I’m one week into my journey of facing my fears as a way of life, and I’m not sure how I’m feeling. This has been a strange week, with a high current of emotions as I began to dismantle my life in many seemingly small ways. I’ve had some victories and some…situations that I will gently refer to as setbacks.
Improvements
I’m proud of myself in some ways. I’ve watched myself do things that I’ve been avoiding for ages, like getting my hair cut short, looking out over a nice view, and becoming more honest with the people around me. In many ways, I’m impressed with how much I’ve managed to improve over a week. I’ve become more honest with myself too, about things that I genuinely want to do, but have always been too afraid to admit for one reason or another.
In this way, I’m starting to already see the benefits I had hoped for from this journey. More and more, I am able to conceptualize my life taking a different form. One that’s not so monotonous, anti-social and sheltered. I love quiet nights in and introspection, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. That being said though, my tendency to reach for the same old thing every moment of every day is beginning to dissipate, at least mentally.
I’m beginning to see my goals more clearly, as my fears start to take a backseat. I wouldn’t say that I’ve made great strides in overcoming my fears or reconfiguring my life. However, I have accessed a new viewpoint where hypothetically at least, some things are more important than the fears that accompany them. Even if the fears are real or understandable.
Low moments
That being said, there have been some points in this week where I have definitely disappointed myself. You can always do better, right? And I haven’t always lived up to my pledge to just force myself to do the things that I’m afraid of. There have been things that I decided “okay maybe I’m not ready for that yet” or “I think that’s enough fear facing for now” and just let it go.
I’m not sure how I feel about these moments. On one hand, I did have a specific idea of how this challenge would look from the onset, and that was not to be giving myself pats on the back for a job done well enough. I wanted to get real and vulnerable and deal with this fear predisposition once and for all.
Big picture though, I think I’m doing that still. I have seen improvements, as I already mentioned. But I think there’s also such a thing as going too far out of your comfort zone. I don’t want to push myself so much that I fall apart and burn out on this journey, especially if that leads to me just giving up and deciding that living in fear isn’t all that bad. Because it is. It really is. I can’t live a life so far away from my true dreams and desires anymore, that would be horrible to go back to.
That’s where I’m at one week in. Let me know, are you following along and trying to face your fears? I’d love to know I’m not alone in this. I appreciate all the support I’ve been given in this journey so far, and I hope that at least one person out there feels like they can start living a more empowered life, in spite of their fears. And to move on to the next week’s update, click here.
