While fear grabs our attention and yanks us out of the Now, doubt acts more subtly, but it has the same effect. While fear is a voice of alarm, even panic, doubt is quite another kind of voice. Doubt sounds reasonable and rational, like sound advice, while actually being infused with fear: “You might get hurt. It’s risky. It might not work out.” The voice of doubt is a voice we all have heard countless times from parents and others in our lives, who seem to have our best interests in mind but are actually operating out of fear.

Doubt keeps us from following our Heart just as effectively as fear does. Doubt cracks the door open to the unknown negative possibility. It is the “yes but” that takes the wind out of our sails and throws water on our fire. It often takes the form of self-doubt: “I probably won’t get that job anyway (so why apply?).” However, more generalized doubt, or distrust in life, can be equally paralyzing: “Nothing I do matters anyway (so why try?).”

A doubt is actually a disguised fear. It is the fear that things won’t turn out, that something isn’t worth doing, that life isn’t good or worth living, or that we aren’t good enough. It is belief in the negative. While fear is the belief in a specific negative outcome, doubt is the belief in the possibility of a negative outcome. Fear is a doubt that has crystallized into a more specific imagined picture. Doubt is more vague, which makes it more insidious than fear because it’s more difficult to refute. With doubt, we aren’t sure what might go wrong, but we believe that something probably will. And we are probably right! Things probably won’t go as planned, and we probably will run into difficulties because that’s life. The question is, will that stop you from following your Heart?

Doubts are stoppers. They stop us from doing what we feel moved to do, what our Heart calls us to do. Because doubts come from the ego, not from the Heart, they aren’t true warnings that should be heeded. Doubts are the programmed, automatic response of the ego to life: “You better watch out. Life is dangerous. You will fail. You will end up homeless.” Our ego and other people’s egos spew out the same responses to change or to trying something new. Such doubts are quite predictable. They are programmed into every mind. When faced with the unknown, out come the doubts.

Because doubts come at us from both inside ourselves and outside ourselves, they seem believable. If everyone has similar doubts, we assume these doubts must have some validity. We assume there must be something to be concerned about. Fears are contagious; they activate fears in others. The egoic state of consciousness brings out the egoic state of consciousness in others. And all egos agree: The world is a scary and unsafe place. Egos are happy to recount stories of all the terrible things that have happened to them and to others.

Buying into these unspecified fears has kept many people from following their Heart and living the life they were meant to live. Life can be scary, and challenging things happen sometimes. But these things happen whether we follow our Heart or not, so we might as well follow our Heart.

Believing our doubts and fears doesn’t protect us from life. We really believe that listening to them will ensure our safety. We also assume that this illusionary safety is worth the price of not following our Heart. We are willing to trade the ego’s promise of safety, which is a false promise, for the happiness and fulfillment of following our Heart. That’s not a very good trade. Life is risky business either way. Why not live it with joy instead of fear and doubt?

Excerpted from Embracing the Now: Finding Peace and Happiness in What Is, available on Amazon.com.