Fear, Love, and all the Sweetness Between
Fear.
What are you afraid of?
How does fear affect your happiness?
I’ve been reading a lot about fear and following some favorite gurus to get my head around my fears and their not-so-sweet effects on my life.
With this in mind, the other day at bootcamp a little thing happened that was the sweetest AHA moment. It went like this.
The Friday Funday workout was competitive (face paint included so things were pretty amped up.) The goal was to sprint down and get a ball in a basket while a person from the other team was standing guard.
face paint = automatic badass
One woman on our team started each round with “I can’t do this.”
I’m sure you know how this went. Three rounds, and yep, she didn’t do it.
On round 4 we huddled as a group, threw around some strategy, smiled our sweaty, smudged face painted smiles and got really jazzed up. I noticed our sweet friend didn’t say anything as she took off. Can you guess how it went?
GOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL
From that shot on, she ROCKED that game. She became the 3 pointer champ and was smiling the entire time.
Seeing a third party tangible version of the REAL effects of what I’ve been reading about hit home.
Fear.
What am I afraid of?
How does my fear affect my happiness?
I came across this photo recently. Riding public transportation in Senegal, West Africa, circa 1996.
Bandana = automatic badass
Fear.
Was this girl afraid of anything?
Did her fears affect her happiness?
My first thought was no. This girl was speaking unga bunga sounding languages, negotiating business practices with town elders, and navigating shady public transportation all in a day’s work.
But the truth is I have heavy duty journal entries that (if I could stomach reading them) would remind me that I was full of fear.
From the heavy: Was I making a difference? Was I smart enough to be among these dynamos? What would I do with my life?
To the light: Who did I have a crush on? How bad did my haircut with swiss army knife scissors really look (thanks Rug & Mariah)? Did the other Peace Corps volunteers laugh at me because I sponge painted my walls (true story)?
The thing is, I am realizing that every step of my life so far, I’ve had a pretty good dose of fear hanging around. Fear that does affect my happiness. Fear that does nothing but slow me down or even at times paralyzes me.
Aha moment, yes. But seriously annoying.
It’s time to turn that fear to love baby. And kicking it off in the month of February – how sweet is that? This is an adventure of love.
I have two new BFFs who are helping me with this. Ok, me and millions of others, but they’re so great it really does feel like I’m their only focus.
A spiritual guru focusing on inner peace and self love, she hangs with Oprah and speaks with calm clarity. I’m currently working on her latest book, May Cause Miracles: a 40 day Guidebook of Subtle Shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness. Day 1 starts with observing fear. By Day 40, you take fear by the balls. With love of course.
A straight talking, occasionally F-bomb dropping Canadian who focuses on figuring out how you want to FEEL in life and then building your life around those core desired feelings. She offers two fabulous tools –
A multi-media guide to getting what you want the most.
“The Fire Starter Sessions reframes popular self-help and success concepts to cut through dull thinking and fear, and get straight to one’s core desires, pragmatism, and courage — and burn some illusions to a crisp…”
These are just some things that have spoken to me lately but of course there are many tools, philosophies, and awesome people available to help us on our journey. And we each have the opportunity to be there for each other as well – guiding, supporting, or simply saying “you can do it.”
I would love to hear your thoughts on fear and love and all the sweetness in between.
What are you afraid of?
Does your fear affect your happiness?
Was there a time you found yourself conquering a fear?
SweetTalk 