Days 101 to 105 The Good Fear – FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

Well dog my cats! I went pack rafting today and didn’t shit my pants! I have this thing with drowning…and the way I tend to address my fears is dive straight into them. Inevitably they seem far less freaky than what my mind was making up. Buuuuut with whitewater kayaking or pack rafting, it feels a little harder to embrace being dumped into a rapid, upside down. It’s that “airway” thing, I guess.

The depths of the ocean freaked me out, so I learned to scuba dive. It was much prettier and mellow down there than the dark muddied world of ugly gray breasts that I’d made up whenever a strand of seaweed would brush against my leg at the beaches in Santa Cruz.

Heights made me dizzy so I learned to climb, and discovered that getting over that fear for the kick ass views was well worth it.

Here I am after packrafting Clear Creek, where it runs into the Klamath River

I was afraid to have my heart hurt again, so I flung it wide open for my soul mate, who is – as I write this on my iPhone on the banks of Clear Creek – on my mountainbike riding uphill 8 miles to go get the car, which we left at the put-in upriver. We’re uber happy, to say the least;)

In any event, until recently, I allowed myself to be afraid of whitewater, because I figured it’s ok to be afraid of <em>something,</em> right? But then whenever my friends did it, I felt like I was missing out. They’d come back all tan and happy, and with this cool shared experience. And deep down, I knew I could do it. And deep down, I wish I was better at it. So, I did it:)

Hey! There is it again! That fear I’ve written about a few times: FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out.

Well thank God for FOMO. Without it, I might be better rested and comfortable, but because of it, I keep having amazing new experiences, meeting absolutely amazing people, playing in the wilderness, getting stronger in body, mind, and spirit…and heart. And I feel ALIVE!

Of course, you don’t have to be on whitewater or a mountain to feel alive. We all have our own thing for that.

What is yours? What helps you feel alive?

And what are you fearing you might be missing out on? What could you do to drop into it and have a cool experience?

Does it require you to call a friend, or go on a date by yourself and check out that new wine bar and hit up that long yet awesome movie you’ve been wanting to see? Does it mean you need to stop protecting your heart so much that you don’t take anymore risks?

FOMO is a good fear – at least for me. The fear of missing out often overpowers the fear of whatever it is before me. And I grow as a result. I mean, I’m with my freakin’ soulmate!!!

It keeps me on my toes, taking inner and outer risks, and opening to the opportunities that the Universe present before me.

This planet is so utterly, epically, über amazing. Being human is such a precious gift. Our spirits and hearts are so much more resilient and magnificent than we can ever imagine them to be.

So, what’s your FOMO? Please do share below! I’d love to hear from you.

 

Note: Ana Neff is a personal life coach, guide and FreedomJunkie™ She helps individuals awaken their lives of freedom and personal success with confidence, clarity, self-love, and passion. Her monthly Jedi Juice ™ eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. Her Full-On 365 blog posts stem from her commitment to living full-on, every day, for 365 days in a row. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download  her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting Anaverzone.com (note: it’s new look will be up to rock your world soon)! Sign up for her next FREE Jedi Juice Training call on the Law of Attraction at anaverzone.com/jedi-juice

Days 29, 30 and 31 – Checking In About Balance and Living Full On Every Day

Living Full On EVERY DAY often seems daunting, especially when I am tired. Sometimes I sit back, sigh dramatically, and think, “I am too pooped to live Full On today.” Then my Outward Bound days and the saying “Sleep When You Die” pops up. Then I tell it to, “Shut Up!”cuz maybe I got cancer cuz I didn’t sleep enough all those years. Then I laugh because I know that isn’t true. Then I stop and reflect on what I said on Day 1 of this great journey:

Full On™365 isn’t just about adventures like climbing, skiing, and traveling to remote places…It is also about the challenges and rewards of living authentically, life’s misadventures, heartaches, and everything in-between…It is all a part of a full-on life. Feeling it all, fully. Living it all, fully. Knowing what you want, fully. Receiving it, fully.”

Well, when you look at it that way, life is too short to NOT to live Full On, and it doesn’t have to be as hard to do so as we often make it out to be. It can be as simple as opening my heart to truths that are hard to hear. Or a tenderness that aches bittersweet. Or making that phone call that I know someone is waiting to receive. I can do that, even tired.

In fact, I have also found that exhaustion can sometimes open everything up precisely BECAUSE you are too damned tired to try and protect yourself and do the “safe” thing. This reminds me of some traditional Buddhist trainings that take a student to the brink of complete exhaustion so that their mind can no longer hold on to preconceived notions and is completely and vulnerably open to enlightenment.

It is all a balance that I am trying to figure out. How to balance F.O.M.O.  (Fear of Missing Out) and self-care, rest, adventure, and retreat. One thing I keep reminding myself: balance is never achieved. You do not “arrive” at Balance. Like Tree Pose in yoga, you move towards balance in every moment with the most minute movements, and sometimes big sweeping recovery maneuvers when you topple over. Even when you feel in balance, you are still moving – however subtly – in order to sustain that feeling.

I’ll keep trying;)

As for the past 3 days, some ways that I’ve been living Full On are by:

Day 29 ) giving a talk about Freedom Junkie. Ziji, and living Full On at a wildly progressive and innovative company, Plexis, in Ashland. It is such a RUSH to share Freedom Junkie with others, and watch the fire get lit in their hearts to live more fully every day.

Day 30) participating in a high-risk c-section and bringing a preemie baby into the world crying with all his might. Then not turning on the TV when I got home even though I was pooped and instead staying up with my man and dreaming about our future.

Day 31) launching my Ziji Up! Mastery Program (it starts March 26th in Ashland!), where we go through my 5-step system for living creative, courageous, wild and free. We will be building clarity and confidence for 7 weeks, and I am psyched! I’ll let you know more about it later.

PS: As an aside, if you’re going to make a commitment to do anything daily for a year, I recommend doing as I did: Start in February because it flies by faster than the other 11 months and you can say sooner, “I’ve done this for a month!” Today it has been more than a month of living it daily and blogging here at Full On™. I’ve received such amazing emails and comments about all of you living Full On in your own lives. THANK YOU for your inspiration and support!

Note: Ana Neff is known as the Freedom™ Mentor. She helps individuals awaken their lives, their businesses and their success with radiant inner confidence. Her monthly Freedom Junkie! eZine goes out to hundreds of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs and download her FREE Getting Clear Guide by visiting www.FreedomJunkie.com

F.O.M.O (Fear of Missing Out) and Other Four-Letter WordsThat Keep Us From Making Decisions

Those of us who strive to live Wild Awake often tend to have a lot going on at any given moment–if not outwardly, at least in our heads. There are just so many bright shiny objects seemingly screaming for our attention. And they all seem so important, FUN, urgent, exciting, or fleeting. There’s family and friends, work projects, movies, concerts, hikes, symphonies, potlucks,dance parties, climbs, plays, river runs, sunsets, star gazing, wine tasting, traveling, books to read, and SO MUCH MORE! And when it comes to the big picture of what we should DO with our lives, our purpose, there can be even more confusion! Should I set out to be an entrepreneur? Should I stay at home with the kids or go back to work part time? Is my calling to be a teacher or an inventor? An engineer or a ski bum? Should I take the risk of leaving my job that is sucking me bone dry? There are so many decisions…so how do we balance it all? First, let’s get clear on the
question.

What do I want?
When taking in all our options, we often feel overwhelmed and end up attempting to do it all, or do nothing at all. While F.O.F (Fear of Failure) is often at the root of doing nothing, for those prone to the former, my friends introduced me to the term F.O.M.O. (Fear of Missing Out). FOMO leads to very busy schedules, very little sleep, very little sitting still, and can certainly also lead to a whole lot of good times. It seemed we often fell victim to this “affliction” of FOMO. We tried to do it all due to a fear of missing out…but missing out on what?

If we’re considering FOMO, what exactly is it that we are afraid of when we try to pack in so much? For many it is a fear of missing out on that one thing that would have really lit up our spirit. It isn’t always easy to tell in advance what that might be, so we just pack it all in. While the realization that life is precious and thus wanting to make the most of it is a beautiful practice, eventually it becomes clear that it doesn’t mean packing in every single moment with more and more events. But how do we narrow things down?

Decisions are harder to make when we aren’t clear about what we want. At the same time, the question of “what do I want?” can be so ambiguous. In considering all this, I wondered if my particular FOMO was not so much fearing that I’d miss out on “what I want” per se, but rather a resurfacing of my most dreaded childhood fear: the Fear of Being Bored (FOBB). As a kid I would cry from from boredom. I didn’t care about chocolate chip cookies or barbie dolls so much as I just didn’t want to be bored. It slayed me.

What would excite me?
Tim Ferriss says in The 4 Hour Work Week, “The opposite of happiness is boredom…The question you should be asking isn’t, ‘What do I want?’ or ‘What are my goals?’ but ‘What would excite me?'” He even refers to ADD as “Adventure Deficit Disorder.” Most psychological theories and spiritual traditions agree that we humans do the things we do because of one common goal: to be happy. If we strive for happiness, then what, conversely, are we avoiding? What are we fearing? Why does Tim think its opposite is boredom?

Let’s consider some alternatives for the opposite of happiness. What about sadness? Well, it doesn’t really seem to be the opposite of happiness. There are people who are not happy who aren’t necessarily sad. Same goes for anger. And anxiety. And fear. Sadness, fear, anxiety and anger…these are generally transient emotions you can have even while generally being happy. However, when someone is totally lacking happiness, they seem to have lost the spark. They have lost what excites them. I can start to see where Tim is going here…perhaps it is that we want to avoid being bored.

One of the most common things I hear from my coaching clients is that they want more. Not more stuff, but more zest. Their current jobs, relationships, or lifestyles are missing something. I began to notice that whether artist or engineer, student or CEO, climber or knitter: the most common way this unmet need is phrased is a lack of creativity in their lives. Things feel flat. Dull. And this doesn’t feel right! Why doesn’t this feel right? I believe it is because our baseline is to be creative, whether you think you’re a creative type or not. Our baseline is to be excited by life, whether that’s in quiet moments with our families, starting that business you’ve been dreaming about, going back to school, climbing an exposed rockface, seeing a project come to fruition, dressing up to hit the town, taking that year-long trip around the world, or heading out on a date with your partner. Even falling asleep after a long productive day can feel exciting!

To be “excited” by life doesn’t mean you need to always be jumping up and down and dancing all over the place (although those who know me would say that is how I tend to manifest excitement). Rather, it is a feeling of aliveness, of being Wild Awake, no matter what you are doing.

Live the Questions
So, my friends…if you’ve got FOMO, FOF, ADD or FOBB or any other such three and four-letter words, instead of asking “What do I want?” try asking yourself, “What would truly excite me?” Give it some time, and space, and silence. The soft still voice in you will speak (or shout!) and you will know. Sometimes its not what we want to hear. But you really do know deep down what excites you–on a day to day level, and a life purpose level. And if no answer arrives just yet, then do as Rilke says: “Live the questions.” But whatever you do, don’t ignore it. There is a saying, “The quality of your life is directly related to the quality of the questions you ask of yourself.” So keep asking! And allow the answers to shift and flow.

With summer, even more opportunities to experience life blossom, and you get to practice asking these questions each day. When you’re focused on doing what truly excites you in the moment, the decisions around what to do will be more clear, and you will be more present with whatever and whomever you are spending your precious life moments with.