THE PARADOX OF FEAR

If there was a degree I could get for the amount of time I spent on any given subject, I would have a PhD in fear. I have spent a lot of my life in fear of something or somebody…..most of the time, the fear was much greater than the actual experience……it always is for me.

This past week I finished redoing my website (www.wisdomofsound.com) after working on it for close to a year. This is the first website that I hired a web designer and had my own website created from scratch. At first, we did a lot of work and it was a great exercise for me because they challenged my verbosity and really made me do some work on getting very clear on what I wanted. We went through a few ideas before we finally came up with the design of the site that I felt was me.

What I saw that interesting was how in this process how easy I would get derailed and put down the project. I would always pick it back up and when I did, something in me had shifted to where I wanted to change the site somewhat. Scott (my web designer ….. www.cypherdesignstudio.com) has a lot of patience and always stayed really positive even if it meant changing something we had already decided on.

As the months passed by it was always something that was stopping and starting the project and the last big one was my daughter’s wedding in December and I took off 2 months from working on the website at all. After the first of the year, I had fear to restart the project and finish it and wasn’t sure why.

What I realize is that fear for me can be very confusing and sometimes paradoxical. I think sometimes fear is something I use to not get something done and it is also a gift in that it increases my awareness and gives me the time sometimes I don’t give myself to be with something.

I have always heard that fear is bad and we need to step through it and that is true AND it is also a gift for me to become more aware of what is going on in my life. What I also know about fear is that it can protect me from some of my past wounds. I think fear is neither good or bad….it just is….and how it plays out depends on how I want to embrace it.

What is really interesting is when I look around in this world today, I see how certain people, organizations, and communities use fear to create advantages and paradoxically it is waking up the people in a way no one every suspected. Be careful what you wish for.