Right now, every day, each and every one of us is having to face down our fears.
Each of us harbor different fears — and each of us experience fear differently. But none of us can avoid looking at them right now. And though we may wish we weren’t having to do this — in fact, this is vital, necessary, lifesaving work for us all. In this way, we are all essential workers. Because the work of facing down fear opens the door to the healing Power of Love that so many of us have forgotten actually exists. And the Power of Love is the only thing that can turn our planet around!
We are all learning to become courageous in ways we had possibly hoped to avoid. The word courage comes from the French word coeur, which means heart. This is why facing our fears is so essential. It makes us realize that the healing and hope and help we are all seeking right now does not, cannot, come from our heads, but rather from our hearts — and from the hearts of others.
Right now, I think many of us are having wake-up calls, as we are coming to see the obvious and subtle ways that fear has tried to take up residence in our souls. We’ve kept ourselves as busy and distracted as possible to avoid acknowledging this. But now that we see how fear has tried to take up permanent residence in our psyches, that can feel even scarier than fear itself? We wonder: How did I become so fearful?
Well, actually this is a great question to start asking — because it can become that kick in the pants that forces us to begin to choose to wake up!
Now here’s the thing: Fear will always try to convince us that being awake is way scarier than staying asleep. Which is why so many of us have spent so much of our lives lulling ourselves back to sleep through overspending, overeating, overdoing, overachieving, overmedicating, oversedating, overdistracting ourselves. But how did we get here? How did we get so afraid of fear that we created these harmful ideas of security that have actually landed our whole planet right here?
Fear would have us believe that facing our fears is too scary. And fear always makes a convincing argument. It is the snake Kaa in The Jungle Book, who tries to lull Mowgli to sleep by saying: Are you afraid of me?
And when Mowgli replies no. . .Ka retorts: Sometimes fear is the only intelligent response, don’t you think?
NO!
Love is the only intelligent response! Fear is a warning system, a wake-up call.
That’s why we are all being called upon to be brave right now. But as you bravely face your fears, you need to be kind to yourself. Acknowledge to yourself that what you’re doing here is tough stuff. What you’re doing is very brave. Choosing your heart instead of your head. Choosing Love instead of fear. Facing your fears and inviting Love to heal them.
Did you know that one of the meanings of the word brave is “to make our lives splendid”?
Whenever we move out of our heads and into our hearts, whenever we begin to choose Love over fear, we begin to make our lives splendid. This is what you’re doing.
You are brave and powerful and amazing! Truly. And this brave you is the True You. . .And the True You is showing up just in time to save the day. . .and perhaps the world!
That’s why we all need to keep up our heart-centered practice of BEing Brave right now. This little act of courage — of leaning into Love — IS the only true superpower there is. So BE BRAVE!! And #LoveViral
If you’d like to hear today’s BE Brave practice, please check out this video.