Facing Embarrassment: The Key to Personal Freedom and Growth
Probably, this is the fear we never talk about. We talk about all kinds of fears, we talk about fear of heights, fear of darkness, everything, but the one that's really less talked about is the fear of embarrassment, whether we believe it or not that's probably the most important fear that we need to talk about. So my first question is what is the root cause of fear of embarrassment, okay let's say you went to a dance competition, maybe you fell down and then you felt embarrassed about falling down. So if we deeply examine this, why did you get embarrassed because you fell down? Because you worried about not looking that great while dancing. Why did you worry about not looking great while dancing? Because it came down upon your ego on how good a dancer you are. Why did it come down to your ego ? It's the feeling that stem from getting validation from others, and proving to the world how good a dancer you are. Why do you want to prove something to the world? Because you feel you are not enough. Why do you feel you are not enough? You do not love yourself unconditionally. Why do you not love yourself unconditionally? Maybe it's your childhood, maybe it's your insecurity or maybe it's just that you are not aware about the fact that you should love yourself without any conditions. So maybe the root cause is either you do not love yourself unconditionally, or maybe it's that you care too much about what other people think of you, and that's because you haven't loved and accepted yourself unconditionally.
So the first step to cure your fear of embarrassment is to know that you are enough and to love yourself unconditionally, even when things don't go your way. Secondly, understand that it's very human to fail, to be embarrassed while trying something new and thirdly, don't care about how the world judges you. If you practiced hard, you did your stuff well, there's no good reason to feel bad about getting embarrassed in front of a huge crowd. Know your own worth and love yourself unconditionally. Now that we know where the fear stems from, we want to really understand why we want to overcome this fear. The truth after all is that the world will judge you, even when you fail or even when you succeed. So why fear the judgment so much that you stop trying out new things. Now why is it important to leave this fear of embarrassment?
1. You will stop trying new things: Whenever we wish to grow out of our comfort levels, we need to try out new things, new cuisines, new languages, new cultures, or sometimes even new routines. That's where our comfort zone really grows, imagine if you are afraid of the fear of embarrassment you will never be able to learn those new things or grow out of your own fear of embarrassment.
2. Harder to be yourself: If you fear getting embarrassed, you will never be you. What I mean, you would never be truly you. You would not have those quirks, those anecdotes, those bad habits that make you who you really are. It's important to recognise that there would be people who would find you weird, but that really means you are genuinely redirected towards the people who like you for being you and not the pretentious version of you.
3. Creativity and Innovation: Pretty self explanatory but I strongly believe that in order for us to really foster our creativity, we really need to let go of our need to be perfect, our need to not fail, or embarrass ourselves. So it's better to embarrass ourselves once and then keep making strides ahead with your creativity.
4. Resilience: Not being afraid of embarrassment also teaches you that it's not the end of the world. You can always come back after being embarrassed, after failing or even after losing the worst way possible. Honestly, there's nothing more powerful than a person who keeps coming back no matter the situation.
Now the question is how do we really overcome this fear of embarrassment, what are the key points. Firstly, let's understand we are all humans and there are going to be days you will feel embarrassed irrespective of what the situation is. So can you totally get rid of the fear of embarrassment, probably not but you can mitigate it to a certain extent for sure.
1. Shift your perspective: Honestly, let's normalise getting embarrassed. We are all humans and we need to know that these things happen to everyone, everyone at times feels dejected, embarrassed or finds himself failing. So making don't make everything about you. You are important but not that important either. People will forget in a day what had really happened.
2. Embrace Imperfection: We are all imperfect human beings, believe it or not, no one is perfect. Moreover, understand that perfection is not attractive, it's imperfection and flaws that make a person attractive. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.
3. Self compassion: Imagine what if it was not you and it was your brother or sister with whom something happened. How would you offer him/her the support, just give that support to you. Don't be too hard on yourself.
4. Small steps: Take small steps towards something that you know you might get embarrassed. Speak up about an idea in a meeting that might or might not be taken well. Try something new in front of other people, do something that really embarrasses yourself whatever that is. For example, dance in public and make sure you really look stupid doing that.
5. Look at the brighter side: Sometimes in trying something out, you will feel a bit awkward or stupid at times, but know that at the end of the tunnel there's light. Maybe you spoke about an idea that didn't work out, or maybe you danced in public and people laughed at you, you will know the next time you have to do something what exactly and how exactly things needs to be done. So learn from the situation and move forward. Don't cry about what happened, be excited about what can happen.
6. Laugh at yourself: As I spoke previously, one has to have the ability to laugh on themselves, maybe you slipped by stepping on the banana peel or maybe someone laughed at you because your hair didn't look cool, then why not just laugh on yourself during such times as well.
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