It’s Saturday morning at 6:30 am and I have been up for an hour with the urge to write. Hell, I have had the urge to write a book for over a year. But somehow, I talk myself out of it every time. I have wasted so much time justifying why I shouldn’t write this book- precious time that I could have spent encouraging myself to do it or better yet, actually putting pen to paper.
Why is that? Why would I talk myself out of doing something that I would be proud of?
Why would I talk myself out of something I know in my heart and soul that I am meant to do?
Fear.
Fear of what people will think.
Fear of being put into a box.
Fear of the labels and assumptions others will make of me.
Fear that people won’t take the time to consider my point of view before they spew hatred at me.
Yet here I am, finally pushing myself to follow through the fear that I am feeling this morning.
Courage is defined as “the ability to do something that frightens one.”
Am I courageous?
Some would say that I am. In the past, I would humbly brush off observations about my courage, never allowing myself to feel those words, which prevented them from ever really sinking into my psyche. I feared that accepting the observations would signal vain conceit on my part, or even worse, would signal a need for me to stand up more fully and walk into my callings. The experience felt like a strange swirl of humility and imposter syndrome.
You see, until very recently, I have lived my entire life in fear. I have allowed fear to control the way I think, the way I act, and even the way I approach my career. I never realized how deep my relationship with fear was until I embarked on my journey with sobriety and entrepreneurship almost 4 years ago.
DOUBT AND FEAR.
These two words can act as boulders, like blocks that prevent you from success in many areas. For a long time, doubt and fear caused me great discomfort. As I reflect on my life, I can clearly see that in those moments when fear and doubt were at their highest levels, I was also simultaneously in the middle of a major milestone in my life. I was experiencing massive growth, which ultimately landed me closer to my higher self.
This morning I am asking myself, “What if we approached doubt and fear as beacons as opposed to boundaries? What if doubt and fear are leading us right toward the things we are meant to overcome, leading us to thrive?”
Today, I invite you to take some time to think about this a little deeper. Join me and sit it in silence with a journal and write a letter to yourself. Think about the times when you were most afraid and doubted the path before you. What did you do? What was the outcome? How did you evolve as a person?
I also invite you to take some time to email me at justine@justineevirs.com to share what you have realized in this moment if you feel called to do so. You can also join me in discussing what life could look like if we were able to reframe doubt and fear in our lives at the Protecting Courage Podcast. A great episode to start with is Episode 18 with Sarah Hassel. I love how she explains the steps she takes to listen and talk to her soul.
Sarah Hassel says, “I started learning how to really talk to my soul and ask my soul, speak out loud to it. Say, soul, why is this copying pain in my life? Or why is this causing me to react this way? And every time my soul has responded, I have just intuitively had an answer that I couldn’t have found before.”
In a world where we are all moving so fast and consumed with so many different opinions, I wonder what life would look like if we all took a page from people like Sarah Hassel’s book of life.
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