Journeying into FEAR

I'm learning so much about that scary word...FEAR. We all have it and most days its good enough to push it to the back burner and take a big step forward, pretending it isn't there at all. However...Some days... It won't be ignored. Some days, it makes you want to stay in bed all day. Some days, it even makes you wonder if others can see it on your face. Some days... I really just feels like there is a giant troll with his big, ugly, smelly boot on your face taunting you and keeping you from rising up out of it.

There are several things I have done recently that have been those big steps out into unknown territory, A few include taking some e-courses in areas that I want to grow in to improve my art and my desire to eventually go full time into my art work and live a free, creative, adventurous life. I'm also pushing through an aerial silks class that is very challenging for me physically and mentally, but is something that I've always wanted to do. 

 

I'm finding more often than not, the adventure is waiting just on the other side of the door and you have only to politely, or even not-so-politely move your fear out of the way in order to let it in. 

I want to live a BRAVE, CREATIVE LIFE as a mixed media artist, and in doing so and sharing my heart along the way, I want to give others permission to live bravely in their own lives. 

SO silks class kicked my butt yesterday morning....REALLY. I'm beginner level 1 and my Monday morning class is geared towards Level 1&2, while on the other end of the gym, the intermediate/advanced class is going on. Well today, after having sat in morning traffic for an 1.5 hours trying to get downtown to the warehouse where the classes are held, I arrive late and have missed almost the entire warm-up routine which is VERY important. Then I find out that the teacher who leads my class isn't there today and I'm merged in with the intermediate/advanced class. Result of this discovery = FEAR. 

Once our workout commenced, this fear was actualized because not only was I not strong enough yet to do what they were doing, but I look around (mistake) to see that all the women participating in the class have dance or gymnastics backgrounds! Second observation (mistake) was that all the women were approximately 1/2 my current body weight and size. END RESULT: as they twist and contort their bodies to do all of these beautiful and graceful moves in the air on the silks, looking like something out of a dream....I'm on the floor. I'm working on what I know of the basics and strength building moves that will EVENTUALLY allow me to hold to the fabrics and lift my body up and over my head like they are doing at the START of their routines and the drops that they are learning. 

I tried something the instructor suggested (She not knowing how "beginner" I am) and I failed miserably and it hurt like heck! Needless to say I left class with bruised body and total lack of confidence to the point I was sick to my stomach and wanted to cry..... and I only share this because I know there are other people who can agree that they have experienced the same feeling. BUT I'm going back to class again next week and I'm going to try again...and again... and again.

I'm learning a LOT right now about fear and the things it keeps us from accomplishing. I'm also learning that without fear, A) we are actually abnormal, and B) without fear we cannot be COURAGEOUS. 

SO 2 questions....What is it that you fear that is holding you back from the life you dream and know in your heart is possible?.....WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910