As I’m working each day finding 12 things to remove from my life, there are times when my fears rear their ugly heads. Like when I come across an item that suddenly stops me in my tracks. Yes, you’re right, it is usually a sentimental item. For some reason, I fear letting it go and am not quite ready to deal with it yet.
Maybe it is that I just don’t want to make a decision, aka, deal with my fear? Instead of just accepting the fear and walking away, I’m testing myself now. I’m forcing myself to make a decision. Even if the decision is to walk away and try again later. I make sure to acknowledge I’m doing so to hold myself accountable for the decision. When I’m feeling stronger about facing the fear, I take a different approach.
I ask myself, “Why is it, after all these years of earning gray hair wisdom and experience, I still have moments filled with fear of letting go of stuff? WTH? Am I fearful of learning new things about myself? Am I afraid of what others will think? Is it my – just let me be, comfort zone – just the way I want it and – don’t you dare mess with me – my motto?”
Facing our fears and learning from them helps us grow stronger in this crazy journey called life.
Facing our fears helps us grow into the life we enjoy. To me, an enjoyable life isn’t a specific spot or a final destiny, it is a feeling we carry with us throughout our life. What about you, did you wake up one day and say, “I’ve arrived, my destiny has been found?” Sorry folks, I tend to think that may just be a bunch of crap. I often wonder if a destiny is to be found, does that mean when you get there you’re done learning about yourself? Yuck, I’d rather continue on learning and growing and changing.
Is there really anything wrong with just loving living your life as it unfolds? Life is an awesome educational experience. And you can make things happen along the way to doing what you love instead of worrying about being something or someone in particular.
In order to enjoy experiences I know have to be willing to face my fears. I’d be lying if it wasn’t tough sometimes. Actually, tough more times than I’d like to admit.
Facing fears is less intimidating when I realize my life could be way worse. This week I’ve heard stories from people I know who are going through major life struggles. I’m talking about things with the huge potential of fear producing moments. Their stories humbled me to say the least. Stories of a child going through surgery, a loved one’s disease moving to palliative stages, a heart tumor, a loved one dying. Their stories are definitely way more difficult to face than my simply deciding to let an object go or not. A reality check time for sure.
Even though they tell me they are scared, they are facing their fears and finding joy in life as it is right now. Each and every one of them are focusing on the moment and finding strength to carry on. They know their destiny or the outcome of what they are going through isn’t within their ability to plan for at this moment in time. They are facing their fears and dealing with their situations head on and making really tough, life changing decisions. They are truly inspiring to me.
I’m sure they too take moments to breathe, just breathe…let it snow, let it go. Even if you and I do, or don’t have a big life changing events we’re going through, we can still build our fear-facing, decision-making muscles. Who knows when or if we will need them, but they will likely come in handy when least expected.
What am I doing to build my decision making skills? In addition to deciding on 12 items a day to let go, I seek out small opportunities to build fear fighting muscles. For example, this past weekend, we were blessed with snow, lots of snow. In Wisconsin, snow just comes as part of the package of the winter season. The first big snow can be intimidating. It is a well known fact some drivers have likely forgotten how to drive in the snow and are an accident just waiting to happen. Not a good mixture to say the least. Just knowing that factor tends to bring on the fear of driving in it. It just so happens, snow arrived on a day when I was invited to spend time with friends. I could’ve said, “I don’t want to go out in the snow. I’m going to cancel my plans with my friends.”
Small moments of deciding to do something, despite fears about what may happen, help us grow.
I decided differently though. I decided to let it snow, let the fear go and went. If I hadn’t faced my fear, I would’ve missed out on getting together with dear friends. I would’ve missed the stories we share together about what we’re each going through. I would’ve missed creating a fun craft, laughter, drinking a little wine, eating some awesome comfort food and just sharing time together with my friends.
My dear friends teach me so many wonderful things about life. Heck, who needs therapy when you have awesome friends to share time with!?! I’m so thankful I didn’t let the fear of driving in the snow get the best of me.
When our fears about letting go of items rear their ugly heads, face them by building fear fighting muscles. That’s why I suggest deciding on just 12 items a day. Finding all those small items, aka, irritants surrounding us, helps us face fears. Just picking up the items and deciding they are no longer something we want in our life helps us face fears of letting go. The acts of finally putting them in the boxes and letting them go creates small wins in overcoming fears. Perfect for getting us to a lighter side of life. Being okay with learning more about ourselves in the process is the icing on the cake (or snowman, if you’d rather paint one like me!)
Life is full of opportunities to continue learning and discovering new things about yourself, especially as you mature, age, or grow into your life.
As we continue on this journey of letting go of stuff, please know we’re learning together. I’m simply facing my fears (sharing it in a crazy little blog). Taking a chance to reach out to others who may be going through the same things at this stage in life. Maybe even those just learning about venturing out in life in a new direction. Or someone who needs a little distraction from their complicated life situation. We’re not alone. We all learn to face our fears through out our lifetime. I’m still learning, winging it sometimes (or a lot) and enjoying every minute of it by the way. Learning helps me break away from fears.
All of us have so many moments where we’ve learned and are learning about living life without the fear of _______; the judgement of _______; the wishing for _______; and replacing the what’s holding me back in life is _______, with the letting go of _______.
Each and everyone of us has their own unique take on each _______ and our own life story to be told as it unfolds. I find each story inspiring, intriguing, motivating and worthy of investigating.
We have a lot of inspiration just waiting to burst from the roots of our lives as we learn to let it go and embrace moments. And by the way, we’ve earned (or will earn) every gray hair along the way. Whether you or I decide to color them or not, they are still there to remind us of our awesome life journey. Let it snow, (heck yeah), let it go! Good graycious there’s no time like the present to enjoy the wisdom we earn growing every single gray hair!
And by the way…please hug and pray for those going through extra challenging moments in their lives. I know I’m sending you my love and prayers! XOXOX~
How about you, what do you do to over come your fears of letting it go? I’d love to hear from you too! See you soon!
