~Sharing (18) in the Progression Into Beauty project~
Almost four years ago (wow!), I wrote a blog post called A Life Without Fear? which was a profoundly powerful exercise for myself which, in turn, caused all sorts of upheaval in my life because I had brought some very tender fears out into the open. It created the opportunity for me to face into everything I had been unwilling to face in my life. As I faced into writing this piece for my program, that particular piece came back to me and I decided to revisit it and read it through. WOW!
I’m appreciating that I did that exercise back then because I can see which fears I have gone through, blown apart and released to the divine for assistance. I can see where I’ve reclaimed my power, where I’ve let go and where I’m still holding on. I can also see what perceptions have shifted from fear to understanding… interesting… I just had a typo in that sentence. When I went to type out “fear” it actually came out “freaer”… read that out loud… FREE-ER!
It’s true. I do feel free-er of fear in many realms.
These days, I have less money than I have ever had in my entire life and, somehow, there is very little fear and mostly peace. I am learning about money, beginning to understand it and I have faith that, as I do, money will become my friend. It’s hard to be friends with someone that you fear or don’t understand. That has been my relationship with money for as long as I can remember and, as I shift into a more easeful awareness and interaction with my money, I see it shifting my awareness and interaction elsewhere also.
For me, faith is an internal practice of freeing myself from fear by infusing the fear-filled experience with love. Faith, for me, requires love to exist – love of myself, love of the Divine. And, right now, quite possibly in that order. However, I heard, as I wrote that last sentence, “you and the Divine are one in the same, Angie.”
I have come understand that life is full of the unknown and of continual changing. Both of those aspects are fear-inducing and, therefore, I could live my entire life in fear. Without stepping into the unknown and being willing to change, there is no growth, there is no transformation, there is no ME because, truly, life IS growth and transformation. When I cower in fear and choose to do nothing about that except cower more, I drain my own power into a source that is indefinable and inaccessible.
Falling in love with myself has been one of the biggest leaps of faith I’ve ever taken. I am a person that likes to know exactly how to do it before I set out to do anything. I want to know the rules of the game so I can do it right the first time and not waste my time or yours. I want to know the best way to go about it so that my time is spent wisely and I can move on to do another thing just as perfectly. It isn’t about the need to be perfect, for me, but rather about doing it once and correctly so that I can move on to the next amazing thing presented to me, rather than redoing something I’ve already done that wasn’t up to snuff.
So, when it came time to really pursue this “love yourself more” stuff and no one could tell me how to do that, I felt stumped. Many times in my life, I’ve stood at the edge of a chasm, atop the precipice of a cliff or on the boundaries of an abyss and I’ve had absolutely no idea how I was going to get to the other side, which I could clearly see and knew that that was where I was needing to go next. And the longer I stood there, the bigger the fear got and the more I shrank and the more I got still and the bigger the fear grew.
What I’ve finally come to understand is that, for me, faith is an act of love and movement is an act of love and if they are both an act of love then they are equal to one another (hello! That’s my math brain talking there! Cool!). Therefore… faith = movement. Actual, physical movement. As long as I am standing still, fear can catch me and then all hell breaks loose.
Well! That is a delicious awareness!!!
(Image found: http://theaccidentalextremist.com/2009/02/over-the-edge-the-abyss/)
