treatswords

Fear with Dorothy Johnson

“Dorothy, you are an inspiration to so many women. Your heart was broken, and yet you chased your dreams and elevated your worth and life in so many ways. Your ability to squish doubt and allow fear to simply just be an emotion we feel is why I wanted to give you the word, Fear. So many of us battle  Fear in our day to day lives and I felt you could teach us how to use it as an asset rather than allowing it to cripple us. Lets dive in.”

                     

What does the word fear mean to you? 

Fear is an emotion. It is a feeling. The vibration in my body feels like a heated rapids running through my body. The hot water crashing against each curvature of my body. 

When was a time you were experiencing the most fear? Can you elaborate on that experience?

Probably when I had to start my life over after my breakup with my ex. I was honestly terrified. The life I wanted and dreamed of felt like it was ripped away from me. Even though I wasn’t alone, I felt betrayed and very alone. My best friend was no longer my best friend and he was with someone else already (a month after we broke up) so I very literally felt like my life was ending. 

How did you over come that time in your life?

I promised myself that I would make my life everything and more than what I had with him. It seems simple but it was really about building the relationship with myself and I built so much trust in myself and what I was capable of. I read, You are a badass, by Jen Sincero and I followed everything in that book to a T like it was the bible. I literally listened to the book 42 times on Audible. I just lived it. I talk more about the breakup and how fear was involved with that throughout the answers I’ve provided below.

Fear holds a lot of people back from doing what they love or truly want to do. What have you found to be the most crippling form of fear? Is it failure, other people’s opinions…etc?

Fear is commonly recognized as a negative emotion along with shame, rejection and failure. The only reason we don’t do what we love or truly want to do is fear of a negative emotion. The worst that can happen is an emotion. When a client is afraid to do something, I always ask why?  Then they will come up with an answer but as I continue to ask why over and over and over again, it always comes down to an emotion we are avoiding. 

Name a time you’ve felt fear in your life when it came to change. How did you combat this fear and allow the change to happen? 

My last breakup brought up a lot of change in my life. I moved into an apartment on my own. The life I wanted felt like it was ripped from my hands. My future felt like it was taken from me so, in that way, there was change because I had to learn how to build a life I loved. I had to start from scratch, with a blank white canvas. Off the bat, some may have seen that as liberating but I was TERRIFIED AF. I was like what?! I have to do this on my own? I didn’t have the tools and knowledge I have now but at the time I combated it by getting excited. I decided I was going to do whatever it took to make the experience fun and make my future exciting. It started with finding my dream apartment. I would travel to new places and experience new things just to see what would happen. My whole life felt like an experiment little did I know I was just changing my thinking that generated excitement and fun feelings..

I want to touch on the fear of failing a little more. When were you fearful of failure? 

I think I’m rarely afraid of failure now knowing that it’s just an emotion and I can handle feeling any emotion. That being said, right now as I’m progressively growing my business, I’m noticing the closer I’m getting to success, the more work I have to put in towards feeling negative emotion. For example, I’m about to take the big leap of faith and leave my salaried job to go full time life coaching and I have all kinds of thoughts about me doing so which creates fear, fear of failure, fear of feeling shame. All kinds of stuff. So that is the most prominent one in my life right now. 

Was there a time in your life when you felt your fear came true and you did “fail” at something? 

OMG girl… I literally plan out 25 fails in my business a quarter. Meaning, I list out 25 things I’m going to do to hit my impossible goal for the year KNOWING they will most likely be complete failures. I then go out and do all of those things and fail at least 25 times a quarter, 100 times a year in my business. 

One of my most recent failures was I created a video sharing my breakup story, ran a FB ad, spent a lot of money, and converted $0 in revenue … whoops, ok. I didn’t make it mean anything I was like ok, cool, learned FB ads, clearly the copy works because we have clicks by the video which I thought was SO bomb, but I learned that doesn’t mean it will convert into consults, so  I was like….what’s next. 

How did you rise from that and try again?

I then went out and created a new freebie which I’m SO excited to launch but that too has the ability to crash and burn and not be a success, therefore being a failure but it doesn’t mean anything about me. It’s just one more thing I know doesn’t work.  I think it was Henry Ford who failed SO HARD for so many years before he was a huge success but in my mind, if I’m not failing over and over and over again. I’m not moving forward in life.  Everyday I fail at something. Today I failed at making a protein cake, I’ve tried 3 days in a row now. I’ll try it again tomorrow, each day just changing one thing until I figure it out. I think the fails that are hardest for me to experience, are the ones that lead to embarrassment and shame. I have a lot of shame around my failures in previous relationships due to cheating. I feel embarrassed when I fail at sports in front of people (which I should probably just go out and do more often so I can get better at feeling that, but just now recognizing lol). There are fails in my life daily, and it’s not so much the fails that I’m concerned with but my ability to feel the emotion associated with that fail and then go out and do it again and again until I’m ok with feeling that emotion. 

Are there ever “too” many tries? 

Hells to the nope, notta, and no way. Try as many times until you get the result you want. 

How can we work on getting the “worst-case” scenarios out of our heads when we want to tackle something new in our lives?  How can we push those thoughts aside? 

I love this question. I never approach decisions with “worst-case” scenarios. I highly recommend approaching all decisions in life with “best-case” scenarios. When you decide to look at your options with the worst case scenario, not only are you coming from a place of scarcity but you also find reasons to not make the decision at all because neither sounds good. Therefore, you’ll probably end up spinning in indecision as well, which is so crippling. If you decide to approach all decisions in life as, what are the best case scenarios for each, then you can make decisions from abundance, rid your limiting beliefs and go for what you truly want in life. Because in my mind the true, worst case scenario are ALWAYS the missed opportunity of not even trying. 

Does confidence have anything to do with conquering fear? If someone lacks confidence, how can someone work on their confidence?

Confidence and fear are both emotions. Emotions/feelings are created by our thoughts, beliefs, and interpretations of the neutral world around us. I could see how some might think confidence is the flip side of the fear. Many of my clients when feeling fear, note that they would like to feel confident, when asked how they want to feel in that situation. 

To work on confidence, you must truly see the specific situation as neutral and work to believe a thought that creates/generates confidence. For example, many people feel confident in pouring a glass of water, when asked “why?” they say because they have done it many times. I then ask my clients, why not believe that about something they have never done before? You can always build confidence ahead of time by changing your beliefs. When a client of mine is working on confidence I ask them to participate in something called, Dare of the Day. They must write down a list of 20 things they are terrified of doing. Then each day of the week they must choose one, and go do it. But before they go and actually do the dare they must identify a thought that creates confidence in being able to complete the dare (using a model I walk through with them). I want them to change their fear into confidence. After doing that many times, day after day, my clients feel confident in their ability to generate confidence. ITS AMAZING.

Has fear brought positivity into your life? If so, how?

Yes, life is 50% positive and 50% negative, without the negative emotions we wouldn’t have the positive ones. 

If you were to recommend someone do one thing a day that scares them, what would some examples of that look like? Should we be trying to do things that bring fear into our lives daily?

Yes, 100% yes. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. 

Ask to have your meal for free at a restaurant even though there was nothing wrong.  Ask for free coffee.  Ask the person in front of you to pay for your meal. Ask for a free upgrade on your flight. Jump out of a plane (skydiving). Go to dinner alone. Plan a “me” vacation where you only spend time by yourself. Stay in on a Friday night alone with your thoughts. Love your job. Quit your job. Say no. Tell someone “I don’t want to” instead of “I can’t” or “I’m busy” or any other excuse you normal give. Ask your dream guy out on a date. Go talk to the cute guy. Propose to the man. Say I’m sorry when it wasn’t your fault. Ask for free rent. Start a blog. Start a YouTube Channel. Share your writing everyday for 30 days. Share your opinion about something with the world. Invent a new process. Create an idea and share it with the world.  Take the opposing side and openly disagree with someone about something you care about.  Make a decision without asking for advice but only looking towards yourself for the answer.

Has your success brought a form of “fear” out in others? For example, when I moved to Seattle, a lot of people expressed the fears they had of my move. How do you deal with others fear when its directed towards your own decisions?

OMG yes! I love this so much. So, this happens all the time to me but I don’t make it mean anything. For example, when I was moving to Boston to live with Matthew, SO many people were like why would you move for another guy? Aren’t you afraid what happened in the past might happen again?  But here is the thing. Fear again, is a feeling therefore THEIR thoughts are creating THEIR fear. It has nothing to do with me. I don’t have to take on their thinking and their beliefs because I don’t believe it serves me. I  believe that these people with concerns truly care about me and don’t want to see me hurt, so of course they are providing me with their opinions. But that’s all they are, opinions. 

If you could list five ways to handle and rise above fear, what would those five tips be?

1) learn to truly feel an emotion and then process it. So, sit down and experience it. What color is it? Where do you feel it in your body? What does it taste like? Is it hot or cold? What does it smell like? 

2) Understand what is driving your fear. If fear is an emotion and our thoughts create our emotions, what thoughts are driving that fear? It’s a belief you have about the situation that is causing that fear. Is it the fear of being rejected? Fear of failure? Fear of uncertainty? What are you making those things mean? 

3) Decide to do it in spite of fear. Knowing that fear is only a vibration in your body and it actually cannot physically harm you, get comfortable feeling that but then also taking action anyways.

4) Break your beliefs. Whatever the underlying beliefs are that are creating your fear, question THE FUCK OUT OF THEM. Like seriously. We think we have values and beliefs and we think they are our truth but they create so many restrictions in our world that we don’t even notice. I’ve broken so many fear-based beliefs around money that have opened up a whole new world I never thought imaginable. What are you telling yourself that isn’t actually true? If you list something off like it’s a fact, it’s probably a limiting belief. When my clients come to me listing stuff off like the news of their life, it’s actually just thoughts they created in their mind that aren’t true and are holding them back from SO MUCH. Ask yourself why, and so what, and why does that matter, and what am I making that mean, at least twice a day.

5) Try on new ideas like you’re going shopping. Pretend there was a belief store, it looks just like the apple store but instead of electronics, it’s full of beliefs hanging up like keys. Take them and try them on, what would it feel like if you believed it? How would you show up? Who would you be? One of my favorite new beliefs that I’ve been trying on a lot is, “Nothing has gone wrong here.” 

Do you agree with the quote, “You miss 100% of the chances you don’t take?” If so why?

I haven’t heard this one before but I’d have to say, yes I agree. The worst case scenario to me in my life is the missed opportunity, missing the what if’s. If you don’t try it, you’ll never know. So move forward, try it, if it doesn’t work don’t make it mean anything, it isn’t tied to your self worth, just adjust and try something different.

What was a chance you took that you look back on now and are thankful for?

My previous relationship with my ex. Not to sound like Ariana Grande over here, but I’m so grateful for my ex. Like so so so grateful for the relationship we had, all we put into it and when I took the leap to move back to Florida with him and quit my job to be with him, I don’t regret it for a second. I’m so thankful I loved him so hard because without that, I wouldn’t have had the heartbreak that catapulted the rest of my life. 

What was a chance you didn’t take that you feel regret over?

Honestly I don’t feel regret very often. Regret is also a feeling created by our thoughts. I sometimes have thoughts about my biological father and how maybe I should have tried to see him in person more before he passed, but I quickly filter those thoughts and beliefs into the spam folder I have in my brain because they do not serve me. I created a wonderful relationship with him via letters in undergrad that no one will ever be able to take away. 

If someone only came to this blog to hear one piece of advice from you on fear, what would that advice be?

Fear is only a vibration in your body. It will not kill you.

You have created your own business, moved to a new state, started a new relationship after being broken. How have you managed to make so many changes in your life? How can we take what you’ve done and add that into our own lives?

This is funny because I haven’t realized how much change it’s truly been. I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty dynamic person. However I am a Taurus so we are rather resistant to change and kind of stubborn but when I think change is my own idea, I charge at it like a bull. 

I most recently struggled with sitting still rather than finding something to change. I like up-leveling my life so when I notice that some areas have been stagnant for awhile, I’m like ok, what’s happening with that? I assess where it is and what my ideal future self would say about it. Is it time to change?  Is it time to sit and enjoy?  Or what’s the deal? 

I think in terms of adding it to your own lives, it’s just not seeing change as a bad thing. It’s neutral, you get to make it into whatever you want it to be. I decide ahead of time that all changes I make in my life are going to be amazing. Literally, no matter what. So when I decided to start a business, I knew it would be so amazing and fun, so I went out and created that for myself. When I moved to Boston, I decided ahead of time, it was going to bomb AF and I went out and created that reality. No one knows what your reality will be until you go out and CREATE that. So if you go out all hesitant, not sure what will happen, that’s the environment you’ll create. If you think it’s going to be terrible, you’ll go out and create that into a terrible experience. So when you make a decision, make it knowing that YOUR in charge of making it into whatever experience you want.

How does someone handle fear of a new relationship when their heart has been previously broken?

If you have fear about going into a new relationship because of your past experience you NEED to look at what beliefs are creating that feeling for you. “This always happens to me,” “Men always hurt me,” “The same thing could happen again,” “What if I get my heart broken again,” “I just can’t go through another heartbreak again.” Those might just be a few that run through your mind if you have this problem. The thing is, those are all made up. None of it is true. You must break those beliefs by doing self coaching or working with a coach. 

If we base our future off our past we will ALWAYS recreate our past. To create a reality you’ve never had before you MUST think new thoughts and believe new beliefs you’ve never had before. 

I like to think of it this way, if we thought electricity couldn’t be real because we never saw it in our past, it wouldn’t be in our world today. Same thing with all new inventions. Someone had to seem like the crazy person before they were to create what they believed in. So you must believe something your brain has yet to see proof for. 

 How can we stop ourselves from dragging old scars into a new opportunity?

So many people ask this question and I find it really funny because my answer is so backwards. 

When it comes to breakups and relationships I think that no matter how long someone has been single for ahead of time they will ALWAYS bring in old scars. I think this is inevitable. We as humans are never “cured” of our limiting beliefs. We work on them, up level, then find new problems and new areas in our life to work on. 

So I’d say bring your old scars into a new opportunity but continually question yourself, live life in a curious way, and constantly second guess the beliefs that you have. especially the ones that cause you to not get a result you’ve been searching for.

What do you fear most? How have you challenged yourself with this fear?

This is such a good question because when I first read it, I’m like i’m not afraid of anything but I recognize that might not be true. 

I believe my upbringing helped me face fear innately. My dad is a Psychologist so anytime I was afraid of something like the water or a spider my dad would immerse me in that situation to show me that I wouldn’t die, and all was well.

I think the biggest fear I have at the moment is around embarrassment and shame around up-leveling my life yet again. I worked so hard to get to where I am with all areas of my life and I sincerely have a life I could have never imagined just two years ago, that I have all kinds of fear around asking for even more, for asking for a life that is even better than the great life I have now. I never thought I’d hit this ceiling of self worth so I find it being a fear of mine to step into this light that I know is just waiting on me. So maybe it’s a little bit of fear of uncertainty too. 

I challenge this fear in many ways. I have multiple coaches that I’ve hired to help me in all areas of my life, I do self coaching, I work on recognizing and processing that emotion. Identify the thoughts that are creating that fear. And begin to break them down and try on new ideas that I think my future self will be thinking.

If we allow fear to take over our lives, what are we missing out on? 

I mean, if you’ve let fear take over your life, meaning you don’t do anything new because of the fear you associate with that, then I think it’s important to note that no matter what, you feel discomfort. Our life is 50% negative and 50% positive so if you’re going to feel negative emotions half the time anyway, why let fear stand in the way of doing what you actually want to do? If I let fear overtake me, I’d say I’d be missing out on growing into my own self and finding out who I really am.

Is there anything I haven’t touched on that you would like to add?

I don’t think so, these questions were bomb Cali! I love love love it! Thank you so much for the opportunity to be in your blog. Your writing is the most amazing and I’ve been in love with it for so long. You had written a poem that helped me through my heartache years ago. Love you times a million!

 

You can find more inspiration from Dorothy (AKA the baddest break up coach in the game) at: @breakupcoachdorothy

And if you enjoyed these photos you can find her photographer (AKA hot boyfriend) here at: @mattmacphoto