Facing fear

Sometimes I get those little Ah-ha!/light bulb moments, or God breezes as FlyLady calls them. They're the feelings that you get that that finally makes the problem you're dealing with make sense. Or the messages that come along when you're ready to hear them. The little nudges you need to take the next step.

Then there's times the God Breeze turns into a category 5 hurricane right over your head.

Today's one of those days.

I've been struggling. Yes, there's been the weight thing, but really, that's only a part of it. It's really been an internal struggle that's unsettled me because I know the cause, I know in general what I need to do, but it boils down to one basic thing:

I'm scared.

Yeah, no big news, I know. But it's not (really) the economy, the wars, the strife that's going on in the world that scares me. It's a lot simpler and more complex than that. I'm scared of, well... me. Or rather, the me I could be. Correction: the me I CAN be.

I have a copy of a poem on my wall that my friend sent me ages ago, and that I love. The piece of paper has been a fixture and most times I barely see it, let alone read it. A bit ago, the hurricane happened and this line jumped off the page: "It's our light, not our darkness, that frightens us... our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

That was right after I wrote this in a post on one of my groups:

"There's greater strength in letting things out or letting them go, than there is in holding something so tight it hides it from everyone."

There have been times when I've been on the verge (ok, lots of times, but most of it's been a bad thing) of greatness. I saw the bigger picture, I saw the greater life that's there for me, that's meant for me. I've felt the great hugeness of it all. But instead of rushing headlong into it, I might take a tentative baby step towards it, but ultimately I crumple, I fold, I turn away.

Why? Because it scares me. The hugeness and magnitude terrifies me. Because I don't have the confidence in myself to really achieve what I CAN. Because it means leaving the world I know behind and changing a lot - for the better, yes, but it's different and unfamiliar. It's the insecurity of feeling that I don't really deserve it. It's the insecurity that the I won't be able to live up to the responsibility that comes with it. It's the fear of really, really opening myself up, allowing myself to be vulnerable. Because it means changing from fear to faith, to see possibilities instead of problems.

The question is, what to do next?

So what does this have to do with weight loss? Nothing. And everything.