Into the Unknown
2020 is giving us one huge wake-up call after another. It’s telling us it’s time to confront our fears. As a society, we’ve become adept at not facing reality, seeking out virtual realities in order to escape the painful one and developing detrimental coping mechanisms. It had to be something big like the Coronavirus pandemic to shake us from the somnolence of our complacency.
There is no way around our fears except to face them — to stare them in the eye and see them for what they are. Because it all boils down to one thing. Our fears, and the stories through which they play out, bring us back time and again to ourselves.
They echo the voice inside that says, I Am Not Good Enough. I Am Not Good Enough to survive this. I Am Not Good Enough to be loved. I Am Not Good Enough to be whole. I Am Not Good Enough to be deserving. I Am Not Good Enough to live in abundance. I Am Not Good Enough to be seen for who I am. I Am Not Good Enough . . . .
In times of perceived crisis, we scramble to resist our fear only to wind up feeding into it time and again. We ignore the wisdom that fights to break through, the one that reminds us that we are whole, capable, perfect and enough. Instead, we panic. Instead, we listen to media. Instead, we opt to believe the worst. We end up not only feeding the fear, but legitimizing our victim identities and perpetuating the lie that we are not powerful beings.
Yet, we are powerful. We are capable. We are enough. We have a right to exist and to live our lives. We are born with purpose, and we deserve to live out that purpose as fearlessly as possible.
We know better, but we fail to act on it because we’ve allowed fear to take up residence inside of us for too long. We’ve permitted fear to exist instead of compassion.
We have failed when it comes to exercising compassion, not with regard to others, but to ourselves. Because that is what the lessons of 2020 are calling us to do. To live our lives with all the awareness, compassion and purpose as possible. To face the options in front of us and to choose to live with an expanded consciousness as opposed to cowering and hiding in ignorance.
To do this demands we take ownership of our lives and responsibility for our bodies. Fear literally kills us from the inside out when we allow it to eat away at our wisdom and our knowing.
We are here for a reason, and we’re not going anywhere until we realize it in this world.
Death isn’t anything to fear. It’s merely the unknown that it signifies that’s truly eating us inside and has us running for cover. We don’t like the unknown because we’re wired to fear it. However, the only way to make it through is to embrace the unknown. To see it, not as the death of us entirely, but the death of the fears that will allow us to realize all the possibilities and potential that resides in each one of us.
We are all called to make a choice. Today. Do we succumb to our fears and surrender our power to them? Or do we burn through our fears, acknowledging that while they may have kept us safe and alive up until now, we weren’t allowing ourselves to really live or make the most of our lives? Because to live in fear means living within the narrow confines of judgment that dictate rules around right/wrong, good/evil, virtue/shame.
And any attempt to live out our truth or potential means going against the grain and stretching beyond our perceived limitations. Stepping outside of these confines makes us rebels and misfits. But if there was ever a time to be a part of a rebellion and choose another reality, this would be it.
And imagine how much better life would be if we could move beyond the feelings of doubt, uncertainty, dread and despair that fill so many of us at this time. Imagine, if you will, that there awaits something more beautiful and wonderful than anything we could have possibly dreamed? Because if we truly are as powerful as we know ourselves to be, if we are truly magnificent souls having a very human experience, and if we are to understand that we have too much to accomplish in this lifetime to succumb to a virus, then we can enable ourselves to transcend the very fears that keep us tied a world struggling to free itself from so much pain.