280. Willing to Be Afraid

Hi, it's me again. And it's you again? Hello? Hello. So happy to have your ears for a moment. I'd love to have your voice by the way. So please contact me and let me know how you feel about this poem. It's called starfish and it's by Mary Oliver, who is now my favorite poet. And there's one particular line in here. That really grabbed me. is this. what I wanted. Was to be willing to be afraid. How does that resonate inside you? Or maybe it doesn't and it's simple discordance, which. Can be beautiful all on its own. To me. To be willing, to be afraid. Is. Easy. It's. I'm going to not do this thing. That I know will expand me or stretch me and grow me in ways that I'm ready to grow. Even though I'm not ready. I want to be afraid. I want to be willing to just step back. Uh, not. I want to keep this. The simplicity about. Not growing. About me. But as you know, We can't. Evade growth. It's going to happen. For us, whether we like it or not. And really whether we're afraid or not. I think we can delay it with that willingness to be afraid and not do the thing, but then it just builds up more and more and more within us. And the lesson is harder than the longer we wait. Here's the poem. I'll read it to you now. It's called starfish. Let me know how it resonates. In the sea rocks. And the stone pockets under the tide slip. In water dense as blindness, they slid like sponges, like too many thumbs. I knew this. And what I wanted was to draw my hands back from the water. What I wanted was to be willing, to be afraid. But I stayed there. I crouched on the Stonewall. While the sea port, it's her song through the sluices. While I waited for the gritty lightening of their touch. While I stared down through the tides, leaving where sometimes I could see them. They're stubborn flesh lounging on my knuckles. What good does it do to lie all day in the sun? Loving what is easy? It never grew easy. But at last I grew peaceful. All summer. My fear diminished as they bloomed through the water, like flowers, like flux of an uncertain dream. While I lay on the rocks, reaching into the darkness, learning little by little to love. Our only world. What I wanted. What I wanted was to be willing, to be afraid, but then what good does it do to lie all day in the sun? Loving what is easy? Doesn't do much good. What does good is learning little by little to love our only world. Which is full. Of mystery. And darkness. And surprises. And delights. The scary things. That once, you know them. Are no longer scary. What will it take? To learn to love. Our only world. It doesn't have to be all at once. Little by little. How do we love our only world? It's getting back home to ourselves first and foremost so that we know what it feels like to be home. And then from that space of being home, that's when it's easy. It. An easy. Is a definition in itself in the sense where it's not that it doesn't have challenges. The lightest path. The path that is light for one. Most of the time it's riddled with challenges. For a purpose, those challenges are there to make us grow. And to make us realize that. Our willingness to be afraid is actually what's keeping us feeling heavy. And on the path of. Dread. Have you won the one that feels like we're weighted down. Where, if we just. Put our hands in that dark water. If we just reach into the darkness and into the misery and see what we find out and realize that. It's there for us. It's there for our growth. It's there for our light. The fear disappears. And little by little, we love this only world. We love. Our selves. And this world, which is our only world. Breathe that in. I feel that in your bones and tell me. Right now out loud, say it out loud. Tell yourself. And tell me. What is it? That you're no longer willing to be afraid about. And what is it that you've been willing to be afraid about that you're. Done being afraid about. Maybe it's love. Maybe it's. Making a big purchase. Maybe it's taking a big risk. Maybe it's quitting the job that's killing you. Maybe it's starting your own thing. Who knows what it is. Maybe it's trying to eat something you've never eaten before to see if you like it. It doesn't have to be big. It can be tiny. Everything is the same. An energetics. It's the same. every fear is the same and energetics. So take one thing. And dive into that fear and see what happens because I guarantee you'll come out the other side. With a little more freedom. Mm. Mm, mm. You are more than welcome. To have a session with me, which you can get at Laura, Christina, us. Where we get that clarity and we get that freedom. And it's true and it happens quickly. You can support the show there as well, make a donation,$5,$25, whatever feels right to you. If this has benefiting you in any way, it would really fill my heart to see that come through. And until next time. I am setting all the love and all the courage. And then some more. We'll talk again.