If you have been following along, you have noticed a lot of talk (or writing) on self awareness.
Maybe self discovery more aptly describes my journey. A friend and mentor of mine said it best recently “it’s back to school time” for all of us.
For many of us we have been lucky and had parents, relatives that have spent many years leading us in the “right” direction. Teaching us what is right…wrong. Then we go to school and learn some more. Here we are instructed to learn to be something or someone….that we are not already.
We use these formidable years to learn, we grow, we propel our selves to try and figure out what it is we want to be when we grow up.
We grow up and we think we have it figured out (at least a little). We’ve learned a lot of things along the way. We have also forgotten…a lot. Most of what we have learned deals with conformity, how to fit in. We learn what it is we don’t like, agree with or don’t want to become. We wander around in this phase hoping that someone was right…that this was where we wanted to be. We learn the ever important skill of faking it until we make it. This truly is a skill.
What is it that we make though?
Some figured it out along the way. Some realized that listening to the voice inside was the key.
In this phase of my life I am re-learning that skill, to listen to the voice within. It is about me. It is not about being selfish. It is about learning to be who I was born to be.
Learning that somewhere along the way many of us have stopped ourselves from moving forward.
I have done this…I stopped myself from moving forward. The biggest lesson we all must figure out is that no one but ourselves stop us. We allow fear to stop us all the time. Sometimes we are aware and many times we are not.
I think many times we repeat habits partly to repeat them…for the comfort (as self destructive as that can sometimes be.) for the familiarity that it may provide.
This week I would like to feature a fear a day. Everything I have read says to not focus on the fear…to focus on the positive.
This has not worked for me…completely, so I would like to try another approach.
I think it is time to fight fear with awareness.
Each day this week…my goal will be to post a fear. How it has affected me that day. What did I do to overcome it (if I was able to) and what I will do with that fear the next time I recognize it creeping up on me.
Basically I think acknowledging some of our fears will help us to really be accountable for them as well as over come them.
Part of this challenge will be to
1- write down and focus on one fear a day.
2- Write down and focus on an alternate response or solution to the fear.
3- Analyse and write out whether this fear was rational or was it irrational.
4- Write out what your take on the fear was, what caused it. What signs may help you recognize it in the future.
Fear-Cause-Solution = New Reaction/Behavior.
What can it hurt, right?
I think a lot of fears go unnoticed, they hide behind judgement or justification or just plain hide. The deeper they are the more irrational and stupid they may be. These fears can prove to be very embarrassing to reveal, especially to an otherwise seemingly strong and intelligent person. Hence why we hide them and when confronted with them by others blatantly deny them.
If you are interested in joining me in this, please feel free to share your comments and experience. But I also understand this is a private journey and you are also welcome to just follow along. I am also always open to comments and insight, sometimes I may be too close to really see what it is I may not be seeing.
Ready or not fear…here we come!
Good luck my friends, it’s our time.