I'm Emily P. Freeman and welcome to the next right thing.

You're listening to episode 264.

This is a podcast about making decisions, but also about making a life.

If you struggle with decision fatigue, chronic hesitation, or if you just need a few minutes

away from the constant stream of information, and the sometimes delightful but also distracting

hum of entertainment, you're in the right place for discerning your next right thing.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about fear.

How and when it shows up, ways at lies and tells the truth, and what it means for us as we do the

hard and holy work of making life decisions. I know a whole conversation about fear might not be

our favorite topic, but I think it's important, and hearing someone else's experience with it

maybe will help you as you discern your own next right thing. Listen it.

I do a lot of thinking about language, about the words we use, and the ways we use them,

how sometimes the simplest words, and even the most plain language, have a lot to lose when

misunderstood. Words like hope, love, belonging, family, words like revival, history, education,

spirituality, God, safety, and doubt. Take one simple word, for example, the word fear.

There are many definitions of fear, I'm sure, like a distressing emotion

aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, whether the threat is real or imagined.

The definitions I like best are ones that aren't necessarily technical, but that elicit something in

my mind and body that I can grab onto. One of those I found in Scott Erickson's book, Say Yes,

where he writes, you can always tell a voice of fear when it asks you to leave instead of show up.

That line resonates because I know the feeling of fear, the hand on my shoulder that pulls me back,

the twist in my stomach that pulls me down, the catch in my throat that shuts me up.

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