“Your destiny reveals itself when you confront your fear and make conscious choices.”
-The Fearless Factor
What are you willing to leave behind?
Everyone has suitcases, trunks, and closets full of stories. You carry this weight to show you have gained experience, so you can justify why you feel the way you do, and stop yourself from moving forward. It is the baggage of your life.
In the Oscar winning movie, The Mission, Robert de Niro plays a conquistador with a long history of violence and mayhem behind him. He finds God, and in order to repent, he climbs a mountain to work at a mission high up in Northeastern Argentina called Las Missionas. As part of his self-imposed punishment, he hauls an enormous sack of heavy silver armor up the mountain. Although it nearly kills him, he is determined to pay the price and won’t let the weight drop. Eventually, the priest, played by Jeremy Irons, helps him realize he can let it go…drop the whole damn thing over the cliff and move
along.
Earlier in my life, I was like the conquistador. Just as I had suffered the mayhem and chaos of other people’s lives, I too left a trail of mayhem and ruined lives behind me in my early years. The wounds of generations are strong and usually keep repeating until someone has the courage to break the cycle. In my early therapy sessions, I was damned if I would give up the wounds easily, and damned because of holding on. Letting go of old wounds, old habits, old behaviors, old truths, sometimes means you have to climb the mountain to let them go.
When you travel, you carry everything with you in your luggage. Your toiletries, clothing, equipment – everything goes with you in your bag. When you know that you are responsible for carrying it the entire trip, you may be surprised at how selective your packing becomes. No one wants to carry more than they need, because an extra few ounces can become unbearable when added to a full pack of essential supplies.
Thinking along these lines, it is easy to see that there is no need to carry extra clothes, shoes blankets or any items you aren’t going to need in your luggage, but you often choose to carry emotional baggage that is just as useless and potentially dangerous. You’ve got to dump the entire contents out on the ground and figure out what you’ve got in there that doesn’t belong.
What is weighing you down and paining you over and over again? What are you finally ready to leave behind?
In my own life, I was running scared for my first forty years. I buried my fears in overworking, over-pleasing, over-controlling, over-compensating behaviors that left me dried up and exhausted. I was tired of surviving. Tired of waiting to be found out, tired of doubting what I was capable of becoming. Dumping out the contents of my life was a painful process, but I knew if I did not do it, then it would destroy me.
It is the tragedies, disappointments, and struggles that really help you to appreciate the fullness of who you truly are—but only if you are willing to confront and move beyond them. It is important to “Know Thyself” in order to appreciate the gifts of your life. But sometimes it just feels like too much. Sometimes it seems that living through the difficulty is accomplishment enough; while turning the experience into a positive state of learning is simply too much to ask.
The mind is a powerful place. Everything you are, everything you experience, everything you create in your life is a product of your mind. The mind is always creating and interpreting. It is conditioned by what you believe. It is your own, personal reality based on these perceptions. This is where your biggest fears lie, and your biggest opportunities exist.
When you learn how to confront the obstacles, accept the challenges, and go beyond the barriers of the past and the negativity of your own mind – these barriers disappear. The mind does not discriminate. You do. You are the master of your own fate if you wish to be.
“Your destiny reveals itself when you confront your fear and make conscious choices.”
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“Jacqueline Wales says fear is a normal part of our existence, but the challenge is in recognizing that it is a powerful motivating force as well. Through the stories and questions asked in this book, you will find the motivation to overcome your own fears. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever wanted to live a more fulfilled life.”
