CIP011: Curiosity and Other Fear Weapons

In this episode of The Creative Introvert podcast I share my three weapons I use against the big ol' FEAR monster. Part of being an overanalysing, overthinking, creative introvert, for me means I love to get to the root of a problem. Once we know what lies at the heart of it: we can start to work on whatever is stopping us from doing or having or being something we want. So, I’ve gone on various quests since going freelance then starting my own business: to work out exactly why I struggled with certain aspects like going to networking events, talking about my work, contacting big shots and so on. I’ve worked out a lot of the common ‘inner enemies’ as I like to call them, that have got in the way of doing the things I know I should do, and often know how to do. It’s useful to know about these little f*ckers because that way you can take specific action to overcome them or work around them. There are various exercises I outline in this episode and accompanying ebook that do exactly that. But what if you aren't sure exactly what's causing this resistance? You don't know why You can't bring yourself to get out the paints. You can't figure out why you keep putting off emailing that person. You're stumped as to why you can't hit publish. That's when I dig deeper. I had to do this myself when I realised I can't just think my way past creative resistance. That's when I realised there was a feeling -not a thought causing my resistance. I realised the underlying feeling causing all of these inner enemies to reveal themselves and cause havoc was... fear. The gut-churning, frow-furrowing, palm-sweat inducing feeling that has been with us for - well, millennia. Do I really expect to abolish feeling fear once and for all in just one podcast episode? Well, no. Not my style. But... I do feel like I've pegged three tools or 'weapons' that I've found to be incredibly effective for using whenever I'm feeling that ickyness in the pit of my stomach, and l'm not entirely sure why. The 3 weapons I outline: Curiosity Purpose Appreciation I go into detail on how exactly I use them to overcome fear and 'the resistance' in the episode.