Each day that I am blessed with, I’m faced with a variety of choices. Some are small, others are not. The choices I make define me and my world.
Each day I work on my resistance to creating and to sharing. For creating and sharing are choices I make that, ultimately, I am not comfortable with, though I consistently work to choose them.
To create exposes me to my own judgements, and to share exposes me to yours. And for me, both are equally terrifying.
My history had taught me that to create was not only a waste of myself, but a sure way to ensure — internal and external — criticism. The expression of me was not safe. History’s lesson, it seemed, was that my wisest choice was to hide me, to bury it by pushing it down deep and out of site.
Yet despite these learned efforts at hiding, I just can’t deny my need to create or to share. I’ve tried and I’ve failed. I’ve tried to be who I thought I needed to be, a quieter version of myself, but I can’t keep it up. I can’t be what I’m not.
No matter how I’ve tried to fight it, my need to create and my fearful choice not to affects my entire world.
With time and practice, I’ve reached a new place with my fear. I’ve now accepted it. I no longer pretend that I am bravely ignoring it, or that I can sleuth-ily avoid it, or that it’s unreasonable and untrue. My fears about creating and sharing are neither true nor false. They simply are what they are. Attaching to them won’t help or protect me.
What I need to do with my fear is use it, to allow it to support me and my heroic heart in choosing to practice the art I am so afraid of creating, and sharing.
I could do one without the other — share without creating, or create without sharing — but I know they both need to live in harmony and balance within me if I truly want to thrive.
photo credit: Funkyah
