What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

The real question is simple. “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

The answer to this question pinpoints something in each of us which makes us squirm inside. As we face this question and mull it over in our minds, we feel jumpy. The question feels weighty and difficult, and yet we feel a spark of life in the corner of our eyes when we think about it. We quickly blink it away trying to pretend we didn’t notice the gleam.

“You can’t just throw around questions like that and get answers!” A voice chirps from somewhere in the back.

Or can you?

Another voice declares, “You can’t just pursue what you really want; that is selfish. You are better off doing something that is safe and selfless.”

So, we go about doing things, anything to fill the void. We do things that make us feel safe, untouchable. We do it for money, we do it to please or appease others, we do it because we were told it would make us feel happy, safe, and successful. We do it because we have kids in college and debts to pay for piles of stuff that now sits like a putrid pile of manure under our noses. It never made us happy anyway.

It doesn’t work. We stare at the ladder we just climbed, realizing with horror, it was the wrong ladder.

A different story emerges when we decide to face the question, “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?”

A long stream of etherial music starts to emerge from our lives. It may start off a simple rasp and creaking groan but as we push forward a single note emerges with such clarity and resonance it cannot be ignored. We are enraptured. We run, we fall, we get up again. The music keeps playing.

Facing fears becomes something we do instead of something we don’t do. We start to emerge from our ulcer-ridden, cowering selves and become the strong oaks we were always meant to be.

There will always be more fears to face. One will be conquered and another will rise, a mountain, steep and unmapped.

We will constantly fight against the part of all of us which strives to one day arrive, safe and comfortable forevermore. But comfortable has never changed the world and we know deep down this is not us anyway. We know were were made to ride on into the sunset. To figure things out, to fight valiant battles, to open closed doors, and to climb the tallest mountain before us. We are good till we die!

When we look at our own lives with practical eyes, we see walls, we see barriers, we see unanswered questions. We see long, dark corridors.

But if we let our focus change and use our eyes of possibility, if we use our creativity and passion and mind to actually THINK through the question, “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid” rather than scurry about constantly asking others what we should do, we see a different life. If we turn the question over and over in our minds like a rotisserie chicken allowing every avenue exploration and ideas room to settle in and take root, the walls and barriers start to go away.

We see answers right if front of our eyes. We see paths open up. We see opportunity waiting to be stepped into. We see ourselves victorious. We see strength where weakness used to dwell. We see light, and hope, and vigor. We see generosity and engagement.

We see ourselves at the end of our lives smiling, knowing we lived as brave and as full a life as we could. We smile because we loved without limits, we forgave freely and we let go. We smile because we moved forward and reaped the rewards. We smile because we pushed as far and as hard as we could, we explored the depths of our possibility, and we faced what we needed to face head on. And, we smile because we lived a brilliant life.

Let us not forget brilliant.

It is there for the taking. Brilliant feels like growing younger from a life which exudes courage. It feels like a gust of cool wind, the freedom of change. It sparkles as water deep and unknown, gloriously reviving. Brilliant quenches our deepest thirst to make a difference. Brilliant cannot be ignored.

This is where we are headed, dear friends, if we are willing to lace up our running shoes and step out into the unknown. To face the fear knowing that this is the thrill and the blessing of our journey!

We will never get to where we want to go unless we dive deeper and go farther than we have gone in the past. Doing the same things, acting the same way, and making the same decisions won’t get us where we need to go. It is like staring at the ground hoping a tree will grow which has never been planted!

The fear will never go away. But, learning to use it to propel us ever onward gets easier. Fear shows us where we need to go, if we are willing to continually jump into the void before us.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous- actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. 

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. 

It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

~Marianne Williamson 

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

 

Inspiration from: The Art of Possibility by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander, Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightengale, Icarus Deception by Seth Godin, Char, and Angel.