#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. There are 30 days of prompts inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance. I am only posting my favorite of the week right now. There's nothing saying that I won't circle back and blog about a few more after the challenge is over. If you want to read all of the prompts, click here.
Prompt: Fear by Lachlan Cotter
These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed?
A little over two years ago, I walked through fear and left my job, the only industry within which I had experience, a good salary with bonus, 401K options, paid vacations and large chunk of my ego. That fear did not stop me from taking sizable action steps to leading my fullest life.
However, I still work through a layer of fear every time I uncover and then express a bit more of my true self.
So, "No!" It is not stopping me. It does leave me frozen in my tracks quite often. But never permanently.
Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following: Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?
Of course not!
On the other hand, dissolving the belief systems that caused the insecurity are part of the discovery process that leads to full self expression. Grace and love are felt when I realize that defending my true soulful actions is not necessary. Joy is even more joyous in contrast to the pain of feeling insecure in who I really am.
Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?
The blunder, itself, will not matter.
What I make the blunder mean absolutely matters.
When I define myself based on the mistake, I limit my ability to move forward because I'm swimming in a story of failure and end up spending time to rebuild my confidence. That's wasted energy that will not matter down the road.
When I allow the "miss" to guide progress, then the experience of it really might impact the future. If I didn't make the blunder, I would not have found what did not work. I would not have learned. I would not have moved past that point.
Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?
I can be comfortable, sheltered, employed, surrounded by others, busy, respected by peers and good at what I do. I've had all that and not been happy.
Which reminds me of a conversation with someone I love dearly the other day. After I posted something on Facebook, he suggested that most of my friends probably thought I had fallen off the deep end.
My initial response was "I don't care."
Truthfully, though, I cared in that moment. It stung. It was a reactionary response and a quick way to mask my insecurity. There was fear of not being accepted for the "me" that I'm discovering after many, many years of conforming to what I perceived to be the acceptable societal standards.
Then my husband (I love that man!) asked a brilliant question. Paraphrased, it went something like: "Isn't it more fun in the deep end?"
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it is.
Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.
In Truth & With Love,
