Looking Fear In The Eyes

I took a huge leap into the unknown. I laid my perfectionism down, looked fear right in the eyes and leaped into my authentic power. I didn’t rid myself of fear and perfectionism, they were there by my side, but I sure as hell didn’t allow them to convince me I wasn’t good enough and didn’t have ALL my ducks in a row and ALL my shit together to be… perfect. I took them right along with me on my new journey. I used them as fuel instead of allowing them to drain me. I would even go as far to say, we became friends. All of a sudden, the bandwidth in which I view the possibilities of what I can accomplish has broadened immensely and I have some revelatory thoughts on fear I want to share with you.

Recently, my wonderful friend, Lewis Howes invited me to speak at his “Summit Of Greatness” event in Columbus, Ohio. Now, I do speak on stage in between songs, as my 12 year old stepson so matter of factly pointed out, and I have given a 5-10 min speech here and there, but never have I gone out and truly shared from my heart for a half an hour on a topic. After Lewis broke the news of it being a half an hour speech, my fear kicked into high gear and I may have avoided texting him back for a couple of days, and he wasn’t letting me off the hook. Hey, that’s what friends are for! He did throw out the option of doing a q&a, so my speech could be a little shorter and I had already been spinning my wheels to come up with a creative way to fill 30 mins of space. Our visions collided and I knew I couldn’t say no. I have been wanting to expand out into the world public speaking and with the support of a friend, a safe space to express myself and a free day that just so happened to land during my friend’s event, I got the very loud hint that this was the universe presenting me with the opportunity for massive expansion. However, a YES didn’t easily come rolling off my tongue. I could have absolutely talked myself out of it, especially with how busy my schedule has been. I’m exhausted, I have to travel there and then to a show right after, I only have a few weeks to prepare…. whatever I could come up with, my mind created it… and I said YES anyway.

When the day came, I was nervous but calm. I was excited, actually! To be all shades of honest, I was now able to embody this nervous, but calm-ish state because I had already allowed all of the dense, difficult emotions to move through me. The week before I felt really depressed for two days because the fear was THAT debilitating. It was throwing my body into freeze mode. All I did was lay around the house. I did recognize what was happening though, so I laid around and witness what fear was doing to my body and I gave it space to have its way with me. Once that passed, I had another moment the night before the event where the fear was bubbling up, so I called my husband and cried to him over FaceTime. This was the exact moment that my stepson popped his little head in and reminded me that I knew exactly what I was doing. Kids honesty can be incredibly sobering!

For the sake of this story not taking forever and a day to tell, let’s just say my speech went FREAKING INSANELY WELL!! I had so much fun conquering my fear! The audience was deeply receptive. We laughed, we cried, we chanted. Yeah, we chanted! On top of it all, I lead my first meditation and created a chant that I summoned everyone to sing with me. “I am human. I am holy. Grace renews me. It’s LovE that guides me.” I’ve never been one to dip my toe in the pool… actually on the literal end, I have been because I’m not a fan of cold water, but figuratively, I’ve never been the toe dipping type. I go big! My first national anthem performance was in front of 65,000 people at 10 years old and I think that pretty much set the stage. It was only appropriate that the first meditation I lead be with 2,000 people. And I must say, it was deeply moving and healing! Every single person opened their hearts and chanted with me. I am forever changed from this new experience and FULL OF EXCITEMENT about what I want to create in the future. My dream is to combine music, wellness, chanting, meditation and openhearted sharing all into one unique, life changing experience and this was just the beginning of the universe showing me what is possible. And fear, fear is what lead me here! Because of fear, and my will to kick its ass, I opened a new door on my path. Here’s my take away from this experience when it comes to fear…

1. Invite fear in. Get to know what it does to your body. Does it make you want to fight, flee or freeze. Become really aquatinted with it and let it have its way with you for a moment. Remind yourself that fear is the liar and that LovE is the truth. LovE on the liar, the fear. LovE on the little one in you who is afraid and then take one small step in the exact direction that fear is telling you not to. Return the text, write the email, make the phone call. In my case, when I was frozen on the couch, my tiny move was to start dreaming up what I wanted to say. Even just one thought that felt good to me allowed me to begin to come back to life. I didn’t have to dream up the whole idea right then, but just one piece of it started moving me out of my frozen state. 
2. Use fear to the fullest! Be vulnerable and verbalize the fear. I used it in my speech. I got so real and expressed what was going on inside of me in real time. Everyone in that room related to being “scared shitless and doing it anyway”, as I put it. Make fear work for you! 
3. I heard someone say that fear is just excitement. Flip that script for yourself! I WAS excited and I chose to tune into my excitement more than my fear. I renamed it. Whoever said that was right. It works! 
4. In order to be able to dive into your fears in this way, you have to do the inner work to be able to hold yourself in whatever emotions and situations arise. You have to be your inner child’s greatest, most compassionate parent and that my friends takes WORK, especially if we didn’t grow up in a compassionate, non judgmental home and the inner voice in our heads is a tyrant. Because I have done work on this for myself, I was prepared for anything… failure, embarrassment, shame… I was even ready to allow the joy, pride and success in. I was ready to celebrate my little one too! This piece is HUGE! 
5. Step into SERVICE! When we begin to understand that ALL of our experience is being used in service of the whole, every breath, every word, every experience, pieces that make up a gigantic puzzle, way bigger than we could ever fathom, we loosen the grip on perfection and begin to understand that even our flubs and our flaws, all of our mistakes are gifts, to us and to whomever else needs to experience them in the moment in order to shift something in them or give them permission to be more of themselves, more whole. 
6. Trust! This one is SO IMPORTANT! Trust that whatever comes through is what is meant to. Prepare yourself, but be in the moment and allow spirit to work through you. THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC IS! 
7. Remember, any negativity or judgement that comes back at you from some one else is a reflection of them. There’s a time and place for constructive criticism, but only from those you trust and even then, you have to trust yourself and what feels good to you first and foremost. When you do something others aren’t doing yet, when you are leading the way, you will find that negativity will come your way from others who want to break open and take the leap like you are doing, but who aren’t willing to let go of their fear just yet. DO NOT INTERNALIZE THEIR FEAR AS YOUR OWN! 
8. Remember, FEAR IS THE LIAR AND LovE is always the answer! 

I LovE you!