Face My Fears? I'd Rather Clean a Toilet Bowl with my Sonicare Toothbrush.
So the theme of fear keeps popping up in my life. It’s been my experience that when God continually puts a theme in front of me, it’s probably because He is trying to get my attention and teach me something. Apparently, I have a thick skull and it takes repetitive effort on the teacher’s part to get me to focus in and learn something.
It’s come to my attention that perhaps fear is showing up in multiple ways in my life. Where I have not previously recognized fear, I can now see it manifesting itself in my thinking, in my behaviors, my attitudes, even at times in my communication. Without my even realizing it, forms of fear have become a comfortable down comforter on an overcast, rainy Seattle morning for me. They are a convenient, familiar way to hide and not deal with life and say, “Nope!”, opting out of whatever tests me or pressures me to reach beyond my comfort zone.
Fear is the unwelcome corroding thread that steals my joy. It’s often responsible for that “first thought”: the thought that enters my brain randomly, without warning, without control. My first thought is often a felony, as they say. If I don’t quickly throw it in an orange jumpsuit and put it behind bars, it will be free to roam around my brain, poisoning everything in my life on its’ spree of negativity. Instead I can choose to throw thoughts of fear in jail and work them out so that when they are eligible for parole, they actually have a hope of re-entering my life and being useful.
My fears can also be pretty amusing when I push through that first thought and recognize the ridiculousness of the ideas that I can allow to roll around between my ears. I can have the absolute best scenario in my life: like say for example a relaxing day with my kids outside on a sunny day at the lake. And suddenly without warning, I’ll get some random thought about recent shark attacks. Then if I allow myself to entertain that thought for a couple of minutes, somehow it sounds feasible to me that a shark might find it’s way from the Pacific Ocean, into the Puget Sound, and venture into Lake Washington to eat my kids. Seriously, from what planet am I getting this absurdity?
The problem for me is, I stop growing when I hide under that snuggly, warm comforter of fear. I become complacent, set in my ways, and averse to new ideas and open-mindedness. “THAT” girl, who puts expectations on people, places and things (without even recognizing it.) Exactly what I don’t want to be. Could it be, if I turn it around, that just maybe the things I have labeled as “fears” in my life are actually opportunities to expand, to go deeper, to open myself up to new experiences? Could fears be an avenue to new perspectives and fresh vision in my life? I think maybe so…. If I choose to see them that way.
Recently, I actually did choose to face one of my fears…. A random, gripping fear of heights. I cannot explain the correlation, but all I can say is it began during my first pregnancy. I started to fear being atop tall buildings, and it has continued throughout motherhood. A few months ago I accompanied my husband on a business trip to Dubai, which is home to the Burj Khalifa. The Burj Khalifa is currently the world’s tallest building, at 163 floors and 2,716.5 feet high. At the prospect of visiting this amazing piece of architecture, I initially and enthusiastically said, “Eff No!” As time went on, I had this internal debate with myself:
Self: You might not ever be back in Dubai. You should do it. Don’t be one of those people who says, “I’ve seen it on the Travel Channel”.
Self: Are you freaking kidding me? And have a panic attack before I even step into the elevator? No way. You’ve seen one tall building; you’ve seen them all.
Self: No, are YOU kidding ME? This is ridiculous. Put on your Russell Wilson game-face, channel your inner Tom Cruise in “Ghost Protocol” and get your matronly ass into that elevator.
Self: No.
Self: You have had SIX babies. You were scared of that, right? And you survived.
Self: The definition of “survived” is very subjective in that example.
Self: Just shut up and take some action. DO it. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
Self: I don’t feel like it. I’m not ready.
Self: You’ll never “feel” ready.
Self: (Big sigh)…If it will shut YOU up and I won’t have to endure this lecture a second longer? I’ll do it.
Self: Atta girl!!!
And so somehow I found myself stepping into the elevator and I closed my eyes….I breathed, in and out, tried to just focus on my breath. And you know what? It was the smoothest, fastest, non-scary elevator ride I have ever experienced. I couldn’t believe it. The elevator travels at a rate of two floors per second, meaning the entire ride was about a minute long. And it really, truly was the most surprisingly non-terrifying elevator ride of my life. I couldn’t even feel it move.
Out on the deck, I just did my best to look out and not straight down. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t exactly my favorite thing ever. But I did it. I took lots of pictures to both distract myself and to prove that I was there. I can’t say I was exactly “proud” of myself for doing it. It was more like a feeling of being totally perplexed, baffled actually, that I had managed to physically make my way onto the elevator and ascended to the top on the building. It was real and it was happening, whether I was ready for it or not. Just like unplanned pregnancies, just like the death of a loved one…just like life.
I often find that things are not what they originally appear to be. But I will never know that unless I move past what I assume and take a chance and walk into a situation with an open heart and open mind. Sometimes I don’t have a choice and I have to face my fears, being a parent has taught me that. But other times when I do have the choice, and I willingly take a risk and step out? Well there’s some good stuff waiting for me there, I think. It may not feel comfortable, but there is something to be said about doing it scared. A feeling of “OMG, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this!” Even I can surprise my own self, and that is usually a better idea than cleaning a toilet bowl with my Sonicare. ;)
XOXO,
A-Team Mom