Spider In The Bath
You know why most people hate Mondays? Because it means they have to face stuff they hate, or worse, stuff that they fear.
In my 15 years in business, I’ve spent many a weekend dreading the less desirable items on my to-do list that seem to have a tangible and distinctively heavy weight despite only being words on a page or a thought in my mind… I’m not going to pretend for one second that running a business is all rainbows and unicorns. It’s not. There is ALWAYS shit to deal with… my mother would call it character building (as an entrepreneur herself of 35+ years).
Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, a newbie, or in a career that demands you deal with the occasional terrifying situation, I’d like to offer you a different spin on fear.
Introducing the Spider In The Bath
Disclaimer… I’m not scared of spiders. I grew up in the countryside. My husband however… well let’s just say he inspires a lot of my emails!
Now I’m told that when you’re sat on the toilet with your pants around your ankles, seeing a spider scurrying across the tiles towards you is THE most terrifying thing in the world. Especially when that same spider was spotted in the bath just minutes earlier and has now proved itself to be a mutant spider capable of scaling slippery surfaces, defying gravity, and effortless escaping what should be a perilous death.
Comical imagery aside, this little anecdote gave me a curious insight into how we live with fear.
- We anticipate the worst when we’re most vulnerable
- Facing our fears is less scary when we feel more prepared
- Fears are a part of our existence, just as much as spiders are
- What we fear can’t actually hurt us
- Our preconditioned beliefs about the thing are always more scary than the actual thing
What if we chose to see the spider in a different light?
What if we chose to realise the spider is actually a lot more vulnerable than we are?
What if we allowed the spider to crawl over our foot and then crawl away… would that be so bad?
Apply the same questions to that which you fear or dread every Monday morning…
What if you could see it differently?
What if you realised you’re more powerful than the thing you’e scared of?
What if you allowed that emotion to exist in your body without letting it distract you from anything else? (aka let the spiders live in your house, they can’t actually hurt you)
What if you changed your beliefs around the thing and dismantled the fear altogether?
If you’re arachnophobic, I appreciate this won’t help at all, so to that person, I’m very sorry!
To everyone else… spiders are actually more deadly than your fears. Worry more about spiders than you do about those triggering, energy-draining, self-sabotaging, disproportionate ideas you have about the thing you think you’re scared of.
It’s really not that scary, and you can co-exist with the emotion without it causing any harm at all.
On that note… happy monday! 
My love always
Harriette
p.s. my free 5 day event “The Shift” starts a week today! Everything you need to know is in the title. Sign up here.