(An unexpected guiding principle for making your dreams come true)  

Recently, a single friend of mine took on a new client with whom she had a lot of chemistry. On paper and in person, this guy would pretty much be her dream mate. Since the relationship is professional in nature, when he looked into her eyes and she recognized her beloved, she did what any of us would do: panic, shut down, and run away.

When she emailed me about this, my response surprised her: “Panicked and shut down completely?!?! NOW WE ARE GETTING SOMEWHERE.” Yet, it also resonated as true even if she couldn’t completely articulate why.

Let me explain.

As most of us know from experience, when you are single and wanting to be in a committed relationship, you most likely try your hardest and put yourself out there and date a lot of people. Some people are total “NOs” and some we talk ourselves into as being acceptable, even if we don’t swoon or get that unexplainable “this is going to be the love of my life” feeling. So we have a definite “no” response and a “sort of yes” response to different possibilities.

However, when we have a YES, YES response, another part of our being that pops in and says, HELL NO! (One of my teachers, Brian Whetten, wrote a book called Yes Yes Hell No: The Little Book for Making Big Decisions about the subject. You can get the book here.) It’s like we are standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at everything we thought we ever wanted, and the inner gatekeepers come out and say, “Danger! Don’t do it! It’s a scary, unknown place, and we all know that we can’t have everything we want!”

According to Whetten: “Whenever you hear the voice of fear, it’s telling you one of two things. Either it’s warning you about a real and present danger, or it’s alerting you to an opportunity for growth and change. It’s letting you know that something just registered on an inner sensor, and your life is at risk of getting either better or worse. The problem is, the voice of fear can’t tell which is which…… In the absence of a real and present danger, the voice of fear is an almost perfect indicator of which direction to go –as long as you go the other way.” (Excerpt from Chapter 4)

So this is why my surprising reaction to my friend, who was beating herself up for having panicked and shut down, was so healing. She was able to see that she was very, very close to her most cherished dream possibly coming true. Instead of the half-truths of “maybe I could make this guy work” or “this one seems nice and like a good guy,” she can see that even if this one turns out not to be the one, she now knows what her dream looks like in reality.

So the next time you find yourself panicking and shutting down, whether it’s starting a new business, taking an African dance class, or having drinks with your dream partner, take a deep breath and smile. If there’s no saber tooth tiger around, your fear is your greatest ally pointing you exactly where to go.