People who are willing to feel fear and even feel the feelings they fear (we are afraid of feelings, y’all) have the advantage. People who are able to be with the discomfort of rejection, disappointment, embarrassment, and reframe failure as learning, and try again, have the advantage.

Are they going to figure it out and eventually find success? Likely.

I’m willing to walk with fear and be uncomfortable so that I can continue to iterate, learn, and create the life I want to live.

I hope you will join me.

Image is by Sean Icasia

Worrying about something isn’t going to inoculate you from something really bad happening.

I used to believe that: if I’d worry about something, somehow, it’d be less terrible if it ever really did happen. That’s bullsh*t. That’s living the tragedy you are trying to avoid, every damn day. That serves no one!

I know you worry about your kids, too. Brené Brown cited some research in her new book, Dare to Lead, that found 90% of parents imagine something terrible happening to their child.

All that does is take away your joy and waste brain clock cycles.

A few months ago I found these words falling out of my mouth, “I was lucky that my husband got cancer.” I laughed at this profound change of perspective.

Think about a painful event in your life: you got fired, or not chosen for a team, dumped by a girlfriend… some event that really hurt at the time but no longer has a sting to it. Maybe you can even laugh about that now or view it positively; you can now see that good things came out of that painful experience.

At the time, that event was deeply painful and you couldn’t foresee that one day it would turn into a quiet, perhaps even funny, memory. The reason it no longer stings is because now we have perspective: we have a more balanced view of reality. We know the terrible and the good and — all of that, together, is the truth — right? The negative and the positive are true. 

When we “search inside ourselves,” we are following a desire in all of us to be ourselves - to do what we want to do, to play, be happy, be curious, move our bodies. It’s us, we find, uncovered from the dust of past hurts, anger, and fear.

What mindfulness practices do is help us rediscover ourselves, our best selves.

Take yourself on the most secure, happy, proud, content day, a day where you genuinely feel safe and secure, loved and life is good! Mindfulness practices help you find your best self and live more of your life in your best body and headspace.