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How do you tell the difference between fear and gut instinct?!

2 replies

fryday · 17/03/2021 00:13

There's something I want to do which requires a small move of location. (Not in UK!)

I feel that once I get there it'll be enriching and lovely - I feel at an instinctive level it's a great move, that it could open so many possibilities and ways of thinking/being. But every time I think of doing one of the steps to get there - eg sending an accommodation enquiry, or even envisioning eventually getting in my car and driving there - I get this overwhelming sense of foreboding. Literally a physical, visceral No. I have talked myself and thought myself into coming so close to making one of the aforementioned steps, but, consistently, that body level reaction has stopped me. It's like a kind of burning sensation in my body if that doesn't sound too weird!

I've hardly any time left to decide, and I feel kind of paralysed and the paralysis feels awful - like I'm watching the window of opportunity close in slow motion, like watching a car crash I can do nothing about; and I can't help but reprimand my lack of courage or being a scaredy cat, and a what seems (another, contradictory!) gut level instinctive sense that things, and very possibly my life course, will fester, or at least be very much less nourished, without this opportunity, and I shall always regret it.

I can't seem to separate out which feeling I should follow!

I wondered whether anyone has any thoughts or went through anything with similar feelings involved, and how you sorted the feelings and look back at the outcome in retrospect, even if your situation was vastly different.

OP posts:
MagicSeeker · 17/03/2021 06:30

I think if you're feeling a real 'yes' for the outcome, and a sense that you'll regret it if you don't, that's what you should go with.

The feelings you get about individual actions to get there are your fear of change and overwhelm at all that needs to be done when it would perhaps be easier to stay put.

Break it down into very small steps and plan a day of action in 15 minute chunks. Be specific about what you'll spend each 15 minutes doing. Then blitz through it. Good luck!

Neap · 17/03/2021 06:48

@MagicSeeker

I think if you're feeling a real 'yes' for the outcome, and a sense that you'll regret it if you don't, that's what you should go with.

The feelings you get about individual actions to get there are your fear of change and overwhelm at all that needs to be done when it would perhaps be easier to stay put.

Break it down into very small steps and plan a day of action in 15 minute chunks. Be specific about what you'll spend each 15 minutes doing. Then blitz through it. Good luck!

I think that’s perfectly reasonable. There’s a big difference between acting on fears based on unconscious registering of an actual incipient threat (like the Gavin de Becker book always being recommended on here) and reluctance to make a change. Also, isn’t the problem the decision to move more than the move? You’re afraid of committing to the decision, which sounds like what is paralysing you.
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