Face your fears.

There's a great scene in the movie Defending Your Life in which the game show contestants are competing to see who will face their fears.  There are times in my life when I am worried about something and I will hear that actor's voice in my ear saying "Will she face her fear?  YES, she is going to do it!  She is going to FACE HER FEAR!!"  And everyone in the audience claps, I breathe, laugh a little, and let go.

One of my biggest fears until recently was speaking in public.  And when I say "public" I really mean any group of more than five or six.  I'm not even sure what I was afraid of - that I wouldn't be riveting and that my audience would be bored?  That I would choke up and cry?  Or that I wouldn't remember what it was I wanted to say?  Or that people would discover that I am truly unintelligent and foolish to boot?  Or maybe even that if I were talking and people were looking at me then they would start noticing that I'm not all that physically attractive.  Just like it takes a certain amount of courage to press the "publish" button when I post these blogs, speaking in public made me feel vulnerable.  Like somehow I was actually going to die if I tried to do something that scared me.

Well, if God is Love, then Fear is the Devil.  In fact, I have come to believe that fear is nothing but a sham. We put it in front of ourselves as a means of keeping ourselves small.  Why would we want to keep ourselves small?  Because any time you allow yourself to be big you become a open target for other peoples' criticism.  Even The Beatles had their detractors.  So we hide our light under a bushel and hope that no one will direct their derision our way.  But you know what?  When you allow yourself to be big, to truly follow your dreams, to face your fears, you also inspire others to do the same.  When you say "this is who I am, take it or leave it", you give the people around you the permission to do the same - to come out of their emotional closets, to dare to risk looking silly following their own path, to be brave and face their fears.

Recently I volunteered (unbelievable!!!) to speak in public.  I actually went to my sister's grade school and spoke to eighty fourteen year olds about the things that I've learned in the past five years.  Did I cry? You better believe it!  For all of about sixty seconds, I was on shaky ground.  And then I was through the door.  Fear is a mirage.  I found that speaking to those children was not only easy but downright enjoyable.  I can already hear my detractors (or maybe its just my own brain) saying "yeah, ok, so she did it once.  Will she do it again?"  Damn straight I will.  I don't know if it will be a bunch of eighth graders or a room full of yogis or an auditorium of cancer patients but I do know that my fear of speaking in public faded away the moment I faced it and didn't back down.

What are you afraid of?  Why are you holding back?  All of us will benefit when you choose to live your life fully, without fear.  Put that art out there for all of us to see.  Sing your song.  Write your book.  Be you, be big, be brave.