Yes, spring is on our doorstep and it calls us to come out and play. Seeds in the ground stir, and the seeds within our ground begin to activate as well. Our sap rises and leaves begin to bud. We are ready to leave our hibernation and expand into the world. This is not, though, a post about the delights of spring. Its focus is not on the enthusiasm for all the good things to come, or a celebration of the excitement that can wash over us as we step into something new.
No. This post is about fear. It is about how we often approach the unknown with trepidation precisely because it is unknown. If we have made it through adolescence and early adulthood, our belief in our own invincibility likely was ripped away long ago. To quote dear Will, most of us have suffered "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," with the scars to show for our troubles. We have erred and misjudged, sometimes hugely so. Love we thought we could count on has let us down. Plans have gone haywire. Our own hubris likely led to a few slap~downs from the cosmos or our fellow humans doing its bidding. We have learned that we are fallible.
All of that's enough to dampen one's enthusiasm for stepping into something new. We know how much is unforeseen. As Robert Burns put it, we have learned that "the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men gang aft agley, an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain for promise'd joy." For those of you who don't speak 18th century Scottish, that translates for the purposes of this column as "the best laid plans of mice and men~~and ourselves~~often go awry, and leave us nothing but grief and pain rather than the joy promised."
Okay, so maybe that's a bit over the top, but you get my point. Sometimes it's hard to move in a direction that is untried, into activities in which we are untried, particularly once we've seen a bit of what life can do to a person. Fear and a certain timidity can often be the result. Not necessarily a bad thing if we use them well. You know that sentiment that, whatever our challenges, we have what it takes to meet them? It seems relevant here.
Wounds can bring wisdom, failure the ability to reflect, and fear appropriate caution. We may be humbled, but true humility does not immobilize us. It inspires us to move forward with greater discernment to present a more nuanced and balanced offering of our talents to the world. Still, we'll likely spend the rest of our lives learning to do so consistently. Perfection will escape us, but our skill can certainly increase. Our stepping forward can become more fitting to the situation at hand than when helter~skelter was our modus operandi.
I recently found Christy Wright's online video, The Most Important Thing I've Learned About Fear. She began by reminding us that fear is a normal part of doing anything new, that we're all scared of the unknown. Christy suggests, though, that we often misinterpret fear. Rather than seeing it as an expected reaction to the unfamiliar, we can see it as a sign we should not take the risk. We may conclude that fear is telling us the direction is a bad one.
"No," she says, "it's not a sign you're doing something bad. It's a sign you're doing something bold." She then encourages us to do it anyway, as "nothing will silence your fear of doing the thing like doing the thing. So go do the thing!" She continues, "You need to embrace the fact that you're gonna feel fear and you're gonna do it anyway...You don't have to wait until you're not scared to do the thing you want to do. You do it scared."
I do, though, think we need to do it kindly. I'm not big on white~knuckling it. We need to ask for support, and use that wisdom we've gained over a lifetime to come up with a viable and safe plan...and call upon that same wisdom to pivot when things don't go exactly as we imagined. Because they won't. Still, we need to do the thing, and depending on how far we're stepping out of our comfort zone, we may need to do it frightened. But we can't let that fear stop us.
Case in point, I have recently joined Toastmasters to face the performance anxiety that has been one of my oldest companions. It hasn't been easy stepping out in this way, but it has been good. Energizing, really. Still scary, but what's the alternative? If we let fear stop us, we live a life smaller than we could, and we remain smaller than we truly are. Or, as Dawna Markova tells us in her beautiful poem, we will "die an unlived life."
On that note, this post ends with the words of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow!'"
This spring and beyond, I wish you all the best in doing the thing that calls to you...and not letting fear turn you away.
Much spring love,
Leia
You can find Christy's video by clicking here.
No comments:
Post a Comment