Conquer Your Fear #3: Embrace Change!

February 20th, 2008

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
–Helen Keller

Next to social anxiety, fear of change, the unknown and attachment to “security” are the other biggest obstacles to truly living. This idea of security can be a powerful influence. We often prefer what’s familiar, even if it’s not in our best interest. The toxic relationship. The job you can’t stand. The “comfortable” life devoid of risk when you know you have the potential to be more. You know when you’re in this sort of situation, because you can feel it; your discomfort is your spirit longing to express itself more fully. Ultimately, the only true source of security is within — it’s a state of mind that you can achieve now, regardless of your external circumstances.

Life is perverse in the sense that, the more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.
–Brian Tracy, as quoted by John Clark

The fear of uncertainty is perfectly natural – but the truth is that security is an illusion; change and uncertainty are two of life’s constants. Resisting change only leads to stagnation and stunts our growth. But something I also learned from experience is that when you start making moves toward your passion and your highest good, reflecting more of your true self, the universe will respond by opening up new paths to allow you to keep going.

Life Lessons from a Supervillian

A wise friend once explained to me that the universe never wastes energy – it’s not going to lay a bunch of options in front of you that you may or may not overcome your fear enough to move toward. So, get to steppin’, and then you’ll start to see new opportunities. For some reason this explanation gave me the mental picture of Magneto in one of the X-Men movies. If you’ve never seen them, Magneto is able to control metal, and there’s a scene where he steps out into empty space and pieces of scrap metal are forming a walkway under him as he goes. This was a powerful image for me (hey, whatever works, right? ;)) — step out in faith and you’ll find yourself on your path. Even if it looks like there IS no way possible – I urge you to just start moving. If you don’t know what to do or don’t have any sense of direction, just do something different from what you’ve been doing, and if you don’t like the results of that, do something else. Don’t wait either – start moving today, even if you only take a baby step. You’ll start taking bigger steps once you reinforce your confidence, but you have to start somewhere or you’ll never start at all. If you’re thinking you have too many commitments and attachments and “responsibilities” to think about moving in a different direction, that just means your first steps need to be toward releasing some of them. If you’re not completely happy with your life as it stands now, and not living out your passion, then you owe it to yourself to try something new (and if you are, hell, write me a guest post and tell us how you got there. Heheh. :P)

Testing (or Being Tested By) My Philosophy

Once I realize something, like change, is a given, I tend to embrace it and do whatever I can to turn it into an asset rather than an adversary. I’ve found that this approach is great for reducing resistance and stress in my life. In keeping with my previous post about “arranging the playing field on your own terms,” after finally ending a mutually unhealthy relationship, I confronted many of my fears about change, security and social situations… by going on vacation.

My wacky adventure started when a long time online friend from Delaware invited me to head over for a visit. When I mentioned this in my personal blog though, I was suddenly inundated with demands to “visit me too!” Long story short, this evolved into an epic hippie-trek down most of the east coast. At the time this was a big step out of my comfort zone – I had a lot of anxiety surrounding things like being out of my element, meeting new people, having to be social for extended periods, getting lost and generally not feeling like my circumstances are under my control. As such I kind of knew this was going to be more than a regular vacation, and I was deliberately using it as an opportunity to confront a lot of stuff at once. But by this time I had been taking deliberate (though smaller) steps out of my comfort zone for a while, often just to see what would happen.

In the weeks leading up to it, and during the trip itself, I was definitely tested. Everything about it from the order of the visits to the actual people I’d be visiting kept changing as people dropped in and out of the arrangements, and the whole thing looked to be on the verge of falling apart several times. The day before I was supposed to leave I even discovered someone had yoinked my suitcase for their own vacation, thinking it was theirs, and at that point I couldn’t afford a new one. To say I was getting tense is an understatement; I was frequently worrying about what I had gotten myself into, even thinking I was probably a bit nuts for agreeing to all this (luckily for me my sanity has often been the subject of debate :D). But every time something changed, I made it a point to remain calm and kept reaffirming that everything would go perfectly, exactly as it needed to. Right before I left I happened to hear from my mom that she had been out and stumbled upon a suitcase even better than my old one that was being sold at a fraction of the regular cost because of some small cosmetic defect. I took it as a good omen.

The testing didn’t end once the trip began, either. It started out with security taking too long and my gate being changed after my layover… resulting in me running across Phoenix airport with my belt and boots in one hand, holding up my pants with the other, and getting let onto the already closed plane by amused employees, which is a lot funnier now than it was at the time. I did get completely lost in the baffling labyrinth that is Penn Station in NY… and then managed to find and board my train at 1:33 that left at 1:35. There was another day when I had an all day train ride across several states into PA, but still hadn’t heard from the next person to know whether I had a place to sleep that night.

But you know what? By the time all was said and done, the whole thing went off even better than anything I could’ve planned myself. Nothing went so wrong as to be a serious problem, I had a great time, and came back with a lot of good stories. I attribute this to the fact that I surrendered my concept of security and trusted that things would turn out fine. The whole experience had a profound impact on my philosophy and approach; even the course of my life itself. Years after the fact, I also see that trip as “training” — without that, I’m not sure I would have been able to suddenly pick up and move over to the UK, when the opportunity presented itself within a span of a few months. But it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I’m still getting confirmations along this crazy journey that I’m continuously moving toward fulfilling what I came here for: my soul’s full self-expression.

Now it’s your turn: what did you do today to move toward your highest good?

–Palehorse

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