Do Not Be Afraid...
This is what it must feel like to have a heart attack...
Chest pounding, sweat dripping and eyes wide open.
I know this room, I hear the birds signing their song outside, I am not having a heart attack. It was just a bad dream. I can't get the image of me squeezing the life out of my child in a crowded airport by the conveyor belt. See, just a few minutes ago, we had arrived at this foreign place and we were tired and couldn't wait to get our luggage and move on to the next leg of journey. The exhaustion didn't keep his curiosity at bay, to some extent, I worried that he suffered from FoMo, (Fear of Missing Out) and his little eyes were darting from up to down left to right, up and down. His little mouth could barely stay closed. I must have taken my eyes off him for a split second to grab a bag and when I turned back he was gone!
Truth is, when I found out I was going to be a mother, I was afraid I would not make a good one, and the day I went into labor, I was afraid that I didn't have the strength to bring him in to this world, and then when I woke up from the anesthesia, I was afraid that he had been switched at birth with another child down the hall from us and on the day I reported back to work, I was afraid of leaving him alone with a stranger and then I was afraid to leave alone with a teacher. Such a cycle! Always living in fear!
As I run up and down the airport, afraid that I had lost him, or that he had been taken (and even though his name is Liam, he is yet to be as big and strong as Liam Neeson...)! There were all these possibilities but I couldn't push through the thoughts and distractions in my head to allow clarity and focus because of the fear that had been a part of my life for quite some time now. Fear of anything and everything. Nothing specific really, just fear...turns out the little man just wanted to understand how the conveyor belt works. This was just a dream, I know that this things do happen more often than anyone would want in real life.
Now, I apologize for torturing you with tales of fear and with dreams but as I was grabbing my chest to keep my heart from jumping out but I now realize that a vast majority of us adults go about life living in fear.
I'll be honest with you, I've been afraid of writing because I have been afraid that no one would dread, and when they did read I was afraid they would not like it. And when I got some positive feedback, I was afraid they would judge me and eventually I stopped publishing the posts for the world to see. I continued to write over the years but I allowed fear kill my passion. I recently received a forward from a Whats App group about this ten (10) year old who has already written three (3) books. She has somehow overcome her fear of what everyone thinks and gone on to chase her dreams. I don't know when that courage we have as children goes away as we grow up. I don't know if we kill it ourselves with each birthday we celebrate or with each milestone we archive. Or is it with each disappointment life deals us? Each failure? Each success?
Like me, many of us are afraid of the unknown. And for that reason they have refused to get into relationships, or refused to get out of toxic ones. Some are holding on to jobs that drain the life out of them for fear of trying something else. Some are afraid they love too much and are not loved enough. Some are afraid they are bad friends or parents. Some are afraid they are too fat or too skinny or too short or too tall. Some are afraid they have failed, some are afraid their dreams are beyond their reach. Each and everyone of us deals with some sort of fear, but each f us is we trying to stay a float, an we are on a mission to find a better way of hiding it than others.
Over the past few months, I have been reading a lot about most of the people we see on TV (Movie Stars, Musicians etc) or even quote in our day to day lives like Mahatma Gandi. I started to follow up on their stories to learn how they grew up to be so fear less, and I came across Will Smith's Instagram and realized that there is no reason to be afraid, because it will only ruin my day. I realize now that just like the rest of us they have many fears, but how to succeed is by choosing whether or not to we let that fear become the reason we never reach our full potential. I guess it is time to reinvent ourselves, by being always in motion and by deciding each day for ourselves: forward or backward. (Original quote by James Altucher)
And hopefully, as we continue to journey on, we shall one day realize that God Placed the best things in life on the other side of Fear -Will Smith.
Chest pounding, sweat dripping and eyes wide open.
I know this room, I hear the birds signing their song outside, I am not having a heart attack. It was just a bad dream. I can't get the image of me squeezing the life out of my child in a crowded airport by the conveyor belt. See, just a few minutes ago, we had arrived at this foreign place and we were tired and couldn't wait to get our luggage and move on to the next leg of journey. The exhaustion didn't keep his curiosity at bay, to some extent, I worried that he suffered from FoMo, (Fear of Missing Out) and his little eyes were darting from up to down left to right, up and down. His little mouth could barely stay closed. I must have taken my eyes off him for a split second to grab a bag and when I turned back he was gone!
Truth is, when I found out I was going to be a mother, I was afraid I would not make a good one, and the day I went into labor, I was afraid that I didn't have the strength to bring him in to this world, and then when I woke up from the anesthesia, I was afraid that he had been switched at birth with another child down the hall from us and on the day I reported back to work, I was afraid of leaving him alone with a stranger and then I was afraid to leave alone with a teacher. Such a cycle! Always living in fear!
As I run up and down the airport, afraid that I had lost him, or that he had been taken (and even though his name is Liam, he is yet to be as big and strong as Liam Neeson...)! There were all these possibilities but I couldn't push through the thoughts and distractions in my head to allow clarity and focus because of the fear that had been a part of my life for quite some time now. Fear of anything and everything. Nothing specific really, just fear...turns out the little man just wanted to understand how the conveyor belt works. This was just a dream, I know that this things do happen more often than anyone would want in real life.
Now, I apologize for torturing you with tales of fear and with dreams but as I was grabbing my chest to keep my heart from jumping out but I now realize that a vast majority of us adults go about life living in fear.
I'll be honest with you, I've been afraid of writing because I have been afraid that no one would dread, and when they did read I was afraid they would not like it. And when I got some positive feedback, I was afraid they would judge me and eventually I stopped publishing the posts for the world to see. I continued to write over the years but I allowed fear kill my passion. I recently received a forward from a Whats App group about this ten (10) year old who has already written three (3) books. She has somehow overcome her fear of what everyone thinks and gone on to chase her dreams. I don't know when that courage we have as children goes away as we grow up. I don't know if we kill it ourselves with each birthday we celebrate or with each milestone we archive. Or is it with each disappointment life deals us? Each failure? Each success?
Like me, many of us are afraid of the unknown. And for that reason they have refused to get into relationships, or refused to get out of toxic ones. Some are holding on to jobs that drain the life out of them for fear of trying something else. Some are afraid they love too much and are not loved enough. Some are afraid they are bad friends or parents. Some are afraid they are too fat or too skinny or too short or too tall. Some are afraid they have failed, some are afraid their dreams are beyond their reach. Each and everyone of us deals with some sort of fear, but each f us is we trying to stay a float, an we are on a mission to find a better way of hiding it than others.
Over the past few months, I have been reading a lot about most of the people we see on TV (Movie Stars, Musicians etc) or even quote in our day to day lives like Mahatma Gandi. I started to follow up on their stories to learn how they grew up to be so fear less, and I came across Will Smith's Instagram and realized that there is no reason to be afraid, because it will only ruin my day. I realize now that just like the rest of us they have many fears, but how to succeed is by choosing whether or not to we let that fear become the reason we never reach our full potential. I guess it is time to reinvent ourselves, by being always in motion and by deciding each day for ourselves: forward or backward. (Original quote by James Altucher)
And hopefully, as we continue to journey on, we shall one day realize that God Placed the best things in life on the other side of Fear -Will Smith.
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