But The River Is Wide, And It’s Too Hard To Cross?

“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 doesn’t 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 write often on courage or fear, truth or lies, and on choice or indecision.  First and foremost I touch on these topics because I want to know what I have to say in regards to them – my point of view comes into much better focus when I force my consciousness to take the form and responsibility of the written word.  As a happy side effect, I have the priveledge of feedback from friends and readers.  The feedback and resulting conversations run the full spectrum of human perspective and experience, and frankly throw definitive truths right out the window on more than one or two occasions.  We all see each other and ourselves through unique eyes.

I have taken from this observation, my own particular way of learning people.  I try not to shape my opinion based soley on my own perspectives, but I try to look at what the person across the table or counter or airport terminal etc. is basing their opinion of me on.  I put some thought into what I do and say and I think and I know the “why?” questions of my life pretty well, so how does someone else’s perspective differ on my truths?  What does that tell me about theirs?

I have an ability to make people feel comfortable, to feel wanted and to feel like they can be around me without fear. As I try to remind myself often, the hardest and the best thing is to live without fear, to live in the moment. I hate being afraid, and I hate feeling weak and unwanted, and I do everything in my power to help other people from feeling those emotions as well. I like being a guide and a lighthouse for other people’s emotions, I like helping them find their way. I’m very good at it.

At least, that’s what I think.  I’ve had it pointed out to me that that part of my personality is also very frightening, very surface level.  Fear, I’ve been told, weakness and vulnerability may be painful but, “at least they’re real.”  Fear cannot be faked, but strength can.  You know the people that think like this, they do not trust you and will never be safe around you until they can break you, take you apart to see what is really there when all of your stregth and good has been stripped away.  People like this need to see you as you are without choice and the power of deduction, everything cleared away save for instinct.

But we are human, yes?  The phrase, “we’re only human,” has taken on the connotation of “flawed,” that we are prone to err as a species.  I know we’re not perfect, but I do so despise the word “only” in that phrase.  Fear, yes, is natural.  But a unique priveledge of being “only human” is that we have options.  In the face of fear we have the choice to stand up to it, to “act” brave even though every animal instinct of our being is telling us to run.  So we act in spite of our fear, and we find it hard to think oursleves brave because the feel of the fear runs through us like a cold river, and our bravery seems merely a bridge above the whitewater.  The river is a natural phenomenon, the bridge manufactured.  However, does that make the bridge any less real?  Anything less than reality is not going to suspend us above a river.  In fact, I think what we have made of our own will is a stronger statement to the truth of who we are than the natural phenomenons of our character.  We have seen the truth, accepted it, and modified ourselves and our lives to build above and beyond and over it.  We shape, not simply accept.  I cannot see anything more true than our actions.

I like being a guide and a lighthouse for other people’s emotions, I like helping them find their way. I’m very good at it.  And, I’ve become even better at it since I have learned to do it with more honesty. It isn’t my job to make other people feel good about themselves by accepting the instictive side of their personalities – it is my priveledge to nudge people in a direction where they can find themselves, grow, take action and to feel good about the actions they take on their own, without false pretenses.

I know I don’t always have to be strong, and act like I know what I’m doing, because I can be weak and unsure as well. However, I will refuse to let anyone tell me that I shouldn’t always strive to be a stronger person. I won’t let anyone tell me that I don’t always have to be strong just so they can see me break. I need to remember that when I look for the truth in other people, I find it in myself as well.  And when I look for the truth in myself, I’ll find the people I want to know already there by my side.