Stepping Over Fear

I’m so very excited about the new website and all the amazing programs I have in the queue for the coming months!  Be sure to check out Ink and Ecstasy, Inside the Rose and Girls Unlimited! (And watch for the astounding Retreats coming up!)   These are all big programs I’ve been dreaming of offering for years.  Yes, years!

It’s been a while since I posted here because, well, I’ve been so incredibly busy pulling all the notes from these projects out of the filing cabinet, dusting them off, revitalizing them and bringing them to manifestation.  Today, I have enough breathing room to sit and write.

I want to talk about fear.  You know fear, right?  That pit-of-the-gut instinct that says, “Play it safe!”  Or, “You cannot possibly pull that off.”  And, my personal favorite, “Who do you think you are?”  When fear is really tricksy and embedded, it can even generate a never ending supply of distractions, crisis and More Important Things to deal with than tending the seeds of our dreams.  Just when everything looks and feels like it’s a “go,” something big comes along to pull us off track.  Cue the circus music and envision acrobats, elephants, clowns and lion tamers.  And who’s the Ring Master of your own private circus?  That’s right, Fear itself.

Now, I have a truckload of tools for dealing with fear.  I can befriend it, listen to it and transform that bound up energy so it’s available for more useful purposes.  And, I’ve done that diligently for years.  But, lately, I’ve been working a different angle when the circus comes to the town where my biggest dreams reside:  I’ve been stepping right over it.

I’m a pretty fearless person.  I’ve taken risks and lived out on the edges of “normalcy” for as long as I can remember.  But, when the Big Dreams want consistent attention, I cower.  Or, I sit in the audience and watch the inevitable circus act play out again.

These past few months, I’ve acquired the mad skill to notice the elephants, clowns, acrobats, lion tamers and the Master of Ceremonies and say, “You suck.  You’re boring.  It stinks in here.  I hate clowns.  I’m leaving.”  And then?  I walk right on through the fear and get stuff done.

Examples?  (drum-roll from the circus monkeys, please)

1.)  I walked right through the three ring circus (oh all the circus folk were there) and talked to a publisher.  And then?  I sent the proposal.  I don’t know what will happen, but I do know this:  I will never shy away when I run into all those people who ask me, “Where is your book, Karina?  When am I going to be able to read your book?”  Because, having stepped over fear, once, I’ll do it again and again until that book is in my hands–and yours!  Stepping over that fear made me just about invincible.  No kidding!  I can take on the world, baby!  Watch me!

2.)  This website.  I am a technophobe.  I want to point, click, copy, paste, delete.  HTML code is like, another whole language.  My incessantly whiney battle cry has been, “I don’t know how to do this!  I don’t want to do this!  Somebody else do this for me!‘  Guess what?  I built this website.  I asked for some help and got it (thanks Justin and Cairelle).  The learning curve was really steep but I kicked its ass.  And now?  I am not afraid of technology

3.)  Girls Unlimited! :  That beautiful project has been wallowing in a folder in my filing cabinet since 2006.  It’s up and advertised and networked and ready to roll.  Can I tell you how excited I am to work with young girls as they face adolescence?  My gods!  It tears my heart wide open wide and flowers and bluejays and music come flying out of that wide open space in my chest!  Pretty amazing, right?

4.)  When I got overwhelmed by the amount of (unpaid) work I was generating for myself, I begged for volunteers to help.  No takers, because it seems the people I keep around me are all busy beating back their own fears and (gasp!) building their own big dreams.  Funny how that happens:  You teach people to Dream big and Be big and they actually do it.

Fear said, “You cannot pay someone.” It said a lot of other true, factual things along with some untrue, emotional things.  But, I won’t bore you with the details.

I said, “What’s Most True is that I cannot afford to delay my dreams any longer.”  I stepped over fear, threw a couple lines into the water and hired an assistant two days later.  I can hold off on the expensive haircut and cut a few more corners.  Can I just say what a huge deal it is to say the words, My Assistant?  

This list could get extensive, but I think I’ve made my point.   Fear no longer wins.

I’m not saying that the tools I’ve been employing all these years didn’t work.  They did!  They still do!  They’re the most profoundly transformational tools I’ve ever learned (and I’ve attended a lot of workshops in my day).  I’m saying that it’s because of those tools that when Fear comes to town with his Circus, I can see it for what it is — foolish distraction.  Why sit in the audience amid the stench and noise when we should be walking toward our own really big show?  Why hang out with clowns when we’ve received an invitation from the Creatrix to help continue what She started?

Step over fear.  We are each harbingers of  healing and truth.  The immensity of the gifts each one of us brings to the world  is unparalleled!

Bring it.