👊 FEAR HAS OVERSTAYED ITS WELCOME! 👊
I’ve been afraid of rejection. ❌
I’ve been afraid of being misunderstood. 👤
I’ve been afraid of not belonging. 😨
Fear has spoken to me on MANY occasions, always knocking on the door of my mental home, including the very moment before I broke this board at#GYLS2019. 🏠
Fear is the primal instinct that lies within us all, the emotion which once used to be a necessity for our ancestor’s very survival. 💯
But here, now in our modern society, Fear has long overstayed its welcome. 👍
👊 FEAR HAS OVERSTAYED ITS WELCOME! 👊
Why? Because so many of us are now living in a day and age we’re no longer struggling to get our basic needs met. We’re no longer face-to-face with Death the way our ancestors were. 👥
I always remember this when I talk to my grandmother about her past and what she had to go through in her life. 👵
As a child, she didn’t know when she would get her next meal. Her family couldn’t always afford enough food for every child. She told me how hard it was on her mother not being able to afford to feel all her children an adequate meal. 😔
I compare the life she had to the ones many of us are privileged to live today, the amount of food and options we have available to us today, not a thought in our mind on whether we will get dinner or not. 🥗
It’s why every time I go to her house she offers me more food than I will ever eat. And when I tell her I’m full, she always will eventually offer me dessert! 🍪
You could say: “That’s just what grandmas do!” But I also remind myself she had a very different upbringing, one which most of us have never had to experience. She was raised in a time where she had no choice but to learn firsthand the value of not taking what she was given for granted.
It’s no wonder why today she’s such a selfless soul in so many areas of her life: she knows what it’s like to have very little, and she never wanted that for her family ever again. ❤️
I’ve learned a lot from her about being selfless. Hearing about her life’s problems have helped me come to understand the “problems” I complain about today are so minuscule in comparison. Compared to hers, I have it real easy!
One thing I can also assure you: when you open yourself to other perspectives on life, your views will expand in kind.
👊 FEAR HAS OVERSTAYED ITS WELCOME! 👊
And yet, Fear in our society has found a new home in our lives. But it’s no longer here to help us in getting our basic needs met. It’s migrated into new territory, into far more trivial matters:
😨 Fear our friend is ignoring us because they didn’t text us back
😨 Fear eating food will make us sick because it’s not labeled Organic
😨 Fear not having cell phone reception while traveling
😨 Fear our child won’t get into the prestigious college we want them getting into
These types of “problems” are jokingly referred to today as “First World Problems”. To put it another way: where Fear was once useful for our very survival has now migrated its way into the most trivial matters of our lives.
👊 FEAR HAS OVERSTAYED ITS WELCOME! 👊
It’s not to say Fear isn’t an important emotion or that we should get rid of it altogether. It’s to simply say Fear is not required in the same way it use to be. 👍
It doesn’t have to be inside our mental homes so much anymore. 😊
We are blessed to live in a day and age where the “problems” we care about today pale in comparison to the ones our ancestors once had to deal with. 🤲
And that’s why I punched through that board: because I decided trivial “problems” weren’t going to run my life anymore! Moments before breaking it I wrote on it “Fear of Rejection” and put an X right through it!
👊 FEAR HAS OVERSTAYED ITS WELCOME! 👊
I’m not saying goodbye to Fear forever. I will happily welcome Fear back the day a life-or-death situation actually arises. But for now, I let Fear know I’m staying in charge.
I am in charge of Fear! Fear is not in charge of me! 💪
💥 BOOM! 💥
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