When I asked a dear friend of mine what I should blog about, she said that she got the most out of working with me when I talked about busting thru fear.
You may be wondering what that has to do with starting over, or may be way ahead of me, but her comment stumped me for a while in terms of what I could share about that in writing.
[my cat just planted herself between me and the keyboard. – yes, total non sequitur, but life shows up like that.]
"I’ve screwed this up before.”
This thought is running thru my mind a lot lately. That’s where fear (F*** Everything And Run) pops up and I’m at that age (pushing 50) that it’s getting aggravating.
So, what I realized this morning, is that it’s not really about starting over, it’s about being kind enough to myself to give myself another chance and to keep going – and if I’m really ready this time – to apply the wisdom, yes, wisdom, of what I learned when I screwed it up before and do it differently this time.
[my cat decided that napping and typing didn’t work for her and jumped down.]
More fear:
"What if I screw it up again? I give up. How to I recover from the last failure?”
Recognize this cycle?
Want to break this cycle? Here’s a trick I’ve learned: Go from fear and failure to forgiveness and faith. It’s awkward at first, but I’ve had a lot of great mentors to teach me the practice. And it is a practice, because it involves actions and by no means is it a perfect process.
How do I get there? I ask for help and directions. (Funny how that makes sense when we’re trying to get to a meeting or a party, but living our lives?)
I stayed stuck in fear and failure for a long time, to the point I was just frozen. There was a part of me that was just completely absent from living and it took some pretty major life events to dig deep enough to start warming up to the idea of changing.
The key to that weird “forgiveness” part: allowing ourselves to forgive ourselves, not necessarily other people. (yes, you’re allowed to do that.)
“faith” ©2015 michael kerner photography
The key to that weird “faith” part: starting with small “experiments” of turning control of things over to whatever you believe in that makes the sun come up in the morning and the waves that lap at the shore.
One thing I have given up on is being a “grown up” – my true self is an artist and I don’t ever want to lose that sense of curiosity, however, I can aim to make more responsible decisions in my life and keep moving forward – what usually feels like starting over for the umpteenth time. Being aware that I want something different, accepting that I don’t know how to get there and taking action and asking for help in taking the next step and walking thru the fears, which to borrow from an anonymous source: look a mile wide and a mile high, but are paper thin.
There’s an ancient teaching that it’s easier to climb a mountain by going around and around it than straight up. When I look at the experiences of living my life that way, the times when I get to the same view and think-
"ack, this is where I got off the path last time around – don’t want to do that again!”
– I realize that if my perspective is that of looking at the path I stepped off of and realizing I get to choose what step to take next to stay on the path I’m on, I’ve made significant progress.
Stuck on something? Ask yourself this simple question: What’s your biggest fear? With that we begin the process of turning fear into Face Everything And Recover and start to have a little faith.
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