Those who are afraid have a future

or, in other words,

those who feel fear create the future.

In my work as a coach with individual clients or teams, I increasingly notice that feelings of fear are more taboo or devalued than ever before.

Is it because fear is initially seen as an expression of weakness? Is it because fear has a bad image in our culture of optimisation and success?

Is the phenomenon of growing anger/rage/threat and devaluation in recent years rather a way of hiding and replacing feelings of fear for oneself, for one's own future and that of one's family, friends, society and existence itself?

In transactional analysis, the replacement or projection of one feeling onto another is defined a ‘substitute feeling’.

What is so serious about feeling your own fear and, above all, accepting it? Only when it is accepted can it be communicated and transformed into potential.

What do you associate with fear? Weakness, powerlessness, incapacity, limitation, threat?

Or authenticity, empathy, sensitivity, closeness, resourcefulness?

In my coaching sessions with clients, great potential and vital resources emerge as soon as fear is seen as part of the personality. Fear has a protective function and stimulates attention to the future. We only feel fear when we are able to imagine the future.

Fear is therefore more of a guide to change and improvement in our future than a weakness. It makes us aware of our possibilities and options. It becomes our motivator and disappears as soon as we take action.

I am not afraid, but rather I generate fear. And just as I generate it myself, I can change it and transform it into creative action.

If I consider fear on a purely physical level, it activates our instincts for survival. All processes of the nervous system, the release of stress hormones, increasing pressure and accelerated breathing are instinctive reactions to preserve life. They are geared towards action and activity.

So it is healthy and life-affirming to feel and accept your fear.

You have a future because you experience fear!