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Sometimes I can’t relax. I might be sitting with friends or family at dinner, walking on the beach or doing something that looks like a dream moment from the outside, but I am just not there. I’m scared.

My adrenals are still pumping. My day has been one of cutting crisis off at the pass, dealing with difficult people and getting nervous about things I may have missed or forgotten. There is now no risk of any significance yet my adrenalin still has me wired. Scared. Anxious.

What am I scared of? What is this anxiety? Why can’t I switch off and enjoy just being happy?

I try to rationalize it away yet something inside of me, something that should not be ignored, says I am not safe. That at any second this magic moment will be shattered by something unpleasant.  I want to switch the angst off but maybe this angst is sending me a message I need to pay attention to. So I keep listening for the message.

Oddly it is not anything rational that I am scared off. Not the death of a loved one. (Actually if I was more aware of that possibility I would probably love them more and be a better person.) Nor am I worried about massive financial collapse or personal injury. Oddly it is the smaller stuff that I notice I am worried about. Small things, that feel massive.  Small things, that when you drill into, if I failed at, would agravate people. I am worried what people think. Worried that I am doing something wrong. Worried that I have let someone down. Worried I am getting life wrong.

“Shit, I should have emailed them by now.”

“Damn, I never asked them about their holiday.”

“Feck! That’s too days without exercising.”

“I should never have said that!”

“Arrr…  I drink too much coffee.”

“What day is it?! I think I was meant to call them today?”

“I have wasted my day! What am I doing with my life?”

The mental chatter and the angst accompanying it draws me into activities to please the world around me. Time with the people I love is given up to tick off another task on the never-ending to-do list, in the effort to feel safe. I am sucked into the illusion that if I just get this thing done I can relax.

The truth is, when I am like this, when I am in fear, I don’t actually know how to relax. I am lost.

I see evidence of my reactionary lifestyle alive in every second email and interaction; they all begin with “Sorry…”

“Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you.”

“Sorry I am late.”

“Sorry I couldn’t get there.”

“Sorry we couldn’t get it done it time.”

“Sorry to ask you.”

“Sorry to bring this up again.”

“Sorry I’ve let myself go.”

“Sorry I am slowing you down.”

“Sorry I keep apologizing.”

It is a life of apologising; for failing to meet the expectations I have invented people have of me.

Yet there are other times when the same situations do not provoke guilt and apology from me.  Times when I am in a different space; living life fully. At those times I am centered.  I get back to people when I do, arrive when I do and call when I feel inspired. At these times I am fully present. Fully happy inside. Oblivious to the calamity in the world around me. It is bliss. It’s a type of heaven. It’s like a holiday for the soul and I didn’t have to travel anywhere to experience it.

At these times I don’t apologise for how my life intersects with other lives.  It is not an obnoxious disregard for others or my legitimate responsibilities. Instead it is a keen awareness of how I want to live. Clarity of what I think is important, what I value and what I give priority to. I am measuring myself. It is not the external stimulus and expectation I am responding to, but my internal voice.

At these times I am the master of my time and my actions. I am not living on adrenalin. Not reacting to the stimulus of emails, texts, meeting requests, phone calls and pressures to keep up with the Jones’.  I am putting all activities that are helpful to fashioning the life I want, for myself and those I love, first. Everything else is seen as noise and distraction. I allow it to fall through the cracks.

At these times I have a powerful awareness that I am never ever safe from the negativity, anger and judgment of people. That is always going to happen; it’s unavoidable. Nor am I ever safe from the emotions associated with failing. Never.

Whether I spend every day people pleasing, placating every negative voice around me, or if I make outrageously bold steps to achieve pipe dreams, the emotion I experience if I fail is the same! It’s identical.

If I play small or attempt something huge, people will still talk, judge, laugh, assess, critique, raise eyebrows, whisper, gossip, invent and know better; so I might as well give them something to talk about!

We kid our self that a small failure won’t feel as bad as a big failure, but it is the same emotion. It’s the same! If you fail trying to please people or failing creating your life; it is the same emotion! The same risk! The reward on the other side of the risk however is radically different!

We will never be safe from something going wrong so we might as well fail attempting things that are worth while. We might as well be bold! Take massive leaps! Try ambitions things!

You are not safe and neither am I. And when someone, maybe you, fully comprehends and absorbs what that means, that the risk of moving forward is fundamentally the same as staying still, you become free. You live brave. You create a life you want to live and the fear is silenced.

 

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