Video: About Feeling Foolish

“Embrace the fool that’s in you!”

Introduction

This page will attempt to help you with questions like: What do I do about feeling foolish? What should I think about it, and what does it mean? (Quick answer: foolishness is merely a mistake, a misunderstanding or – my favourite interpretation – a wonderful form of openness.)

Another three minute guide to a common thought/feeling (a la The 3 Principles).

My Thoughts About Feeling Foolish

Well, this was the first video I decided to record in this second 3 minute heroes video series (the first series of videos can be found here). It was also the last feeling I came up with I wanted to talk about. Hmm, there’s something about feeling foolish – for me, personally – that I don’t think I have ever fully acknowledged, either publicly or to myself. Until now.

About feeling foolish, then. This is how my fear of foolishness shows up, AND how my silly, quirky individuality shows up too. (So I both fear this feeling, and embrace it. How paradoxical.)

• My early self-aware memories of ‘being’, of moving in the world (e.g. walking down the street) seemed to make it very important to me to NOT look foolish. (Why? Well let me get in the therapeutic chair, and I’ll tell you…)

• So I project a VERY cool persona to the world. Aware of eyes watching even if there are no eyes watching. A heightened sense of being in my very own Truman Show. (True.)

• And yet I am the silliest man I know. Not fart jokes silly, but goofy silly. Talking to myself. Singing made up songs on the fly. Really being in the moment. (And you’ll know if I trust you because I’ll share this sacred side of myself with you.)

So I am both highly self-aware of not looking like an eejit in public and also very happy to be my eejit self. Odd combination. Foolishness really is a fascinating feeling or thought, it really is.

And I’ve never seen that, until I recorded my 3 minute hero video about feeling foolish, which I (brilliantly?) called, “Everybody’s laughing… but you!”

About Feeling Foolish – The Inside-Out Understanding

The best of foolishness, then, is it’s a wonderful example of openness, playfulness and silliness. (Insert smiley face here 🙂 ). There really is no attempt to control – what people think of you, how life unfolds. You just show up, and sometimes daftness comes out. (Or a lack of wisdom. Or a mistake. But that’s okay, that’s okay…)

Foolishness bring it on!

The worst of foolishness is therefore the opposite: a wanting to control, a worrying what people might think, a concern about feeling foolish or being laughed at.

• It is a fear of the unknown, when nothing is every truly known
• It’s merely an unpleasant feeling (that others seem to delight in you experiencing)
• It’s a feeling of individuality when a feeling of ‘belonging to the group’ seems important, or safe.

Fact is: it’s just a feeling.

That we ALL get to experience from time to time.

And we surive it, we always do. (We even survive anxious thinking about feeling foolish, too.)

But let me ask you this. Who guided the Queen (King), in times of great need? Why it was the fool, of course, it was the fool.

Embrace the fool, then, embrace the fool! For that way leads to openness, to growth, to play and to to not taking yourself so seriously.

Lest you forget. You are not in control. You can exert influence, yes, but you are not in control. Life just happens. You just happen. This is the Principle of Mind in action: life flowing through you, as much as you let it, as much as you get out of its way.

(So what’s the best way to exert influence? To be yourself, to not take yourself so seriously, to just show up. Funnily enough, this is the basis of my coaching offer, too.)

About Feeling Foolish – Video

Here’s what I was inspired to share in a video I recorded in October, 2015:

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