Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

Park-side Blues

I tore out of my house this morning to go for a walk. I slept really bad, didn’t wake up till late. Some of you are going to immediately pat me on the pack for being all healthy-like. But the truth is, I went for a walk to buy coffee and cigarettes. Pretty much the opposite of healthy living. And now I’m sitting in this park, looking at the water feeling like I should be writing a blues song.
I’ve been watching (and helping) other people in my life work towards their dreams, and I’m not doing anything for myself. I’m watching my life slip by me while I get all mopey and do nothing to achieve what I want. I’m in this class on leadership and personal development and I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing for myself. Like I’m in the mud spinning my wheels. I can’t even get my diet on track and get out of the house to run. If I can’t even do that, of course I’m not writing or working on my long terms goals.
In this class, we just had this Big Conversation about failure, that there is no such thing as failure, there is only a lack of performance. Well, I have it that I’m failing right now which makes me not want to perform at all. I’m always going to be a failure so why even bother preforming. My brain, the crazy Fat Girl side of my brain is knows with every ounce of her imaginary being that she’s never going to have the life she wants, things are never going to be easy, she will always struggle just to get by. And I’m exhausted by that. I’m exhausted by the struggle, good portions of which are imaginary.
There’s a lot of catch phrases in this course that distill down big ideas. One of those catch phrases is “context is decisive”. Context is like the glasses you put on to view the world and its thru that context that everything gets colored and informs your choices and your outlook. My context right now is that I’m never going to be successful and I’m never going to have what I want, or something along those lines. It is a context of failure. I keep watching other people be successful, celebrate wins, go for what they want and I sit back and whine to myself and eat junk food.
So, if there is no such thing as failure, only a lack of performance, how do you shift out of a context of failure? I guess the first thing is to get straight about preformance. Results are based on the quality and quantity of your actions. The quality and quantity of my actions are lacking and thus prodding the results I have in my life. I don’t have a book deal because I’m not writing. I don’t have a full time job because I’m not applying for them. Weight is slowly creeping back on because I’m eating like junk food will disappear tomorrow. You know what, I’m in Tomorrow Mode. “I’ll do that tomorrow”. “I’ll eat responsibly tomorrow.” “I’ll apply for that job tomorrow.”
The results I have right now are based on actions I’m going to take tomorrow.
So what’s stopping me from taking action today?

And the Crazy Fat Girl that lives in my head says:

I can’t wear that because I’m afraid that people will think my butt looks fat in those jeans.

I will only run at night because I’m scared people will laugh at me.

I’m gonna scarf this cupcake in the bathroom because I know some one will think oh she shouldn’t be eating that.

I’m totally not talking to that hot guy because he’s going to think I’m fat and ugly.

Do you notice a pattern here? There’s this voice in my head that stops me from being the person I want to be, from being the person I am, because I’m afraid of what people are going to think, say or do.

Here’s the tricky part – I don’t actually know what people are thinking. That voice in my head is making it all up. I don’t know that the guy I’m afraid to talk to won’t like me because well, I’m scared so I won’t talk to him so I’m never going to know. My head just assumes that is what’s going to happen so it becomes so real for me that this make-believe fear just cripples me and I end up taking no action.

And let me take this fear ride one step further – Say I ditch all the negative voices in my head and be who I am and who I want to be, there’s a fear that I can’t live up to that. I want to live an awesome life and make a difference for people, and what if I can’t. What does it say about me?

You know what it says about me? Nothing. It means nothing until I CHOOSE to give it meaning. And since I’m apparently making it all up in my head anyway, I can make it mean ANYTHING.

I’m really tired of that. I’m tired of being afraid of things that aren’t real. I’m tired of backing out of life. So hold on to your shoelaces people, fear doesn’t own me anymore.

What are YOU afraid of? What does fear stop you from doing? And are you ready to give it up with me?