Fear is a motherfucker, ain’t it? Truth is I wouldn’t be sitting exactly where I am if it wasn’t for a big ‘ol dose of fear, which is good because I am happy (wow, I just wrote that) with exactly where I’m sitting. Happy doesn’t mean easy or without challenge and utter red-faced, head exploding blood-boiling frustration. Happy is knowing that those frustrations will come and that they will go and that even though it will feel like I can’t handle them sometimes, I will. So will you. It is what it is. Life sucks sometimes. Well, actually whether or not life sucks is a perspective so I’ll say that it’s rough sometimes. But so is the ocean and she sure is pretty at the same time she is rough.
Growing up my mom said, “Oh honey, you’re a worrier just like your mom.” That was so comforting to hear back when I was a wee little baby friend or angsty teen but today not so much. These days I sit in classrooms for, literally-seriously, like 27 hours over one weekend and discuss the origins of anxiety, how they relate to attachment theory, how that relates to our nervous system and how breathing and yoga and psychotherapy and even Freud and so on are all about our connectedness as humans in our experience as humans on Earth. (I know, right?) Maybe someday I’ll tell you about the Symptom Goddess. Now I want to know the origin of what causes dis-ease in the mind, body and spirit. There’s always an origin, a seed that was planted along they way. Because if cartoons taught me anything in life, it’s that knowing is half the battle.
The scariest, most fearful time of my life was around 2002-ish. My 28th year. It was the scariest and also, shocker, the turning point. I was living alone for the first time. I knew I needed to experience living by myself. That combined with a bunch of other factors left me feeling depressed. I deal with bouts of sticky depression today but that 28th year scared me and I didn't know how to create support or resources around it. It got bad but I kept a smile on my face at work and in front of people. Solitude in my apartment wasn’t invigorating it was purely lonesome. It was the kind of lonely that felt like it was going to last forever. Yes, this was the time that my love of writing deepened and my attraction to photography became a full fledged love affair, so there was that awesome stuff. Those two things gave me hope and release and helped me to find a creatively expressive voice. Two little flickers in the darkness. I needed more connection but the theme at this time was complete, near panic inducing confusion. I don’t mean the kind of confusion about whether to choose capers or kalamata olives for my salad (Oh my god, why haven’t I just tried both at the same time?!). I mean the existential crisis kind. Who the FUCK am I, why the FUCK am I alive and why DEAR GOD why am I still broke and working for the Sarah Palin of publishing? Yeah, you know, the fun sort of haunting, soul twisting confusion.
There I was. Alone, freaked out, depressed, confused and cross-eyed but with a pretty photo in my hand and a pretty good poem inspired by stepping deep inside of a Bjork song. I did have my imagination. Then one night I broke. I was pacing. I didn’t know where to put any of it. Not my folded laundry but all the stuff in my mind. It was a code red high spiritual terrorism alert. I feel to my knees that one night that triggered the shift. I fell crying from the deepest, most frightened parts of myself. I had no idea what to do other than ask for help. I looked up into the high, high ceiling of my old firehouse loft in North Philadelphia. I spoke out loud to no one and nothing in particular, just the universe that swirled around me. “Tell me what to do. I need help.” It was that moment. That one gut wrenching moment that got me where I am today. I was terrified to challenge my programming and live differently than how I was told I should live. I thought if I just followed the rules I would be safe and all would be fine. I was afraid it wouldn't work. I was afraid that I would fail. I had no idea what I was getting myself into but I had no choice. I was compelled to follow my gut. There was no other option. I asked a question and received an answer. It made no sense to part of me and the other part of me TRUSTED that it was exactly where I needed to be. Now, I have a mission, a purpose that is authentic; a calling. It’s the what in what I do at school and the what that takes place as I give a treatment. It’s the what the conjures a mostly continuous steam of inspiration from who-knows-where. It is what it is.
Truth is I get scared a lot. But I continue on in spite of it. I flow with the river instead of pushing against it even when my head clunks on a river boulder. Sometimes I even experiment and ask myself, “What can I do today that scares me?” You should try it for a week. One thing each day. Small, medium or large in size, size actually doesn’t matter. I’m sitting in a happy place because I decided that fear wasn’t quite as scary as it used to be. I changed my perspective. The great Laura Seaman once said, “It is what it is.” She was a master of this philosophy. She lived it daily and I became her student. Sure, it took a loooong time to sink in through my layers or what if and should. Nature works slowly and elegantly not fast and furious like how we prefer our technology. It was almost as if Michael Myers took off the mask and it was Honey Boo Boo underneath. Or Freddy Kruger pulled off his razor finger gloves to reveal a magic trick involving 26 scarves tied together and yelled, “Just kidding! Who wants cake!” at a children’s birthday party. In the end, just as everyone is freaking, turns out it was just a weird way to deliver cake. Delicious moist cake for everyone.
If I could give some advice to my twenty something self I might say, “Follow your intuition even when it feels scary. If you’re not sure, just whole-heartedly ask a question. Then sit and listen carefully. Sit down right on top of the giant pile of not knowing-ness. And yes, hot and humid weather is the devil spawn on Earth. Go west young man. GO WEST!”
When you get scared, just think about cake. Moist delicious cake.