The Journey from Fear to Freedom

Not long ago, I stood exactly where you may be now. I was living a life of suffering and loneliness. I had done all the right things, read all the right books, gone to all the right workshops, and watched all the right movies, but I was still miserable. It felt as if I waited for my authentic life to start, like I lamented on the sidelines with no idea how to get into the game. I was always busy, weighed down by the daily tasks of being a mom, a wife, and a businesswoman, yet I never seemed any closer to fulfilling any of my true desires. I was plagued by feeling like a failure and feeling inadequate and stupid. No matter how good I was at something, I beat myself up for not being better. I suffered from a crippling case of perfectionism. My fears overwhelmed me every day: fear of success, fear of being abandoned, fear of being laughed at, fear of not living up to others’ expectations, fear of losing the man I loved, fear of being left alone, fear of being humiliated. Let’s face it, I was afraid of being alive! How had I gotten to such a place? How had I become a woman frightened of everything? Where was that radiant, confident woman I knew I was supposed to grow up to be? I had gotten seriously off course! I had to find my way back to the real me. Like most women, I knew I was meant for bigger things. I had always searched for that higher calling, and I knew other women searched for it, also. I wanted to let go of my ego and find myself again. I wanted to get out of my own way and be that person who lived in fun, joy, abundance, light, and love. I’ve been holding my emotions within myself since I was five years old. I remember a time when I knew it was not okay to show my emotions. My parents had hired a babysitter for me so they could go out on a date. I was ticked off they would leave me with someone I barely knew and were going out without me. I went into my bedroom and threw a royal temper-tantrum, hurling my stuffed animals all over my room. When my dad came in to say goodbye, he asked me what I was doing. I lied to him about my feelings of sadness and anger. “Oh, I’m just playing a game.” When I was a senior in high school, I remember making a conscious decision not to dream anymore because many times in the past I had dreams, and they had never come true. Why continue to dream when I would always be disappointed? Since that time years ago, I was already stifling my emotions and not dreaming; I was miles away from the person I wanted to be. I had to break through all that and learn to be myself. I had to do it not just for myself, but for women everywhere who have lost their way and have given to everyone and everything except themselves. This book relates my quest into my authenticity, my fun, my power, my love, and my bliss. I invite you to go along on this odyssey with me. Spirit is connected to everything. Spirit being connected to everything was a new way of thinking for me. That said, I believe “we are spiritual beings having a human experience,” which I didn’t entirely understand until March 2008. That phrase was on a bumper sticker on my son’s girlfriend’s car. Like most Judeo-Christians I had grown up with, and for most my adult life, I believed God was an entity people prayed to, and if they were good enough, did good works, and behaved correctly, God would answer their prayers. In reality, the subconscious is an emotionless database of stored programs, whose function is strictly concerned with reading environmental signals and engaging hardwired behavioral programs, no questions asked, no judgments made. The subconscious mind is a programmable ‘hard drive’ into which our life experiences are downloaded. ~ Bruce Lipton, The Biology of Belief God was outside me, my judge and jury. Now I believe God is everything. We live out our lives as human avatars to encounter that which spirit cannot. As in the movie City of Angels, as spiritual beings, we do not feel emotions, such as love, happiness, anger, or sadness. As humans, we feel emotions, and we cannot appreciate one emotion without feeling its opposite, yin and yang. There is one universal subconscious mind, and it is not personal. Letting go is difficult. I should know. I’ve been attempting it for months. Letting go takes a shitload of courage that, oftentimes, I feel I do not possess. Somehow, I have always known the answers are inside me. I have determined all I need to do is give myself permission! I know this may sound suspiciously like psycho-babble and perhaps a bit too easy. It’s okay to let go of the old patterns and messages that have guided you your entire life. Take the leap! If you’re anything like me, and I speculate you are, change things up! I couldn’t continue any longer on the same approach. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to let go in order to take the next step and make for myself the life I had always imagined. It took practice. I make it happen. My mantra is Practice Makes Permanent. Making a change will feel strange for a while. Little by little, it will get easier. I will warn you, when you come to a fork in the road with a big lesson to be learned, it will feel really crappy. I’ve noticed lately when I’m working through a monster lesson, it rears its ugly head again, and again, and again. This would be the time to recall the movie Groundhog Day with Bill