Doing Brave
- Doing brave? Yes, doing brave.
Brave isn’t a word I used in my vocabulary until recently. In fact, I would say I’m probably the most unbrave person there is. You won’t find me climbing rock walls or jumping out of airplanes. I very at home in the mundane. I like routines and I don’t like surprises. I’m an over-thinker and an over-planner. But, as a writer I realized I had something holding me back from taking some needed next steps with my writing. It’s a nasty word. The ‘F’ word…
Fear.
Then someone said the words to me, “Kim, you’re hiding.” I didn’t like that statement. I had what I thought was a reasonable explanation. But, when I sat in silence and thought about her words, I realized that yes, I was hiding.
Here’s how I faced some fears and I’m far from overcoming them, believe me.
First, you need to understand how fear works. Fear is from the enemy and it overjoys him when he can get us to succumb to fear. The scripture in 1 John says that perfect love casts out fear. So, when fear captures our hearts, there is less of God’s love in our life. I know it’s hard to fathom when we say, when I SAY, that I love God with all my heart, mind body and soul. But, the math of the scripture doesn’t lie, does it? “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 NIV
Empowered by that scripture, I knew my battle plan for fear. Love God even more. Trust God even more. Proclaim my love for Him. Love others. Love myself. Now. When I talk about loving myself, I’m not talking about a bunch of airy-fairy stuff. But, when we don’t have enough healthy self-respect, we will say horrible things to ourselves. Surely I’m not the only one who does this?
My path to helping me overcome some of my fears was finally respecting myself and loving myself enough to do for myself what I often tell others to do for themselves.
First, I enrolled in a course led by someone who has walked the path of abusing food and has overcome her struggles. Those three months were mind blowing. We never even talked about food plans which is the EASY step, believe me. No, instead she had me work on some mindset issues and asked HARD questions that helped me dig to the roots of my food issues.
The crazy thing is that some of the deep work she had me do related to food issues are really LIFE issues. I started peeling back those issues, and you know what happened? Some of my fears about other things started to crumble away.
What has that meant for me recently?
- I did the brave thing of putting here on my blog about the writing club I organized and some mentoring packages I offer to writers.
- I opened up a virtual Accountability Studio writers and creators to help them move forward with their writing dreams.
- I finally submitted the children’s book manuscript I’ve been working on and sent it for review with a traditional book publisher.
- I committed to an 8-month commitment with this coach to help me pull other areas of my writing and authorpreneurial world together. (By the way, at the time of this article creation, she is still taking enrollees.)
- I said yes to ghostwriting a children’s book for someone.
And this has all happened in the last three months!
Here’s my closing thoughts…
There is a good fear, and a bad fear. Bad fear keeps you stuck. Good fear moves you forward, with reluctance =)
If you are experiencing fear, wrap yourself in God’s love and step forward…
Do the brave…
