Heroics - Is That a Title for Inner Battles?

First things first! Today is my goddaughter’s 18^th birthday – Happy birthday, Hana! Welcome to adulthood… J Everyone smile today – pass that smile around. And lift a little smile, positive thought, prayer, for my sweet goddaughter. Thank you so much – I believe in your power to positively affect the world around you!

Well, I’m up extra early this morning. I’ve been up since 1:30, and I had a short time tonight dealing with some of my fears. I inadvertently triggered a situation that set my inner child running for the hills. J It’s ok, it happens. I’m learning to be patient with myself when I react out of fear instead of compassion or love. Having gone through a childhood and a handful of adult relationships that revolved around emotional sabotage (mostly unintentional on the other person’s part), I still find myself shying away from what I call blindsiding – reactions from people I wasn’t expecting. The stressor is too close to the unexpected emotional outbursts (mostly angry) I experienced as a child and an adult. Most of those outbursts left me feeling scared, angry, confused, and responsible for something I couldn’t control. I’ve posted and written a lot about courage and bravery in the face of the things that scare us. Here’s where it comes time for me to walk my talk. One of the hardest things for us to ever get over is deep emotional wounding. That fear resides with us for the rest of our lives; our daily battle becomes how to deal with the fear. The other side of us desires deeply to love, to find companionship, because we are naturally social beings. Not that we need another to complete us, but we do have a compulsion to share with others, especially the most positive and meaningful experiences in our lives. It is a difficult and terrifying task to continue to experience things alone when you’ve been so hurt you can’t bring yourself to trust another. I understand that point of view. I’ve lived that point of view, and very nearly destroyed myself in the process.

So how do we move past those fears? I’ve posted some ideas about vulnerability. Brene Brown has done some fascinating, recent research on vulnerability. Ironically, her research field stemmed from a desire to study what made people miserable… I agree with most of what she has observed and published. Her work has been eye-opening, and it has given me the strength to exercise my courage every day in the face of my emotional fears. I have committed to being more open, more honest, and more expressive of my feelings toward others, regardless of the possible rejection and ridicule I might face. If you’ve never been scared before, try living like that for ONE week. Try expressing your feelings – own them and tell people without expecting anything in return – for a week, then let me know how much stamina it took to survive your week. I challenge you. I DARE you to live like that. Better yet, do it for THREE days. Maybe a week is too long to expect.  THREE days is all you have to do to experience what I’m talking about. Set aside your fears (you can’t get rid of them) and be honest about how you feel toward other people – in loving, gentle ways. If you are frustrated with someone, tell that person what BEHAVIORS frustrated you. Don’t use that time as a chance to whip someone’s psyche – it’s quite often the actions we dislike. But I’ve noticed we are much more at ease with expressing our malice and discontent with others. That’s fear talking for us. That’s not vulnerability. I’m challenging you to three measly days of telling those in your life that mean the most to you, how much they mean to you. If you are single, and you like someone, tell him or her. If you’ve just started dating someone but you feel strongly that you could love that person, tell that person. AND… here’s the kicker… DON’T expect anything in return. These are YOUR feelings. You own them and you experience them. They are yours to bestow on anyone you wish. That person doesn’t HAVE to like you back to validate the worth of your feelings. Stop giving away so much power. I guarantee after the first day of trying this, you are going to have more nerves than any person with stage fright.

You can’t let that stop you. As a culture, we’ve let our fears of someone else’s opinions or judgment keep us from authentically expressing our emotions to those who mean so much to us. Our days are numbered, but we don’t know the numbers. Tomorrow isn’t promised. You can go to bed one night thinking you will see a dear friend very soon, thinking about the things you wanted to say that night but the “timing” wasn’t right, or you were scared. When you wake up the next morning, that person could very well be gone. It’s happened to many of us in the past month. How many of us awoke that next morning and wished we had said more, hugged more, loved more, done more, to show how much that person meant to us? We allowed the chance to slip by because WE WERE AFRAID. On the flip side, those of you who receive attention from someone brave enough to let their deepest feelings show toward you, you don’t have to return those feelings, but please don’t dismiss those feelings. There are appropriate ways to gently validate that someone feels something strongly, but you can’t reciprocate that. In our fear of being overwhelmed by undesired attention, we react more harshly than we need to, and we generate more fear for the person who made him or herself vulnerable. Please respect that. It’s tough to overcome that fear and say what’s on your mind. When we react out of fear to someone’s genuine expression, we keep the vicious circle of fear going. Let’s find a way to stop it.

One of my best friends told me, about ten years ago, that most of the negativity we feel in our lives is a result of fear. I hadn’t heard that idea before he told me that. I’ve thought about that statement daily for over ten years. Lauriston, it was you that told me that. My friend, you set me on the path to living a warrior’s life with your statement. I’m glad of it, and I’m glad you are a dear friend to me. You’ve seen the change over the past ten years, as I have seen you change too. I have a story for you on my blog. I’ll post the link later. If you don’t mind, I’m going to share the story with everyone because I think it’s that important. It’s a Japanese story called “The Tiger’s Eyelash.”

I think it’s that important to learn to be patient with others and, most importantly, to be patient with ourselves when we have learned so much fear. As we have the patience to coax terrified animals into domestication, we need to cultivate that kind of gentle patience for the fearful person inside of each of us. Some days, we’ll find lots of courage inside, but other days will be difficult. That is the nature of our cyclical existence, of the balance of our experience. On those tough days, we must be patient with others, their reactions, and our reactions to them as we struggle to overcome our inner fears.