Fear

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” 
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

My aunt always says, “If you’re going to worry, why pray. If you’re going to pray, why worry?”

I think about this saying all the time and I can hear her voice saying it to me but the truth is I’m not fearless. Fear has stifled me. So many ideas, dream and opportunities and I can’t begin to count the times I let fear stop me from going for it. I’m not just afraid to fail, I’m afraid of success. Crazy right? I think so too.

How could one fear being successful, happy, living their dreams? I can’t answer the question but I know this is my reality. Even here in this my “private” space, I fear expressing how I feel. Sometimes I don’t update for a week or more and when I think about it all boils down to fear. I don’t want this to be a place of woah is me but sometimes I can’t function in this space because I’m not truly being me. I’m not showing my vulnerability. I’m not sharing my story. I’m not being authentically me. For my birthday I wrote about my Happiness Truths. But yeah fear is a real part of my reality and it interferes with my happiness.

So today I’m throwing caution to the wind and saying it:

“I am afraid and I’m sick of it!”

37 years old and I still don’t know how exactly to get past this but what I do know is I’m not going to hide it. It’s a part of who I am for now anyway. It may never fully go away but I want it to be so tiny, I hardly notice it’s there because right now it is the elephant in the room, the desert in the storm, the one grey cloud in the sky. No longer will I hide how I feel or stifle my vulnerabilities. To truth is, there are many times FHM goes silent because I don’t want to show this part of me. But what’s the point of that? That all ends right here and right now. Bare with me, this is a part of my story. All of it is all of me.

So hello loves. I’m MJ, I’m a wife, a mom, a sister, aunt and friend but I am also afraid. And you are?