facing your fears

NaBloPoMo Writing Prompt: Have you faced your fears and overcome them?

The subject of fear is a popular one on this blog. That feeling that you’re holding yourself back from doing certain things because they’re scary is no fun. I’ve written about it in several posts:

being vulnerable

the vocabulary to dream

trust and rest

the things that scare you

Susan Jeffers in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway says that holding the fear of doing something is many times worse than just going and doing it.

Tonight I’m headed to an educators in the arts social event at a bar in Times Square. It’s a networking event and I thought it would be good for me to go considering my new career path. I can think of a whole slew of excuses right now why I shouldn’t. I thought about inviting a friend to come with me, just to ease the fear of walking into a bar and not knowing anyone. But I thought better of it. My purpose is to experience this scene that I will soon be well immersed in. It’s to challenge my fear of walking into a social event without any crutches. It’s to learn a little bit more about myself and why this is a scary thing for me.

I’ve always felt better after facing a fear. Because, whew! I can say that’s finally over no matter how it turned out. And I end up learning if it’s something I want to continue pursuing. But I’ll never know if I don’t try, right?

See also: the challenge.