Letting Go of Fear

What’s on my mind this morning? Letting go of fear. An unsettled feeling has been brewing in me for the past few days. It’s a feeling I rarely acknowledge to myself, let alone publicly. It’s fear. And unless I miss my guess, I’m in good company here. We all experience fear. 

Exposing ones fear is pretty risky business. As a culture, we don’t do ‘real’ very well. The temptation is to dress up our lives and make them look better than they really are. How are you? Oh, I’m fine. Until I’m not… And the feelings rise to the surface, and I wonder who would care if I even chose to say them out loud. This, I’ve learned, is my cue to absolutely let them out. Instead, sometimes I wander away from my feelings with food, TV, reading, surfing the Internet, and any other tool of avoidance or resistance. 

Over the past couple of days, this brewing of fear has me focused on the first Beatitude (The Message version) that says “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. Less of you means more of God.” I first read this version last fall and I’ve been wondering what “the end of my rope” looks like. Today, I’m thinking I have a pretty good idea.

You see, after I left a profession for which I honed skills throughout my entire life, I’ve come to recognize within me this feeling of inadequacy, not being an expert at something - which was something I previously could offer and in which I was in demand and still get calls for (you see how the mind works here, right?). Currently, I’m creating something new in the areas of spiritual direction, retreat leadership, a storytelling ministry, the healing powers of essential oils, and the ministry of writing, and to be honest, I’m no expert at any of it. What I’ve discovered as feelings of inadequacy have resulted in a frequently reluctant heart to offer something new. Even if the new thing is something I feel strongly about and is something God and I are working on together. It feels as if these new clothes don’t fit just yet and I haven’t worked my 10,000 hours, so who would take a chance on me anyway. This fear is driven by the thoughts of my mind. They are not reality, just chatter in my head.

There are two things going on here: I’m feeling afraid about possible rejections to the new offerings I’m creating, and I’m pushing back on our cultural norm that we don’t share our fears with each other. Sharing our fears, especially publicly, appears weak, pitiful, and self-defeating. And yet, here’s where I’m willing to take the risk, because I believe just beneath the surface for most of us, there are struggles that need to see the light of day. They need to catch their breath and surface, lest they wreak irrevocable havoc within. They need the caring ear and heart of a friend who will listen and reflect if needed. We don’t need someone to fix anything, we just need to get the struggle out so it doesn’t consume or paralyze us.

How do I practice this? Well, in the past two days I’ve had the opportunity to begin that conversation with two people who know me well. My initial part of the conversation was all “how great everything is” and “reporting on recent experiences at this writer’s conference I attended” - you know, all the good stuff (and there is a lot of good). But the truth of my fear rises up and I decide to say it - “I’m really struggling right now.” Just saying those words is a sweet release. Now I’m not the only one who knows how I’m feeling. I have a trusted relationship with these two people and I know it’s OK for me to say what’s really going on - to be authentic. These are individuals who know me and who are amazing listeners. They know I’m not whining or being dramatic (mostly because I rarely share my struggles) and so they carefully offer to hold space for me. Cultivating this type of relationship takes time, but without it, I would have no place to go.

Doing hard things, like sharing our struggles of fear, can be difficult just in the telling. Through the practice of saying it out loud, we are letting go of a piece of the fear, and as we do, the burden gets lighter and we become more authentic, able to find solutions, while creating a pattern for our friends to respond with their own struggles when they need it. Whatever your struggle, I hope and pray that you’ll find someone to talk with about it. Someone with whom you feel safe enough to be your authentic self. As we do this, we are slowly breaking down the cultural norm and saying it’s OK to share our struggles. We need to hold space for one another. And, we are reaching out for help in a positive way that can actually lead to some new paths of purpose and resolve in moving forward out of our struggle.

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. Less of you means more of God.” Today, I’m working on letting go of fear as I try to lean into ‘more of God’ and less of the chatter. I pray the same for you.