Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway

“Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers, PhD is a book I read long before I knowingly started my journey.   The concepts it spoke of were way more than I could wrap my brain around back then, but the title somehow became a mantra for me.  That said I’d like to share an experience with you that on the surface sounds silly.  Yet when I dug down to the root of the matter, I realized there was way more to it than I originally thought.

I live about an hour from New York City and have always had a love/hate relationship with it.  I love the theatres, museums, and architecture.  Central Park is beautiful and the shopping.  Oh, how I love the shopping.  However, all these wonderful things come at a price.  I have a hard time being around that much energy for long periods of time.  Things move too fast for me and the people always seem so disconnected and distant.

Friday, I had an appointment with a chiropractor in the city that connects and works with angels.  Actually, we were going to do a healing exchange and I was really looking forward to it.  At this point, you may be thinking, “yeah, so what”.  Well, on the rare occasions I do go in to the city, I generally drive.   However, my friend’s office is in an area where parking is almost impossible and it just makes sense to take mass transit.  OMG!  That was a huge trigger for me.  I had no idea.  I’m not afraid of riding the bus or subway, but my anxiety levels were through the roof.  Trying to read the bus and subway schedules became a “thing” which in turn made everything else going on my life feel almost catastrophic.  I was terrified of getting on the wrong train, or getting off at the wrong stop….oh, and the whole “buying a ticket” deal was setting me off too.  I was worried I’d get lost in the city all by myself.   You get the idea.

One side of me was stuck in the emotions and the other was looking at me like I was nuts….judging the fear as ridiculous.  So what if I got lost, I’m always getting lost.  At times, I’ve found wonderful surprises while trying to get back enroute.  No big deal.  Yeah, tell that to my fear based mind.

Thank goodness for side number three.  Side number three was viewing the situation from the point of an observer.  It was from there that I was able to recognize that there was more to what I called “unfounded fear”.  I sat down and treated myself as I would a client.  I started asking myself questions and allowing myself to feel the emotions that the questions brought up.  What I learned was that I wasn’t afraid of being lost and alone in the city.  What I feared was being lost and alone in life.  That’s how I have felt for most of my life and I was afraid of going back there.   Once I understood what the ‘real’ fear was, I was able to address it.  I worked on it partly with thetahealing and partly by reminding myself of some simple truths.

First of all, I know I’m always in the ‘perfect’ place at the ‘perfect’ time, as are you.  I know that even though I may be alone at the physical level sometimes, I’m never fully alone, neither are you.  My guides, angels, and Spirit are always there with me, as yours are with you.  It’s hard to remember that things are just as they should be when we feel lost.  It’s hard to recall that we’re not alone when we crave the physical touch of another.  Learning to be comfortable under those conditions isn’t easy.  It’s possible, though…I promise you that….and once you get to that space, you won’t feel lost or lonely.

The most important point to remember is to be kind to yourself.  Learn to stop judging your fears.  Instead explore them and find the root.  You’ll discover the fear is not so silly after all.  Once you find the root, you can face it, heal it, and let it go.

Think of something you are afraid of right now, especially something you call a ‘silly fear’.   Spend some time with it.  Other than fear, what emotions come up?  When did you first discover the fear?  What happened right before you experienced it for the first time?  These are some of the questions that will help you discover and release the root of your fears.  So yes, feel the fear, explore the fear, heal the fear, let it go….and just do it.  You don’t have to like it, but imagine how empowered you’ll feel after facing your fear.

Family and Self-Acceptance

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged.  For some reason, I haven’t been isnpired.   I think I have 8 or 10 partially written blogs, but each one feels forced.  If I can’t blog from the heart, then I don’t blog.  Today while perusing facebook, I came upon a blog written by a fellow thetahealer.  After reading it, I knew I found my topic.  What’s really interesting is that so many of the people I’ve been speaking to lately are working through very similar issues.  So thank you, Elizabeth, for your inspiration.  If you’d like to see what she has to say, this is the link to her blog.

http://www.theexpandedgateway.com/the_fairies_and_me_blog

I’m deep in the process of accepting me as me, and not the me my family used to know and always expected me to be.  I used to think their criticism was because they didn’t love me or because they thought I wasn’t good enough.  Now, I understand it’s BECAUSE they love me and want what they believe is best based on THEIR belief systems.  Our views of the world are different now…neither is right or wrong.  If I want to be me, happy, loved, and authentic, I need to let go of the anger, resentment, blame, and frustration….I need to change for me to be a better me.

Learning to disconnect from our family’s beliefs about who we are can be a challenge.  Our gut reaction is to ask,” why can’t they (family, friends, teachers, etc) just accept me for who I am”?  What I realized is that we should be asking a different question, actually, two questions.  First, “why can’t I accept myself for who I am”?  Second,” why can’t I accept my family as who they are”?  Changing perspective is huge when trying to come terms with our  life and what we see as it’s daily struggles.

My dad and I always had a close relationship.  We’d have our disagreements (sometimes really loud ones), say what we had to say, and then move on.  After my mom died, the relationship shifted.  I used to wonder why, but it really doesn’t matter as knowing ‘why’ won’t change what is.  Before I go on, this is key when trying to heal things that happened in the past.  Focusing on the ‘why’ is ego’s way of holding on to the pain, hurt, anger, etc.  We are in the here and now.  The here and now in this situation is the relationship changed and degenerated.  However, I didn’t understand about the ‘whys’ back then.

My mom’s death and what I used to refer to as the “loss of my father” resulted in severe depression and caused me to take a long hard look at my life. That’s when I first discovered energy work, spirituality, and healing.   All of a sudden, my views of the world shifted.  My views of myself shifted.  I understood, saw and experienced a whole new reality.  I became a different person; one my family had no idea what to do with….and to be frank, they still don’t…lol.  I liked who I was becoming.  I understood me better.  The thing is I wanted my family to understand me too.  I needed their approval and support.  However, the truth is that while we may WANT other people’s approval, we don’t NEED it.  What we NEED is our own approval of ourselves.  We need to know that we are acting in alignment with our own integrity.  Sounds good on paper, right?  I got all this in concept, but I wasn’t living it.  After all, I was still asking why my family (friends, etc) couldn’t accept me for who I was.  Here’s the juxtaposition…in asking that question, I realized that I wasn’t accepting them for who they were either.  They were and are living life based on their belief systems and I was trying to force them to live their lives by mine.  Whoa!  Talk about an ‘aha’ moment, actually, it was more like a ‘smack in the head’ moment.  When I dug deeper, I realized that what I was really experiencing was my own lack of self worth.   If I NEED their approval, then I don’t approve of me.  (another head smacking moment)  Each time I accept another part of myself, my need for outside approval diminishes.  Once you are able to accept yourself as who you really are, then what others think of you doesn’t matter.  It can’t matter and it won’t matter.

My dad and I are still learning how to relate to each other with me being my authentic self and it comes with a set of challenges.  However, once I was able to view things from a different perspective, our relationship began to improve.  Don’t get me wrong, I still mourn the relationship we used to have, but the bottom line is even though we don’t see eye to eye, he’s still my dad and for that I will always love him…and I’m still his daughter, and for that, he will always love me.

I want to add something here.  In reading this over, it almost sounds like I came to these realizations just by hanging around and maybe reading some books…..and that it happened overnight.  It didn’t happen overnight, but there were small changes and miracles every day.   I did tons of energy work (Reiki, IET, and more)….and whole lot of thetahealing  all of which helped remove blocks and open me up to new perspectives and possibilities.

Are you facing a challenge today?  Try viewing it from a different perspective (even if you don’t agree with that view) and see if a solution arises.