What do you do when the path gets scary?
Walking along the path of your choosing can sometimes be scary.
This is frequently because in choosing your own path in life, you will incur both internal and external criticism. The internal is the result from when you step out of your comfort zone; the external is the reaction you get from those around you as you break from the accepted norm.
Pathwalking is about choice. It is about consciously creating our own reality, and seeking out our own destiny. This type of choice is something many people decide not to make, and because it’s not the tried and true, it’s going to cause some disconcerting and possibly negative feelings.
In Into the Woods, one of Stephen Sondheim’s lyric goes, “Though it’s fearful, though it’s deep, though it’s dark and though you may lose the path, though you may encounter wolves, you can’t just act, you have to listen. You can’t just act, you have to think. “
This is quintessential to Pathwalking. When you encounter that fearful, dark bit along the path you can’t just take action. There has to be thought. You have to pay attention to what is happening, and feel what the outcome is going to be. You have to decide if what you are feeling is a warning for your protection…or rather, if it’s a reaction to breaking from your comfort zone.
Fear of the unknown.
Recently, walking my own path, I came across a situation. A choice. I moved this blog from the nice, comfortable host it was with to a new host, where I can take it to a whole new level, and do far, far more in the way of customizing and optimizing it. I have been taking an online course, and reached a point where it was suggested I create content that required the more advanced hosting option.
This presented me with two concerns. The first, in changing things over I might lose what I already have created and worked so hard with for the last five-and-a-half years. The second was a somewhat substantial (to me) financial outlay.
To grow, this change was absolutely necessary. I had spent a couple weeks researching this shift, figuring out the best host and the best deal, researching creating options to make changes to some of my other domains down-the-line, and investigating how to maintain the existing content. I lamented about it, checked, rechecked, and checked out all the options again. I hesitated. I debated.
Did I want to truly walk the path of my choosing? Was I ready to make this change? Was I in the right place to go ahead and do something different?
Take a leap of faith.
I went ahead and took the steps I knew were necessary for this. I realized that my fear was not a warning that I was in some form of danger, it was the familiar expressing fear of the unknown. It was my comfort zone reacting to perceived discomfort. It was the me I was fighting the me I am, and the me I want to be.
Who we are, in the here-and-now, is a result of our thoughts, feelings and actions of the past. Really. This is why thinking about, feeling out, and then taking intentional actions in the present is so powerful. We cannot undo the past; if we see what we want as the future, it will remain in the future.
That is the concept I find hardest to grasp. I constantly feel like I am on the cusp of creating what I want, on the verge of consciously creating my desired reality…and because I keep it just ahead of me, just about to happen, it never manages to actually happen. So close…but not yet there. Or rather…not yet here.
This time I recognized the fear for what it was. It was the self-sabotaging reaction to change. I took a deep breath, and I ignored it and made the change. You may have noticed the blog looks a bit different today, as such. This is just the beginning!
Disempower the fear.
When you reach one of those scary moments along your path, you are the only one who can feel or not feel the fear. Nobody else is in your head but you, so you are the only one who can make the choices about what you want your reality to look like.
In this instance, you can’t ignore and neglect the fear, you have to look at it, get to know it. Only by acknowledging it can you determine if this fear is truly present to protect you from harm, or if this fear is a reaction to change, and stepping outside of your comfort zone.
It’s actually easy to tell the difference between real fear and perceived fear, which is what I’m writing about here. Real fear is certain knowledge that there is danger. It’s generally tangible, like being an antelope on the Serengeti surrounded by lions. A real intangible fear will feel the same, a clear and present, immediate danger.
Perceived fear is not in the present. How can you tell? It is usually attached to the words What If? What if I choose this and I fail? What if I succeed? What if I get it wrong? What if I get it right? When you recognize this, you will see that it’s about fearing change. Because it is an intangible, and not an immediate danger, you get to choose to disempower the fear, and move forward past it.
Walking along the path of your choosing can sometimes be scary. But when you are consciously creating your reality, you are manifesting a life that is exciting, fulfilling, and full of endless potential.
What have you done when you encountered scary moments upon your path?
This is the two-hundred eighty-fifth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for and my personal experiences with walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.
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