By Diane Lang

The biggest fear is a huge crisis where everything changes and we feel out of control but yet that huge crisis is just the motivation you needed to accept that you have to change. Psychotherapist, Happiness Author and Positive Living Expert, Diane Lang, shares how we can tune into our fear, learn from it and break free from it. Fear and crisis lead us in the right direction to a better path; if we step back and learn from our fear, we are able to shed old negative thoughts and patterns leading us to a fresh, new life of happiness and fulfillment.

“Fear is actually a good thing; it’s a compass to happiness. A crisis wouldn’t be a crisis if it didn’t scare you. So, next time you feel afraid and a crisis hits, instead of getting upset and nervous, stop for a second and ask yourself these three questions:

1. What is supposed to happen here?

2. What wasn’t I listening to?

3. What needs to change?

Then thank your fear for leading you in the right direction. Just think back to every crisis you have had and how it was only temporary and it eventually led you down a better path. The divorce that ended up putting you with your soul mate. The firing from a job that ended up leading you into your career. The illness that made you stop in your tracks and ended up teaching you to enjoy life and now you have fun and better relationships. Crisis are wake up calls because you weren’t listening to your higher self. You were ignoring the true you. So, next crisis change your perspective to questioning what is truly going on? What do I really want? What did I miss? Then slow down and be still and listen for the answer. The answer is there. It’s been there all along, you just never paid attention to it. If you don’t pay attention now, there will be another crisis just around the corner. The choice is yours. It’s your choice and your responsibility how you live your life. So fear can be a blessing,” Diane Lang says.

After a crisis and a true wake up to your higher self, you start realizing fear is not necessary and you can hear your true self without all the hoopla going on around you. We don’t have to reach bottom to hear our calling but if you have a crisis, use it for what it’s worth. A crisis helps you shed the old negative thoughts and patterns that are no longer useful or serving you. You have had enough and want more. A crisis is an ending of something we don’t need anymore. It’s not servicing us. So we have a crisis to end it, grieve it and then find the new. The fresh start that awaits us. The light after the end of the storm. Love thy fear.

Here are nine ways to break out of the “fear rut” we may be stuck in:

1. Realize you’re not alone – most people live in the same fear patterns. We are raised this way. Fear is a learned trait. We watch our parents be fearful, we have news that tells us to be fearful and then we get hurt and it proves to us that we should live in fear. By knowing you’re not alone and that everyone feels just as vulnerable and scared, helps us to be empathetic to everyone else. After we feel empathetic to others, we can start finding the empathy and self compassion towards ourselves.

2. Accept your fear – don’t deny your fear or try to hide it. Face it, accept it and then move past it. When we can truly admit to ourselves that we have fear, then we can work past it. A lot of our patterns are based on fear but we are just not conscious of it. Just by awakening to the realization that we live in fear starts the process of change. Once you accept it then you can make the choice to let it go and move past it. It’s a choice. Do you choose to live in fear or take a risk?

Look for part 2 of this article shortly…..

– Diane Lang is a Positive Living Expert and psychotherapist – is a nationally recognized speaker, author, educator, therapist and media expert. Lang is extremely mediagenic and offers expertise on a variety of health and wellness topics about creating balance and finding happiness through positive living as well as multiple mental health, lifestyle and parenting needs. In addition to holding multiple counseling positions, Diane is also an adjunct professor at Montclair State University.