I May Be Scared, But I'm Not Afraid...

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had to step outside of my comfort zone to do something completely unfamiliar to me.  I was excited, but also wondered if I was really capable of delivering the package that I sold.  Intellectually, I was pretty sure I could do it but, since I’m a fairly normal human being, those niggling doubts were pretty loud.  There was no easing into it, however, so I had to jump in, feet first, and just see what happened.

When the tasks were put in front of me, the Cartoon Me who lives in my head, began to sweat, gulp loudly, with eyes springing out of sockets, while making a Me-shaped exit hole in the wall.  The Real Me, however, remained calm and said “This is a little new for me, so bear with me, and I’ll get it done.  I’m scared, but I’m not afraid.”

Now, when I said that, I got some polite-but-puzzled looks from the people in the room.  That’s OK.  I wasn’t talking to them, anyway.  I was talking to myself and I knew exactly what I meant.  I don’t have a place for Fear in my life, but I welcome Scared.  You can’t learn, move forward or grow without at least a little bit of Scared.

Think about what Scared looks like.  When a kid tells you he’s scared of the dark, his eyes are wide open, he’s looking around, and he’s using all of his senses to take in his surroundings.  When you enter a haunted house, you are carefully watching, listening, feeling your way through the halls, preparing yourself for whatever’s waiting around the corner.  When you rode your bike for the first time, you were scared.  When you jumped off the high dive at the local pool, you were scared.  If you’ve ever picked up your life and moved to a new place, I bet you were scared.  When you sneak up behind someone and they jump, maybe yelp, and announce that you scared them, what happens next?  There’s usually laughter.  Because that’s what’s on the other side of Scared:  Happiness.  Relief.  Fun.  Probably a great story to tell later. 

Fear, on the other hand, shuts down.  Fear hides and runs away.  You’ve heard of “sinking fear”, “paralyzing fear” and “crippling fear”.  Think about what that really means.  Fear prevents growth, prevents learning, prevents happiness.  No, thank you!

Everything worthwhile in my life came with Scared.  Every test.  Every new skill learned. Every hair-brained adventure. Every move.  Every new job.  Meeting and marrying my husband.  Having children (that’s some scary stuff!).  Donating a kidney.  My eyes were open, my heart was unshielded, I was listening, sensing, feeling every step of the way.   Which means Scared was right there with me.

That eye-springing, gulping, wall-crashing Cartoon Me is always with me, too.  But on the outside, I’ve learned how to not let her show.  My family taught me those skills, whether they meant to or not.

 

~My mother taught me to walk like a model.  She had experience on the catwalk and told me to:  stand tall, shoulders back, head up, chin forward, eyes on the path ahead and never drag my feet.  She was probably just telling me how to look like a lady, but what I got out of it is a self-assured stride that is able to take in my surroundings as I keep moving forward.

~My mother also taught me to politely challenge authority and that sometimes it's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.  What she meant, I believe, is that if your intentions are good, sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to accomplish your goal despite the rules.  What I got out of it is the ability to assess every situation with "What's the worst that can happen here?"  Often the answer to that question is "Nothing."  The worst that can happen is nothing, but nothing will definitely happen if you don't try.  The key, of course, is intention and if bending a rule brings no harm and feels like the *right* thing to do, then do it.

~My brother taught me how to belong wherever I am.  Wherever you may be, if you act like you’re supposed to be there, no one will ever question that.  I believe he was trying to get me to safely carry valuable music gear through alleys in East St. Louis, but what I got out of it was a confident presence while moving through any new setting.

~Another brother taught me that an untraveled path often brings beautiful rewards.  I know he just wanted someone to tromp through the woods with him when all the preferred siblings were unavailable, but what I got out of it was faith that I would have never known that breath-taking waterfall was there if I hadn’t forged ahead through the poison ivy and briars.

 

None of those lessons left any room at all for fear.  They were all about using all of my six senses to confidently move forward.  Scared keeps moving forward. 

So in the end, I got through the recent challenge.  It WAS scary.  And it was great.  That eye-springing, gulping, wall-crashing Cartoon Me left and the other (yeah, there are many versions) Cartoon Me appeared, blowing her horn doing the second-line parade dance.  Because I was Scared, but I was NEVER Afraid.