F E A R

I'm just going to come out and say it. FEAR is stupid. It paralyzes us and keeps us from doing what we know damn well we need to do to make things happen. And for what?

There has to be some benefit to it. Evolutionarily speaking, fear is what kept us alive for a whole lot of generations. But nowadays getting eaten by larger predators is not that much of an issue, so we have started manufacturing fear for ourselves. So much so that someone came up with this lovely grammatically flawed acronym which speaks volumes about what holds us back:

It kinda looks like one of those goofy poems that all of us wrote in grade school, doesn't it? If only it weren't so freakishly astute! Let's dig into this a little deeper and pretend that we are ogres who have layers like onions.

 So. Let's play a little game and pretend that just about everyone would like to feel beautiful. Now, there are about six people in the world who are perfectly symmetrical and amazing looking from a purely empirical point of view, so we won't worry about that select few and instead we'll concentrate on the rest of us who have wonderful quirks and flaws and idiosyncrasies. Now, the majority of those people would like to change their bodies in one way or another in order to feel more attractive (and for argument's sake, I am talking exclusively about feeling more attractive to the person in the mirror, cause really, no one else matters. NO ONE.) How to accomplish that is pretty cut and dried. The know how is out there, and it is easily accessible. In fact, we are bombarded with messages about getting fit and healthy from all directions. It's easy to do. So why don't we?

Well, because it's not easy. Breaking old habits and forming new ones and changing our behaviour is hard. But why is it hard?? Why can't we just look at that beer/pizza/ice cream/poutine/insert-your-favorite-vice-here and think, "I quit. This is not going to get me what I want. I'm going to eat a can of tuna instead." Pull a layer off that onion (don't worry if it makes you cry, onions do that to everyone) and see what's there...

I can't do it.

I don't deserve it.

I won't be me.

I WILL be me.

I'll fail.

It's too much.

I don't have time.

False, false, false. Yup. All of those statements (plus a host of others) are just limiting beliefs that we hang onto...and that's totally okay because it's just part of being human. But if you're ready to let go of some of them and change your perception, the limits of what you can accomplish change considerably!

 Story time:
A couple of posts ago I told you about how I gained a whole bunch of weight really fast. It happened about six months ago and at the time I was trying to get my feet back under me after a series of traumatic events...so while my body was falling apart my brain wasn't in a place where I could deal with it in a reasonable sort of way. Honestly, I gave up on myself. I felt like I wasn't worth the effort. I came close to giving up on my career because I LOOKED and felt like I wasn't modelling the lifestyle that I value. I was paralyzed with FEAR and couldn't move forward without letting go of those baseless feelings.

And now? Now I'm in kind of an interesting place: I still have the extra weight on me (docs say it isn't going anywhere until my body starts functioning properly), but I had a light bulb moment a few weeks ago:

It doesn't matter. It doesn't change who I am. It doesn't change my values or my value as a person. Yes, I am uncomfortable with my weight right now. But I will not let FEAR hold me back anymore.

So tell me: what false perceptions are holding you back? Just identifying them as false can change how the world looks. Peel that onion - it might sting for a little while but what's underneath is sweeter!