Now, Sahar has stepped into a state of permission.

“Turns out Maya Angelou was my guardian angel,” Sahar said.

She bought a ticket to Emerging Women Live 2014 specifically to see the incomparable poet. And though Maya Angelou passed before the event, Sahar knew she needed something and decided to go anyway.

And she didn’t just go casually. She showed up. “I needed to be in the spit zone,” she said. She sat in the front row as woman after woman reflected versions of her own experience back to her, albeit in different contexts and with different words. She found strength in those women. And strength in herself.

She especially connected with the theme of permission.

“Chantal gave herself permission in front of all of us. She was vulnerable, right at the start, and gave herself permission to eff up during the weekend.” Sahar was moved and gave herself permission to do the same – to show up as her true self, to let her inner voice speak, and to trust that if she eff-ed up, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“I was not holding on to that voice of failure,” she realized. “That’s only one voice within me. That is not all of me.” She knew her inner voice had more to say than just censorship, criticism and judgement.

Sahar’s journey has led her from a quiet perfectionist to a fierce woman, embracing her inner voice and encouraging others to do the same. We are thrilled to share her voice with you as an Emerging Short speaker at Emerging Women Live 2015.

“We exist in a world of abundance. All scarcity is here,” Sahar said as she pointed to her heart.

“There is an abundance of pain in this world,” she echoed,  “so that means there is also an abundance of opportunity.” Are you ready to take it?

Sahar Paz is going to change the world, but she knows she cannot do it alone.

In one of our favorite moments, she said, “Do not take the voice of comparison – we gotta hold each other’s hands. I’m standing on your shoulders. And I’m reaching for the UN.”

Then she gave herself permission to deliver a badass rap, full of her voice and straight from the heart. And it was smokin’.

What are you reaching for? And whose shoulders are there for you while you do it? We would love to know – please share with us in the comments.

Fear and Courage

When we are emerging, we feel that nothing can stop us, right? We feel the fire of our own inner alignment, and the clarity of our truth is rocket fuel for making our dreams manifest. We ride high on what we know is right and we feel like we have super powers.

Until the fear hits. And just like that, Bam! We become paralyzed, we procrastinate, we stay up at night spinning in our repetitive negative mental constructs, we do everything we can to fight the fear or avoid the pain. It’s exhausting! And it has never worked for me.

I am tired of fighting fear.

In my podcast with Emerging Women Live 2015 speaker Elizabeth Gilbert (best-selling author of Eat Pray Love and The Signature of All Things), we question the standard meaning of the word “fearless.”

There’s a sense that fearlessness means we will try anything without regard for consequence, that we will take risk with no attention to repercussions, that we will leap off of buildings with nothing holding us back. These actions are brazen, but real fearlessness – real courage – is when we take action while feeling our fear and discomfort at the same time.

“People who are without fear actually scare me.” -Elizabeth Gilberttwitter

Here’s a little secret that I don’t often share – I dread public speaking. Or I should say: I dread the time leading up to the time when I am to speak. Once I am on stage, I feel comfortable, but the minutes, hours, and weeks leading up to that time are sheer torture. I feel like I am carrying a big weight on my shoulder that follows me everywhere.

But guess what? No matter how hard I try, I cannot avoid the public speaking part of what I am creating with Emerging Women. And so I stick with it – and bring my fear with me. Liz Gilbert goes so far as to say “have some reverence for your fear,” for it has treated you well, kept you alive in a world filled with dangers.

Courage comes from the French word coeur, meaning heart.

I love this because it brings a feminine perspective into the word courage, which for many years I have associated with the masculine paradigm – swinging swords, life-risking heroism, dangerous acts of self-sacrifice. But when we think of Courage as coming from the heart…..well, Sisters, we got this!

How are Fear and Courage showing up in your life right NOW? Share your story with the tribe in the comments section – we learn so much about ourselves by hearing from each other!

Big Love,

Chantal Pierrat

Founder, Emerging Women

Join Chantal Pierrat, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Tererai Trent, Brené Brown and more at Emerging Women Live 2015 in San Francisco. Early Bird tickets to see are available NOW. Get yours before they’re gone!

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Anybody out there working with fear? #EmergingNow

Dear Emerging Women,

Ever since I made the big leap into entrepreneurship, my resolve to lead with awareness and compassion has been tested daily. And while I am great at staying positive in the face of adversity (check), or building a culture of collective support and authenticity (check), I sure do swear a hell of a lot more than I used to (damn, check). And I can’t seem to totally shake some disturbing feelings – like fear. Fear of public speaking (right?), fear of details (anyone else?), fear of failure (check and double check). But instead of slamming the door in the face of fear, I have come to love the practice of welcoming this old friend into my home. After all, we have grown up together and we have each changed so much over the years.

This is why I love Susan Piver’s work. She says that instead of tightening up to squeeze the fear away from ourselves, we have the capacity to open further and create more space. This, she says, will allow the fear to assume its rightful shape as just one thing that is going on with you at any given moment. And wow: to see what all else is happening around the fear – it’s a party!

I have had a tendency to create a vortex around my fear, following its spiraling, tenacious grip on my psyche. But now I know better. I remember that leaning into something doesn’t mean impaling yourself on it, it means allowing it to be and seeing it for what it is. The space Susan’s practice creates allows room for the rest of our experience to come in, which makes a much bigger (and more manageable) view possible.

We can’t ignore it – the fear is going to be there because we are committed to doing big things: launching businesses, writing books, forging new careers and stepping into our roles as authentic leaders. But when I start to see my fear as a member of a collective of human experiences, I feel more compassion toward it, and toward myself. I hope that this podcast will help you to “embiggen” your perspective so you can see all the amazing things that you are doing, and know that fear is just one of the many internal states that help us along our journey.

Big love,

Chantal Pierrat

Founder, Emerging Women

 


Leaning Into Fear and Falling Into Beauty – Susan Piver

 Super Early Bird Tickets are On Sale for EW Live 2015 in San Francisco!

We’d love to hear how you’re working with fear. Drop us a line in the comments:

Why We Leap – #EmergingNow

Dear Friends,

With just under two weeks to go before our national event in New York, you can imagine how busy and excited we are. Of course there are a lot of details and loose ends to tie up, but what is really taking up most of my attention is the inner landscape of how it feels to take big leaps and reach for the stars.

“Is there anything better than leaping?” Eve Ensler asked at EW Live 2013 last year. Well, honestly, sitting home under a cozy blanket with 5 episodes of Game of Thrones ahead of me sounds mighty fine right about now.

And yet I choose to leap. Why? Because this is where my emergence is taking me, and I am allowing myself to be led, no matter how much it pushes me against what I perceive to be my edge.

And I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I have learned to trust in my unfoldment, that everything happening is for my expansion. I have learned to really lean on the people around me, instead of putting the pressure on myself to have it together all the time. I have learned to ask for help. I have realized that none of the spiritual principles we learn about can actually exist until we experience them in the body – that they are mere concepts until we live them.

Trust, authenticity, vulnerability, the body. Sound familiar? These big leaps I am taking are allowing me – forcing me, really – to rely on my feminine powers. And now I know more than ever how powerful these principles really are.

Most significantly during this process I have come to realize that Emerging Women is not just a business or an event. We are a network of extremely powerful women that can move mountains. This is truly a movement. A movement of self-actualizing ourselves on an individual level, but also as a collective.

One woman who has been instrumental in sending me and supporting me on my path as Emerging Women’s founder is Tami Simon. Her ability to love and listen to the people she comes in contact with, coupled with her belief that we are always, always emerging, every moment, makes her a wise mentor who is tremendously sympathetic to the fears that come along with leaping. Be sure to listen to our Grace&Fire podcast “Emerging into Being” to hear her advice for making the most of our eternal growth and evolution.

We can’t wait to feel the out-of-this-world energy as we come into being together in NYC – I am so grateful for the opportunity to dive into my bravest self while surrounded by many amazing and inspiring women. Thank you, and see you in two weeks!

Big love,

Chantal Pierrat

Founder, Emerging Women

 Listen: Emerging into Being with Tami Simon

Watch: Beautiful Videos from Our Connect4Change Contest Winners

Impact and Inspiration from the Women We Love

Juicy Bites This Week: Overcoming our Fears

This week we learn:

  • Wisdom from pioneer science woman Maria Mitchell
  • Why it’s important to take credit for your work
  • The top 100 websites for women
  • Why startup failure is not the end of the world

At the end of this post, we encourage you to join us for a conversation. In one word (or more) tell us:

What does it take to overcome our fears?

1. Pioneering 19th-Century Astronomer Maria Mitchell on Education and Women in Science via Brain Pickings

Maria Mitchell was the first woman to work as a professional astronomer. She became professor of astronomy and the only woman on the faculty at Vassar College in 1865. A trailblazer woman in science, a fighter for equal pay and equality in education, she also co-founded the American Association for the Advancement of Women and became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters and Journals (public library; free download) — emerges a portrait of a fascinating, fearless woman.

Check out this diary entry from 1874:

“For women there are, undoubtedly, great difficulties in the path, but so much the more to overcome. First, no woman should say, ‘I am but a woman!’ But a woman! What more can you ask to be?

Born a woman — born with the average brain of humanity — born with more than the average heart — if you are mortal, what higher destiny could you have? No matter where you are nor what you are, you are a power — your influence is incalculable; personal influence is always underrated by the person. We are all centers of spheres — we see the portions of the sphere above us, and we see how little we affect it. We forget the part of the sphere around and before us — it extends just as far every way.”

She also encouraged the freedom of thought:

“Women, more than men, are bound by tradition and authority. What the father, the brother, the doctor, and the minister have said has been received undoubtingly. Until women throw off this reverence for authority they will not develop. When they do this, when they come to truth through their investigations, when doubt leads them to discovery, the truth which they get will be theirs, and their minds will work on and on unfettered.”

Continue reading…

2. What are we all so afraid of? via The Telegraph

A new blog, ifuwerentafraid.tumblr.com shows the impact fear can have on women’s lives. The blog is hosted by Lean In, the campaign run by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and the author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.

Anna Maxted, a bestselling author based in North London, England – no stranger to crippling anxiety – wonders what she’d do if she weren’t afraid.

“You gaze at this parade of women on If U Weren’t Afraid and suddenly understand that your fears are ordinary, honest. And yet, how sad to see those discarded dreams.”

Continue reading…

3. Why You Need To Brag More (And How To Do It) via Forbes Woman

A May 2013 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that women who work with men are far less likely to take credit for their work than those who collaborate with other women. Instead of  truly accepting their accomplishments , women give away the credit, talking about the great team they had, the collaborative efforts involved, etc. Familiar right? Instead of saying thank you, women are unnecessarily modest.

“A 2012 report from management consulting firm Accenture called “The Next Generation of Working Women” found that women are less likely to speak up than men, less likely to proactively manage their own careers, and less likely to ask for a raise. According to an NPR report that aired last year, the last fact can mean anywhere from $1 million to $1.5 million in lost earnings over a woman’s lifetime. Owning up to your accomplishments isn’t about arrogance; it’s about equality.” ~ Peggy Drexler

Continue reading…

4. The 100 Best Websites For Women, 2013 via Forbes Woman

The fourth annual list of FORBES 100 Best Websites for Women is a formidable resource.  We are curious which one is your favorite? Leave your suggestion in the comment box below.

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5. Why you should ignore startup failure stats via VentureBeat

Melania Brescia Photography
Melania Brescia Photography

Running a startup that eventually fails can be a valuable experience, writes Eran Laniado, managing director of BMN.

Eran explains:

“[…] not attempting to pursue one’s dream may be very frustrating. Moreover, those who never try will never fail. Those who never fail find it difficult to cope with challenging situations outside of their comfort zone when these eventually arise. A failure today may teach a person to cope more successfully with similar situations in the future.”

Continue reading…

This week’s Juicy Bites question for you, dear emerging women is:

Let’s start a conversation. We would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below.