Recognizing Fear

Fear is a funny thing. It's not real... it's not concrete. You can't look at it and say, "Yea, that's some gnarly fear there."

Instead it lurks around, shows up with some funny feelings in your body, and oftentimes gets your mind racing. Once that mind is let loose, you can go round and round until you don't know which way is up.

Now I'm not talking about intuitive fear that lets you know when something is wrong or the fear that keeps you from doing something that could put you in jeopardy. I'm talking about the fear that holds you back and keeps you small. I'm talking about the fear that is so sneaky you're not even sure it's fear.

If you don't take the time to stop and think about it, it can seem like some pretty good reasons for not doing something. The mind is pretty sneaky that way. It knows just what to say to keep you in your little box. You know it really just wants to keep you safe. Unfortunately safe can mean stagnant.

I've dealt with a lot of fear in my life. As a kid I can remember being home alone and scared out of my mind. I can remember the sound of my dad's car pulling up in the driveway and the jolts of fear that ran through my body wondering what kind of mood he was in. I have a childhood of memories that revolve around fear.

In my family being strong was the holy grail. Fear was a weakness and I was taught early on to toughen up and be brave. I guess a part of me felt that being afraid meant I was weak and I wasn't about to be weak so I learned to ignore it.

The thing is, years of ignoring something makes you pretty numb to it. It makes it difficult to recognize it and if you can't recognize it you can't deal with. So what's a girl to do?

Soul Art® of course ;o)

The above piece was created with my favorite travel watercolor set some black markers. If you look closely you can see some symbols that are placed right on top of the flowing colors. Those symbols represented my mind and my fears. They were the one thing I didn't like about the piece.

It became very clear to me that what's underneath those symbols of over thinking and fear is the perfection of the Universe, the flowing state of trust in what is happening for the betterment of my soul. Those symbols were the distraction that were keeping me from being in the flow and blocking the perfection of the Universe.

I always say that recognizing our behavior is the first step to changing and I absolutely believe that. You can't change something you don't even recognize. I have to say that by regularly doing Soul Art® around issues in my life I am speeding up the process of healing. It's so awesome!