All year long, I have navigated resistance that seems to get heavier by the day, at times feels like depression; shape-shifts as needs be; takes on oh-so-many elusive forms; mutters in my ear that I can’t do it, that I shouldn’t do it, and even questions what is the point of doing it; finds excuses, blames others, drains me of all willpower to go forth. Resistance!
Where is it coming from? Anyone who has known me for a long time can attest that I am pretty much as strong-willed as it gets. I have never had any issue plunging into the unknown if intuition strongly told me to do so, never doubted my purpose, my path, or my mission. Only now, as the start of my professional life, which I have strived for for so long and in so many ways, draws closer, do I find myself pulling back. Shrinking. Disappearing. Resisting.
I long to hide in my bed under a large blanket fort and to spend hours in the shower letting the hot water run over me. I daydream about running back off to South America to a life of backpacking, sunshine, and blissful anonymity. I sit in my room pondering the immense privilege that it is to be in graduate school, to explore Jewish mysticism, and to have the opportunity to develop professionally as an arts therapist. I think to myself: do I even want it badly enough? What is going on, that I simply can’t make myself step into it?
The Reverend Pam said to me: “The fear of stepping into ourselves is a place from which you can connect to others. We are lending courage to one another.” But why am I so afraid? I think of the words of Marianne Williamson:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, Our presence automatically liberates others.
I think she’s right. I think there’s nothing more terrifying than truly becoming who we are, of stepping into the fullness of our glorious light, especially when it ruffles feathers, when it’s not yet acceptable to do so, when we feel that the world might not be ready for us, when we love to please, to tell others what they want to hear.
So what am I learning? I’m learning that all my excuses, fears, and doubts are just Shame manipulating me in ever-more creative ways; that Shame is just another name for Ego, a comfortable cage of illusions, which cuts us off from our divinity; that this cage is the true weapon of the powers that be; and that fears keep us from stepping into the fullness of our power, into that immense freedom, which has the ability to truly, deeply, rock the boat.
And so, with care I hold the stories that I tell myself about who I am; I borrow from the faith that others have in me, which sometimes is more than I have in myself; and I work to put one foot in front of the other, little by little, day by day. One day I will look back on this time and be grateful that I kept showing up. – Emilie Alex S.
