This quote was coined by author George R. R. Martin and is also attributed to Game of Thrones character Arya Stark. The series Game of Thrones was adapted from Martin’s epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire.

Fear is a powerful emotion. It feeds stagnation and keeps us from realizing our full potential. We avoid taking risks and we miss opportunities. And if we don’t learn how to master our own fears, we will be limited by the prison we create for ourselves.

There is a huge difference between fear and danger. Fear prepares us for danger, but danger is an action – something that presents a very serious potential outcome of harm. This could be an action you take, or another person takes against you, or just simply being in a situation that is dangerous.

Fear is not an action. It’s an emotion. It might prepare us for potential danger, but it is a feeling about something that has yet to happen. And its intensity is so powerful that it can impair and skew our judgment when determining what is truly a threat.

What are some clues that your fears might be running the show?

• You only see the downside or negatives of a situation. Fear fuels all the what if things go wrong and what if I fail kind of thoughts.

• Fear wants you to avoid things that are new or “unknown”, again focusing on the all the potential downsides, rather than upsides.

• You aren’t growing as a person. Fear stifles any expansion of yourself. Instead of taking a chance on making a move, like a taking a new job or asking someone out on a date, it encourages us to avoid potential failure or rejection. Then we end up rationalizing why playing it safe is the best play.

• You find it hard to trust your gut instinct. Fear clouds our ability to trust our gut and build a stronger sense of our own intuition.

• You find yourself stuck when it comes to decision making or avoiding making a decision all together.

Whenever I hear this quote I think of Westworld. But it has much older origins. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence warns Romeo that these violent delights will have violent ends when he secretly marries Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet met at a party Juliet’s father has thrown to celebrate finding Juliet a young husband from the aristocracy. He has planned for them to marry. But Romeo crashes the party and as soon as he and Juliet see each other, they fall in love.

In this world, the pair even speaking to each other would be dangerous because they their families are in opposition in an ancient Veronian feud. Even just to be found talking to each other would be dangerous. Romeo and Juliet end up talking, falling in love and agree to get married in secret the next day, by the local clergyman, Friar Lawrence.

While Romeo and Friar Lawrence are waiting for Juliet to arrive for the ceremony, he tells Romeo that he hopes that he and Juliet don’t regret going through with this. Romeo declares that it doesn’t matter because anything bad that can happen will not cancel the joy of being with Juliet.

Friar Lawrence shakes his head and tells Romeo, “these violent delights have violent ends” – meaning that such extreme, intense emotions of that kind of pleasure often ends in disaster. And like a true Shakespeare tragedy, it does.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in love and the newness of a relationship. I think back to some really bad decisions I made when I was younger. These decisions were often fueled by being in love and pure emotion. Often times, the end result of these decisions were not optimal for me at all.

When you feel drawn to something with such intensity, try to take a step back and slow things down. There is a huge difference between intensity and intimacy. 

There are some people who just love conflict. These high conflict people love it when you lose your shit. They will push your buttons just to see you break and stoop down to their level, so they feel better about their own behavior. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for you, I have extensive experience in dealing with people who love to see if they can get me to lose it or engage in their toxic crazymaking antics. It has taken me many years to learn how to hold onto myself in these situations and remain calm.

A few years ago, I literally had a complete meltdown in my car. And it was all because a stranger had been kind to me. I know – it sounds crazy, right? But I realize the reason why I was so emotional about it was because I felt such an incredible lack of basic kindness in my closest relationships. I had become so isolated from others, that I was surrounded by toxicity. And it took someone else’s random act of kindness to remind me that our world is full of light and kindness. I just had to start looking in the right places. And start making the tough changes I needed to make in my own life.

So how can we identify toxic, high conflict people? Here are some tell-tale signs:

• You feel emotionally drained after interacting with them
• They try shame you or intimidate you to get their way. If that doesn’t work, they will use emotional blackmail.
• They attempt to control how you see them and the situation.
• They will exploit your weakness and attempt to control you by guilting you into doing things.
• Toxic people see themselves as victims and martyrs.
• When you ask them to be accountable for their own actions and behaviors, they feel attacked.
• They are super defensive and passive aggressive.
• You often feel manipulated, confused and that you often have to defend anything you do to a toxic person.
• They not only don’t respect your boundaries, but they are offended by you having them.
• Their everyday MO includes the dark art of gaslighting. If you point out anything they don’t like, they will convince you that it didn’t happen or that you’re imagining things.
• They perceive themselves as being the smartest person in the room or just overall superior to other people.
• Their tone is often condescending, and you are eager for the conversation with them to end.
• They have an entitled mentality and expect special treatment from others.
• A toxic person wants your compliance and for you to do exactly what they want or expect. The minute you set a limit with them; they completely lose it.
• They completely lack any kind of real empathy, although they are masters of faking it.
• They will exploit others for their personal gain.
• They speak to you in a bullying, demeaning, belittling tone and act like it’s completely normal.
• You just feel awful after interacting with them. You never feel seen or heard and there is absolutely no give and take in the relationship. Everything is one-sided and always in their favor.

So how do you handle these kinds of people? As tempting as it might be to just acquiesce and get them out of your hair as soon as possible, it is best to call out their toxic behavior immediately, in a calm, matter of fact way. Otherwise, it will just continue and get worse.

You have to set strong boundaries with these kinds of people. They have to know that you won’t tolerate their inappropriate, over the top behavior. Limit your time with these people until they change how they engage with you. As a last resort, you may need to cut these people out of your life. As heartbreaking as it can be when the toxic person is someone who you are close to, the more you tolerate their behavior, the more it will continue. And if you don’t take a stand, your self-respect will continue to suffer. Remember, they are choosing how to treat you. They can choose different.

When someone shows you how they feel about you, believe them. Yes, you want to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was unintentional. But when they continue to hurt you and after you’ve told them how much it hurts you, believe that they mean to do it.

If they know that they hurt you and continue to do so anyway, you need to start looking at your response to the situation. You need to ask yourself why you are okay with continuing to engage with someone who clearly doesn’t care if they are upsetting you or hurting you. Why are you continuing to put yourself in a situation where someone doesn’t value you like they should?

For some of us, we can actually become addicted to this kind of crazy making in a relationship. We just might be going to the circus because sometimes the person who continues to hurt us, also offers us inconsistent understanding and praise. And when they give us what we want from them, we feel so much better. We constantly chase this inconsistent reward. This kind of behavior is similar to gambling addiction.

If this sounds like a situation you are in, the key to fixing it is working on your self-worth. Someone else getting us doesn’t define us. Their praise or acceptance of us isn’t what makes us a worthwhile person. You are worth so much more. Once you start seeing the value you already have, the harder it will be to stay around people who don’t see it.

When we don’t take a chance in the moment, we may never have another opportunity to take that chance. Or, we might not take chances because we are too busy chasing things the wrong things.

What we focus on grows and becomes our reality. In the movie Collateral, the character Max played by Jamie Foxx, is a cab driver. He started driving a cab as “temporary” means to make money while he built his dream business, Island Limos. Vincent (played by Tom Cruise) casually asks him how long he’s been driving a cab for after Max tells him that this job is just temporary while he puts some things together, referencing Island Limos. Max looks at him in the rearview mirror and responds, “Twelve years”. Instead of focusing on building his business, Max got comfortable in his daily routine, which didn’t support him building his dream.

We tend to chase the things that we think will bring us comfort or lead us to where we want to be. We get stuck on that focus and develop tunnel vision, not seeing other opportunities or paths that might be better for us.

There are two things we need to do break out of this mindset.

1. We need to be present in the moment.
2. Then we need to be attached to nothing and open to everything.

Being present allows us to experience and appreciate what is happening now, without any baggage from the past or anticipation about what the future holds. It slows things down. And when we slow down, we see more. We see chances for opportunities that we can take. When we aren’t living in the past or future, we are more apt to take the chances we have in front of us.

When you have a mindset where you aren’t dependent on one outcome, or where you can just be open to anything and everything, you allow all the right things to find you. These things cannot find us when we are set on a specific outcome or way of doing things.

Showing up for yourself and being your own best friend is good self-care. The most important relationship we will ever have is with ourselves so we need to know how to parent ourselves when we need it.

One of the most important skills we can learn is how to build resiliency. Facing challenges allows us to develop our own resiliency. Only in overcoming these challenges can we learn that we actually can overcome them and how incredibly resourceful we are.

Here are some ways you can build your resiliency:

1.) Validate your experience and struggle. What you’re going through is not easy and it’s understandable that you are feeling overwhelmed right now. Anyone would in your shoes.

2.) Identify where you are already resilient. Think back to tough times you have encountered in your past and how you got through them. You already have some resilience.

3.) Change how you look at difficult situations. Difficulties are challenges, nothing more. They aren’t a paralyzing event where you cannot recover from it. This is where you may have to use positive affirmations to get yourself in the right mindset. For me, when I am feeling discouraged, I literally tell myself over and over again that “I got this” and “I haven’t come this far, to only come this far.”

4.) Don’t catastrophize. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and think the worst in a situation. But let’s face it, catastrophizing is ineffective and does nothing to help you feel like you can handle the situation. If you start catastrophizing, catch yourself and question it. If you lose your job today, are you really never going work again? Know that you are resourceful and that this door closing is so that a better one can open.

5.) Accept that failure happens. Failure is experience and it is going to happen. Don’t be someone who avoids failure at all costs. The experiences we have allow us to grow. Know that what you are going through is an opportunity for you to grow and be open to it.

6.) Know your purpose. You are here for a reason. You matter. Internalizing this can help you feel more grounded and aware that these hurdles in front of you are just challenges you will meet. Even if you feel like you do not have a purpose, I promise you if you dig deep enough you will find one. Sometimes people go through a trauma or battle addiction, get through it and pay it forward to others in an authentic way that really helps people. That is invaluable. Think about drug counselors. Many drug counselors were once addicts. And because of their experience as an addict and a someone in recovery, they can relate to others and reach them in a way someone who wasn’t an addict could.

Think back to times of crisis in your life. What are three ways you have shown your resilience?

When I was in high school, I joined the choir because fifth period was the longest period of the day. I didn’t want to be stuck in math or some other class for that long, and I honestly thought that it would be a blow off class.

I had a lot of friends involved in music, and I ended up loving chorus. But even more so, the teacher we had was amazing. He was an older man who was so passionate about music and helping students find their voice and confidence.

One day in class we were all distracted by Winter break approaching and we were not taking things as seriously as we should have been. In the middle of practice, he glared at all of us and yelled, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Some of us weren’t pulling our own weight, and it compromised the entire sound of the song.

When you have four parts of a chorus, each part has notes it needs to hit. If we aren’t strong and work to our highest level together, it shows in the final production. The day he yelled at us; I had never heard that expression before. But through the years it has stuck with me in my work life and home life.

I also think of the show Survivor. Early in the game when you are competing in tribes, your tribe is really only as strong as its weakest link. If one member slows down or screws up one of the challenges, it effects the whole tribe – and you can end up at tribal counsel.

How do you show up for those who depend on you? Are you pulling your own weight? Are you carrying someone else’s weight when you shouldn’t?

It is never too late to do anything. You can change your life at any age. It’s better to show up late, do what you want to do and live the life you want than say it’s too late and never do it.

Let me ask you this – what are you doing to make the most out of right now?

Because all we really have is right now. Now this can be a hard question to answer, because we don’t often think about what we can do in the present. Many of us wait until conditions are “perfect” or “ideal” to do awesome things. Or we wait for special occasions. But I will tell you, being alive is a special occasion.

What are some things you can do now to connect with others and experience joy? Here are a few ideas:

• Work on a writing a book you’ve always wanted to write.
• Call a friend and catch up on things.
• Surprise your partner with a date night “just because”.
• Go stargazing and do some astrophotography.
• Too hot outside to camp but you really want to do it? Set up a tent in your living room with fairy lights. Make some s’mores, too!
• Cook a recipe you’ve been dying to try.
• Go to a new restaurant and try a new cuisine.
• Call or visit your parents.
• Take a Masterclass in a subject you’ve always been interested in.
• Chat up that cute guy or girl you’ve seen around town.
• Read a book you’ve wanted to read but have put off.
• Catch a sunrise or sunset.
• Make a pillow fort and play video games.
• Tell someone you love how much they mean to you.
• Try out that recipe or DIY project you pinned on Pinterest ages ago.
• Create your own trick shots in your home or yard Dude Perfect style.

The possibilities of what you can do right here and right now to add joy to your life is endless. These are just my suggestions…What would be on your list?