Archive for ‘Dealing with Fear’

May 14th, 2012

Where’s Your Courage?

{flickr photo by: dalechumbley}

I used to think courage was being able to sit through a horror flick without hiding under a jacket, asking a guy out, or giving a speech. All of which I failed miserably at. As a child, my mom used to buy me books and toys with a theme: A dog that said, “I’m lonely.” A mouse that said, “I’m shy.”

Okay I got it mom!

But as I got older, I realized that what I thought was courage, was far from what I thought it was. Yes, it took some guts and bravery to do the above. But real courage was strength.

The kind of courage I’m talking about is the one…

  • that pushes you to say how you truly feel.
  • that frees you to be yourself, not repressing your quirky parts out of fear from being rejected or your winning side so others won’t feel dim in your light.
  • that lets you sit in the unknown in peace and quells the anxious voice.
  • that gives you faith when nothing is going right and everything feels wrong.

Courage is sometimes the fierce lion, but often the determined mouse.

It’s not easy being courageous. But when we get to that mountaintop and feel the wind brushing our face, we will know that the only way to truly live is to be on the edge of comfort and walk toward our greatest fears with courage.

 Are you living your life with courage or in fear?

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April 30th, 2012

Getting Back Control of Your Life

{photo by The Inspiring Bee}

In life, there is no room for bench warmers. There is no tree with which to hide, no tunnel to escape from, no magic invisibility cloak to help you vanish into thin air.

Perhaps that’s why we lean towards books and movies of fantasy and fiction. When life gets hard, we can’t just disappear for a moment, retreat within and return when we’re strong again. So we watch wistfully wishing we could momentarily catch our breath.

When life gets hard and we’re weary from the fight, the desire to “sit this one out” is great. How do you keep going about your day, maintaining work, chores, your daily tasks when a huge surmounting issue is weighing heavily on your shoulders?

I’ve worn that heavy cape. I’ve felt the crushing pull of not knowing, where you have two choices and neither are ones you would choose. And in that fear, I know that there is only one thing that can help me get through it.

Dig a hole through that tunnel. Find a way to walk through the fear on your own terms. If illness, loss, or some other impending doom is on your way, don’t avoid it, or succumb to the grief the way we’d suffocate under a wave. But find a way to feel like you have control.

For me, this means writing. Only in the process of writing can I completely lose myself to the words. I can forget whatever fear I’m about to face. I can let go of worry. I can forget about the worst scenario. Surfing the internet won’t help. Talking to others may not help. Sometimes the only thing you can do is to let go into the thing you truly love and find joy in this moment.

If you’re in the process of facing yours fears and you’re sick with worry, I hope you will carve a space for your gentle soul. Find a place where you can cry, where you can feel the wind on your face, where you can hold yourself with love and light and remember that regardless of the darkest shadows that want to linger, weight on you and drain you, you can CHOOSE how you will live your life. It may be a small choice. It may be choosing to walk instead of drive or draw instead of write. But if we can find a way to take control of what we feel we have no control of, we will again find the strength and courage to keep going.

 

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March 27th, 2012

What If I’m Not There Yet?

{taken with my iPhone during a mindful moment while walking}

Some of you may be just like me. Working hard, living hard, trying to do everything you can to fit meaning and purpose in your every day. If you’re like me, then you know the anxiety that sometimes comes when you feel like no matter how much you do it’s just not enough.

You may be sitting in the void right now. Waiting for hope to come like rain after a long waited drought.

Whether it’s a job, a home, or someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, I understand that pain of not knowing what to do next. I empathize with the fear that comes from worrying that you’ll never get what it is you really want.

There have been many times in my life when I was unemployed or alone and ample times when I was confused and filled with self-doubt. I’ve been on the road of envy, anger, and jealousy.  Looking back, it’s those times that have taught me the most about having faith. It’s also the moment that prepared me for what was next.

I would never be able to go straight into writing, had I not gotten a degree in Counseling first. And had I not spend a few months unemployed, I wouldn’t have the courage and the motivation to finally go to graduate school.

The pauses in our lives feel like failure. They feel like it because we’ve gotten so used to the constant barrage of activity-our iPhones, iPads, texting, etc. We’ve forgotten that life unfolds in its own time.

Sometimes I need to be reminded of this too and only need to spend time in nature, observing how the season changes, the way birds tease the wind and how the clouds move, to know that our time will come too.

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March 23rd, 2012

Watch Out for Those Dream Killers!

{flickr photo Andrew Magill}

I had a disturbing dream the other night. A loud, abrasive woman (who resembled me on PMS) said, “You need to watch out and guard your inspiration and your passion!” or something to that effect.

That poor, harried lady who scared the hell out of me was trying her hardest to warn me of what scares me the most-dream killers. While they exist everywhere, they are particularly rampant and concentrated in certain areas (especially if you grew up with them).

In fact, I have grown up with a lot of them. And because of it, I’ve attracted and invited a few into my life. While it’s never pleasant to hear how I “haven’t really made it yet” or why any writing job I get will never be as grand as my third uncle from a second marriage’s impressive career, I do have to say this:

If life was a school, they’d be my biggest teachers.

How to Outsmart Smarty Pants People

The only way to negate negative people is to:

  1. Minimize your time with them. {I talk a little more about that and about the people you should avoid if you’re in a particularly bad mood on my Beliefnet blog here.}
  2. Pretend you’ve got headphones on and you can’t read lips.
  3. Suck it all in, run far away from them and then scream, exercise and vent in journal or to a supportive friend.
  4. Smile and say, “Thanks for sharing” and try not to do it with sarcasm.

The one thing you should NOT do is to reply with anger, in the heat of the moment and say things you’ll regret.

The thing about us creative types is that we’re extra sensitive people. And the funny thing about that is we often grow up in communities and families that are less than sensitive to our feelings.

—>If I’ve learned anything it’s that the worst thing you can do is attack someone who you feel is attacking you. It might feel tempting to point out your friend’s hypocritical criticism especially when he/she has yet to take a risk and follow their own dreams. Or to laugh at a relative who makes a nasty comment about your creative endeavors when they haven’t done anything creative or risky themselves. But that’s the point.

When it comes down to it:

The best thing you can do is to put on an invisible shield and let those words bounce right off of you. Realize that no matter how much it stings, most of what they say has nothing to do with you.<—

Remember you don’t have anything to prove to anyone.  You are on your own path and they are on theirs. Remember that as long as you’re continuing to follow your dreams, you are not the loser, coward, failure they say you are. In fact, you are a survivor, someone who simply deserves everything you ever wanted in life because you are here and made it this far.

*I took a much needed Creative Friday break. The last one really wore me out, which you can read about here and here. I hope to be back to my regular schedule next week. Have you been busy crafting while I’ve been away on vacation? Tell me please! I need the motivation.

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March 20th, 2012

Confronting the Void

{by The Inspiring Bee}

There will come a time in your life when you don’t know what to do next.

You’ve done all you can to make things work, but you hit a rough spot. Not only that but that rock in the road suddenly becomes larger and deeper. And what at once seemed like a minor encumbrance becomes a vast void.

Stuck in it, you may feel empty, confused, hopeless and filled with despair. Life isn’t supposed to be this way right?

Or it’s not supposed to feel this hard especially when you’ve worked so hard thus far.

But it’s actually normal to feel this way. In fact, if you’re feeling stuck right now, revel in it. There’s a good chance change is coming your way.

<Cue in Flashback>

After college, I felt stuck for awhile. My butt and the floor of Borders were good friends. I went there almost every weeknight reading career and writing books hoping for the right one to drop on my head to tell me what I should do next. It took a few months, but gradually I began noticing signs.

I saw an ad in the newspaper for a class on Health Psychology, a field I had growing interest in. I also began hearing stories of fellow friends and classmates who took the leap and moved to the mainland. After months of hemming and hawing, I finally decided to enroll in graduate school. I got in on a whim having never studied the GRE and having applied a few weeks before the deadline.

But it came only after serious introspection, boredom, confusion and lots of time in the void.

If you’re spending some time there right now, take heart. It will end. Use it:

  • to rest
  • to make sure you’re on the right track
  • to breathe
  • to refocus your energies

It make feel scary right now. You may began to wander into self-doubt territory. And that’s okay. It’s all helping you to get closer to the person you want to be. It may be helping you to increase your patience, strengthen your faith, and push you to finally pursue your purpose. Contrary to what you may think, you don’t know the true reason why you’re stuck in the void.

The truth is you may not even been “stuck” at all.

In fact, you may be exactly where you’re supposed to be.

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March 13th, 2012

Cultivating a Garden of Patience

Garden of patience

{photo by The Inspiring Bee}

It’s not easy to wait idly while the world goes by. It reminds me of being a kid, stuck in the house, angry and resentful as I watched drops of water fall literally raining on my parade.

It’s that same impatience that plagues me. There is a part of me that wants to stomp on the ground and say, “Now! I want it RIGHT now!!”

Is it just me or do you have a little kid in yourself like that too?

Do you wish that you already knew what you wanted to do with your life? That you could press fast forward on your life to get the good stuff. I hear you. I’m the same way too.

These last few weeks I have been teetering on the unknown. Not sure where my future was going. Plagued by the uncertainty of the presence. It’s not that I haven’t been busy. But behind the appointments, the writing, there has been an underlying feeling dripping with fear.

What’s next?!

Did I make the right decision?

And why can’t my future get here a little bit faster?!

I hear it. And I know it’s my ego. I also know that patience is something I’ve been wanting to work on for awhile. And you know what happens with those pesky wishes right? They come back with a vengeance, testing you to see if you really meant what you said.

I can’t say it’s been easy. But like all the hard stuff in your life, they’re just teachers with lessons they’re hoping you’ll learn. And if you don’t? They’ll just come back again with a new test, same lesson.

Here’s the thing. You want to cultivate more patience in your life? 

You need to know you are not 100% in control of everything.

You need to take this time as a gift.

You need to remember that there is always a greater force out there with a purpose higher than your own.

You need to sow those good intentions, have faith that they’ll grow and forgive yourself when they don’t.

If you can learn to let go of the hold you have on a certain outcome, an expectation, a belief that things have to go your way or else, you will begin to see the gift in front you. You will realize that there is a purpose for the time you have. That all we have is time. That what you really want isn’t like that trench coat you have on backorder or that iPad 3 you’re on a waiting list for. Your purpose isn’t limited. There will be no “sold out” just because he or she got it before you. Your time will come. You just got to believe in it.

Eventually you’ll find that the time you used was part of the path, that you needed to go through it in order to get to where you wanted to go. Maybe you weren’t ready. Maybe you needed time for self-healing and reflection. Then, just when you start to feel like you don’t really need whatever it is (job, relationship, etc.) anymore, you’ll get it.

Don’t believe it?

Well that’s kind of what happened to me.

After a month of waiting, my Beliefnet column is finally up. You can check out my first post on positivity here. Please share it if you like it. Let’s spread positivity. =)

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February 13th, 2012

Did I Make the Right Decision?

I used to admire friends who could end a relationship when everything was still hunky dory because they knew it wasn’t the right one for them. It was a strong indication of their ability to follow their instincts and trust their own intuition.

I have always been a doubter trying to practice a little more faith. But recently all that leaning I was doing on the side of stability and security made me feel stuck. It also made me feel like a coward.

How could I possibly keep blogging here about courage, if I was living life with my tail between my legs?

So after 6 months of hemming and hawing and feeling stuck, I decided to do something CrAzY!

I decided to follow my dreams, listen to my intuition and abandon that little voice inside my head that said, “Who do you think you are?!” And I did it anyway.

After two years of loving my job at Psych Central (I was even recently mentioned in this article about my work for the company), I decided it was time to say goodbye. And I did it the careless way, the way people say you should never do it. I quit without a backup (with just a few gigs-a.k.a. my column with The Writer magazine and my biweekly blogs for Psych Central).

I decided I wanted to return to writing and not just editing. I wanted to stop being afraid and take a big risk. And so I did.

Making the Right Decision is Scary

Although I think I made the right decision, the process was still scary. I had no excuses, no upcoming jobs and a lot of self-doubt. I realized then that I DEFINITELY made the right decision. Why?

I was catching up on old Oprah’s Lifeclass reruns when I heard Iyanla Vanzant talk about self-growth. She said humorously and truthfully:

“If you’re not living your life at such a certain level, you have some fear, you’re living too small. If you don’t have some trembling then you’re living too small…If pee is not running down your leg, you are living too small because that means you’re in control and you’re too comfortable and you can handle it. When you are comfortable, you are not growing.”

Then guess what happened?

I saw a job ad for a writer/editor position. But not just any position. It was for a company that I had been dreaming about writing for since I began full-time freelancing, about 5 years ago. I subscribed to all of their email newsletters and tweet their posts. I have been waiting for an opening for a very long time. And there it was. I was afraid and applied anyway.

I received a call two days later. I found out that the position was in-house and since moving to Virginia wasn’t on our agenda, I was pretty disappointed. But decided to ask if maybe there were other opportunities available in which I could write telecommute instead.

Can you guess what happened next?

Yep. They had an opening for a blogger position on their health website. And they had been looking for awhile. I couldn’t believe my luck. Or faith? Or intuition?

So I have my own column there and you’ll be able to read about emotional health and wellness 4 days a week on my new blog Happy Haven! I’ll still be posting here, my writing site and my column for The Writer too. Hope to connect with you on one of the them soon!

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