Facing Fears

Meg is such an inspiration wouldn’t you say? I’m glad that I could be there to help her conquer a fear of hers. What a great blog post about acting, and not letting our fears paralyze us. It really got me to think about fears in my life, and if I am acting or being crippled by them. I came to the realization the past couple weeks that I am being crippled by a fear that I have had for many years.

            I have a fear of having authentic conversations with people, because I don’t want my words to hurt those who I am having a conversation with. After reading Megz blog post though, I had an opportunity come into my life to use the things she taught to act instead of being paralyzed. A friend of mine confronted me about some actions of mine, and what she thought that they meant. I was hurt and shocked by the accusations that were placed on me. At first, I just wanted to run from the situation because I was afraid that if I tried to talk about this with her I would just lose control of my emotions and say something that would hurt her like I was hurt. I had that post come to mind, and made the decision then to act. I told myself that it was important to set the record straight and talk about my actions and the intentions behind them. I was terrified, but as I chose to act we were able to talk about what was going on and get things resolved. Had I not made the decision to act, things would probably be a lot worse.

            My friend Mal pointed me to this message from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He says, “Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.” This really helped me with the worry that by being honest in this authentic conversation I might have hurt this friend. I felt right about the things that I said, and from this message was able to find hope that the best would happen. I am pleased to report that while things aren’t perfect, by my acting we were able to work things out. Things are on the mend, and we were able to change things before it got to the point where more hurt was going to happen.

            Trust in the greatness in you, and the ability you have to overcome your fears by acting. I love the line from We Bought a Zoo where the dad says, “You just need to have 20 seconds of insane courage.” Sometimes good things happen in small steps. So don’t be afraid to keep moving no matter how small the step. We all have to start somewhere.

Yours truly, Beth