Fear and limitations

This blog title sounds like something that would usually either scare or bore me away. There are countless books and articles about fear and how to conquer it, but none of that will truly resonate with you until you conquer your fear on your own. It's kind of like reading about a hair care method with rave reviews and thinking to yourself, "Wow, that sounds pretty revolutionary...I think I'll try it." And then not trying it. You will never know how revolutionary something can be for you if you ultimately fail to give it a try.

So maybe I'm wasting my time writing about fear and limitations. (And maybe there are very few of you out there who are still willing to read along or listen to me anyway, considering my serious abandonment of this blog lately.) But I'm not here to lecture or preach about things you've already heard a million times. I'm simply here to share my own unique experiences and hope that maybe, just maybe you can take something positive away from them.

I realized an unfortunate, yet empowering truth the other day: Fear never goes away. There is no cure. When you face one fear, there are a million more ahead of you. No one ever becomes completely immune to it. This realization was quite distressing until I realized another truth: One the other side of fear, there is growth.

I know, I know. It's been said a million times, but like I said above, you can't grasp the truth of something until you try it for yourself. I've been doing a lot of scary things lately---things I never thought I could do and things I didn't know I had in me. And I'm still alive. I am also still distressed by the fact that so much fear and newness still lies ahead of me (especially this year), but I know that I will only get closer to who I really am by walking directly towards it and not letting it paralyze me anymore. I've been more or less paralyzed for 5 years, and fear is beating my legs with a baseball bat and teaching me to walk at the same time.

I have no idea what I'm doing, and I know that there are certain things that will take a lot of time and courage, but I feel like I'm slowly learning about what I'm capable of and who I can be. And all of it lies behind that giant wall of fear.

So that's my two cents for today. Sorry I haven't contributed in awhile.

I also want to leave you with this: It's okay to seek help in dealing with your own fears. A lot of the time, we simply cannot do it on our own. We need counselors, teachers, friends and colleagues. Seeking help does not make you weak. It does not make you weak. 

Additional reading that I can relate to right now:

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/learning-is-a-series-of-steps-7-tips-to-master-a-new-skill/

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/we-have-to-let-go-of-who-we-are-to-discover-who-we-can-become/

https://www.lifelessbullshit.com/do-whatever-you-fucking-want/

http://blog.lovegrowsdesign.com/2015/01/looking-back-looking-forward/

<3 Madison