It has become more and more clear to me that I have been holding myself an arm’s length away from life. I was so worried and fearful of having a bad experience that I often maneuvered myself into having no experience, whether it was by shrinking into a corner or avoiding social situations all together.
I used knowledge and facts as my safety blanket. I gathered info about “the right way” to act and react in different situations from books and movies the same way I would try to fill my head with the right answers for a history test. The more reading I did, the more movies I watched, the more facts I was ableto rattle off in conversation, the more secure I felt.
I basically tried to script my life, my interactions. And I worried endlessly about the unexpected, which I equated to the unwanted.
But now things are changing. With the inner work I’m doing and my wonderful, new-found confidence in me (Sound of Music shout out) I’m finding myself saying “Bring it on!” to life. I jump in to experiences without trying to map out and prep for every possibility more often now. I’m still not the most daring person on the planet, diving into every situation head first, but I’m at least ankle deep in the water now, not 300 feet back, observing with binoculars from the top of a cliff.