Fearless

A couple notes on fear since that seems to be the topic banging around in my head as I hesitantly tiptoe... as I tremulously venture... as I inch forward nervously into 2011.

A lot of people like new starts. I don't. The possibilities are never realized and I am left with a whole lot of disappointment and loads of free time to think about it. I am not one to look at free time and say, "whoopie-pie, I get a whole day to myself!" Instead, I am the person who looks at free time as the big, giant chasm of unplanned seconds that will inevitably leave me in tears on the floor of my closet. This is because free time forces me to either a) sit and think or b) self-medicate myself into guilt-ridden paralysis. No good can come of it. And as an extroverted pessimist, the start of a new year just means that I have a new, unfilled calendar. EEEE!

So I was thinking about this fear I have. Well, all the fears I have. They like to have parties and mock me for how chicken I am. It's true, I am a chicken when it comes to tearing down my walls and addressing what really scares me. Aren't we all to some extent?

Two things happened over Christmas break. First, I saw "The King's Speech" which is fabulous. It is about how we all have fears and to what extent we allow those fears reign in our lives when we don't want to face them. Second, I bought Marianne Williamson's new book "A Course in Weight Loss". Now I am not one to go out there and say, "Hey, I am a hefty girl," which is kinda like saying, "Hey, I have a nose in the middle of my face." Go on and state the obvious, I'm sure people will be surprised every time. But I haven't given myself permission to state the obvious very often. And as a consequence, I recently saw some photos of myself and just about wanted to die of shame and horror.

What I'm saying is this... we have to give ourselves permission to hang out in the scary place for a second or two more than is comfortable. Otherwise, we will just soothe our pain away. And whatever caused the pain is still waiting on the other side of self-medication. That bastard. I think of my fears as a tunnel that I am trying to crawl through. And just like the line in "Finding Nemo", you have to just keep swimming if you want to get through it.

For me, 2011 is about being uncomfortable. Wait until my fingers get pruny. Let the awkward silence go on a moment too long. It is only by giving myself permission to be in the fear that I can get through the fear. I could hire a personal chef to make my meals and a personal trainer to stand behind me on the elliptical with a whip, but if I don't address WHY I am fat, then I will never be okay being thin. Fears are like gravity, they pull us in and we struggle to fly off and be free of them. The more we struggle to be free of them, the more they weigh us down.

I'll end with this great quote from Marianne Williamson. Cut out this quote and put it on your bulletin board if you haven't already.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Be good to yourself today.