Fear

I’ve been thinking about this some more and it’s interesting how I find myself doing things that even a week ago I might have hesitated to do—because I’ve thought about what it costs me not to do them. I’ve reminded myself that we can never please everyone. No matter how well we do things or how nice we are, there are people we will just rub the wrong way.

I wonder. Do you see yourself as brave or are you like me and tend to think of yourself as a coward? That’s how I defined myself for years—as a coward because so many things scared me. Worse, the person who supposedly loved me most seemed to think the same—that I was a coward because things scared me that didn’t scare him.

The problem with thinking of ourselves as cowards, the problem with any negative labels we apply to ourselves, is that we are thinking in terms of limits, we are assuming we can’t do things or won’t. What if....we call ourselves brave instead?

We ARE brave every time we do something that scares us. And if we realize that, then we begin to think of ourselves as people who can do things, can achieve our goals, can make changes in our lives. Things that may be easy for other people may require great courage from us. And yet we do things every day that take courage.

I truly believe that the best strategy is to focus on what we can and are doing. If we do so, then we have a basis from which to do more and more things. And as we do the things we fear, often the fear begins to go away because we realize we can do them and if something does go wrong, well, we will still find a way to cope and survive.

So when you look in the mirror today, remind yourself of how brave you are. Remind yourself of the things you do that scare you and that you have successfully done in the past even when you were afraid.

Until next time, sending safe and gentle (((((((hugs))))))),

April_Optimist