Why Worry Part II – Braving the Storms

Photo credit: click from morguefile.com

I debated a long time in my head whether to start this follow-up to Why Worry with the pros or cons.  Let’s get the cons out of the way first.  I made a whole bunch of mistakes in prepping for the festival.  However, every one of them provided me with such useful information, I wouldn’t change a thing had I to do it all over again.  Now, moving forward, there will be many things I will do better.  Without those mistakes, I would never have even been able to learn those lessons.  Some things are only learned in the Doing.

The pro’s are numerous and many.  I am OVERFLOWING with GRATITUDE.  People rallied together for me in a way I could never have even imagined.  I feel so, so, so supported.  There could be 20 blogs filled with the various acts of support that I experienced the last week.  Before even leaving New York, people were showing up to help me with rehearsal, running lines, etc.  My director commuted hours into the city & kicked ass in shaping the piece.  People who didn’t really know me well opened their homes for me to stay.  Both places were miraculously walking distance to the majority of the venues I had to be at.  My video angel could not get to the festival so he sent his camera with a friend who was driving back home to Maryland.  His friend lives a forty-five minute drive away from the venue in Mt. Rainier but he and his wife drove recorded the show and then handed the camera off.  Unbeknownst to me, someone I knew was driving in from the tri-state to see the show had made arrangements to get the camera back to my video angel.  One of my troop members braved the unforgiving heat on a long public transportation excursion to reach me and was nothing but supportive once there.  The tech crew of the space was amazing with the VERY limited time they had to see the shoe cues.  Unsolicited transportation showed up on time exactly when it was needed.  Every.  Single.  Time.  It was needed.  I was touched by many angels.

I met interesting people like a woman who runs the Washington Writer’s Retreat in Mt. Rainier, MD. Had an amazing conversation about the challenges and benefits of living life on purpose with a man who teaches non-violent communication.  Both of these happened in a wonderful place called Urban Eats Cafe.  Oh, if only NYC afforded cafe owners that much space!

I learned that despite having:

• to pull an unexpected amount of weight in producing a show when I should have been handling the marketing of this show
• my car burning out of the blue
• to pack up everything into boxes and get out of my apartment for emergency repair of a cracked building beam
• one of my best friends dying in a freak accident and having to hunt down next of kin so he could have a proper home going
• only having 15 minutes to prepare the tech crew to run the sound & lights for the show (with the sound tech of the show that was starting in 30 min needing to get into the booth)
• a severe storm that led to warnings for people not to drive and stay home the night of my show (2 million people in the DC area were left without electricity the following day)
• the house manager of the space rushing me (after I was let into the space 40 min late at no fault of my own) & warning me over and over again RIGHT before I go onstage that the electricity would probably go out, the space could flood and so I need to think of how to cut my show short.  She also walked out on the stage when my troop member was performing to give her a flashlight…  just in case.

I can still show up and do what I say I am going to do.  Despite challenges we can still show up and do the best we humanly could under the given circumstances.  I wanted to cancel weeks before.  I think it would have been understood.  I showed up anyway, simply because I said I would.

I started to keep a list of all the miracles that were occurring, choosing to release the challenges that were present.  I could have easily beat myself up for all of my numerous mistakes but what good would that do?  Nothing.  There’s value when we choose to learn and go forward.  It has been a great reminder in the importance of self-care, putting oneself first and asking for help.  It has been an exercise in giving fear the middle finger.  A lady came up to me after the show and said,                 “Your show touched me, I think you’re right but it’s scary.”  So many times, we never jump in for fear of doing something wrong, fear of failure, fear of success (and the responsibilities that come with it), fear of what others will think or say, being paralyzed by fear period, analysis paralysis (getting ready to get ready and never actually starting because of our perfectionism), etc.  Fear doesn’t go away necessarily.  We do, however, develop the skill to act despite fear.  The more we do it the easier pushing through fear becomes.  We can have worked that muscle quite a bit in life and the fear still presents itself.

I say all this to say that worry was not useful in any way during any of this.  So, why worry.  It doesn’t help us.  Brainstorming solutions serve us.  Taking actions towards resolve serves us.  Staying present and taking care of what is before us now serves us.  Worry does not.

I’m working on a list of Lessons I’ve learned From Risk…  Maybe that will be a future post.

I Must Not Fear NO

I must not fear no but embrace it.  Every no does, indeed, get me closer to a Yes.  Why is this so difficult to remember sometimes?

I’m sitting in one of my “café/offices” this morning.  There’s a proud Dad bragging that his kids first word is yes, not no.  This is surprising news to many in the café.  It is usually the first word we get command of, isn’t it?  Well, mostly because our parents have to protect us from our own naïve curiosity about this whole new world we landed in.  We hear no a great deal initially.  However at that point it does not stop us.

I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.” – Louise Brown

However, it feels like, right when released from the need to have our care takers tell us no, we pick right up where they leave off.  We tell ourselves no.  Again, it is typically thought to be for our own well-being & safety.  We are the boss of protecting us now!  However, this No word is given way too much power.  We can spend weeks, years & sadly lifetimes No-ing ourselves in to never stepping outside of our comfort zones which is where all the fun is after we pass this uncomfortable threshold.  I have to remind myself of this often.  This week even.

I sometimes imagine that had I not have been blessed with so much rejection in my life, I’d be paralyzed by no.  I might give no too much importance.  I might try my darndest to avoid hearing no at all.  Accepting & collecting no’s as I head towards Yes seems to work great for me.

What do you do to battle &/or overcome fear of rejection or not wanting to hear no?

Fear is…

FEAR (Photo credit: Daniel Bevis)

Fear is a strange little creature.  It’s like the boogie monster when you’re a little kid.  None of us ever saw Mr. or Mrs. Boogie.  See, we don’t even know if Boogie is a boy or a girl.  Yet, we accepted that we should fear him/her/them/zier?  That’s one of the earliest lessons we get about accepting the reigns of fear.  I don’t think we ever truly analyze how this boogie monster manifests itself in us as adults.  We grow up.  We know the boogie monster isn’t real.  That realization just seamlessly happens.  There is no trauma involved like there is the first moment some children find out there is no Santa Claus.  Yet, as adults we allow fear to paralyze us all the same.  I know I do at times.

Boogie's jogging suit (Photo credit: lili.chin)

Fear is nothing but the boogie monster of adulthood.  It’s not real.  It is way more alive in the imaginary ‘soap opera’ we build for it in our minds.  Yet, we accept this fear to be accurate just as we did with Boogie.  There are areas in my life where fear is like Boogie – nothing but a realized lie that I push through like the imaginary foe it is (I mean, I eventually have to leave the bed to go to the bathroom even though Boogie is waiting to get me under the bed, right?).  Unfortunately, there are those other areas where I cuddle up with fear as if it’s an imaginary friend.  It keeps me company while I suspend fully living.  I’m not talking about things like the fear of fire, or crossing a street filled with fast-moving traffic.  We KNOW those things will harm us.  Fear in those cases has a fairly solid foundation, right?  But what of those uncharted places where we have no experience or concrete case studies.

fear III (Photo credit: siette)

How could we create a hypothesis in these cases?  Well, we can’t.  I know, “never say never”.  However, in this case I am going to take a bit of creative license.  The only way to find out is to jump right into the proverbial fire.  This isn’t safe.  It’s a risk.  Think about it, though.  How many times have we been TERRIFIED about something just to get to the other side discovering that what we imagined was way worse to non-existent?  What other things could I have been doing with that time I was worrying?  I can NEVER get that time wasted on worry back.  It is so not worth it.  But here’s the thing.  Sometimes, we get to the other side and we don’t reign triumphant.  See, fear is right this time, we may want to believe.

Fear #1 (Photo credit: Ladik)

I call bull$#!+.  There is information, education & value in that experience.  We can take that information, run back to our imaginary cuddle boogie buddy fear who will be waiting with wide open arms while screaming I told you so!  Or we can adjust & try again.  Do it differently.  Discover that we don’t want to do IT after all and do something completely different.  The possibilities are endless.  Imagine if we never tried again after first tries such as riding a bike, swimming or learning to walk as a child for the first time.

Fear (Photo credit: miskan)

One of the best lessons I ever got from a mentor is JFDI (Just Effing Do it)!!!  Eff the fear and do it anyway.  Hear that Essence?  Oh, you guys can listen too if you wanna.  We never know what new discoveries are awaiting us on the other side of it.

“Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom” – Marilyn Ferquson

Related articles

• We can Deal with Fear like the Navy Seals with the Breath and Practice (ptsdawayout.com)