A Simple Formula for an Extraordinary Year
Take a small step toward your fears, each and every day
I was sure they’d find no trace of me
The snow was far too deep for me to outrun the ten-foot grizzly who was waiting for me in the shadows of the spruce trees.
I’d be easy food, ripped limb from limb, devoured in full — leaving behind only the mystery of my disappearance since I had stupidly told no one about my trek.
Every hair on my body had isolated itself from the others by standing straight up on my skin. Each follicle had devoted its entire attention to registering any micro movement of air or earth that would alert me in advance of the bear attack I knew was imminent.
Mental shadows
Those were the menacing mental shadows I was projecting onto the wall of imagination as I walked from the dwelling pictured above to our host’s home.
Friends of ours who live in British Columbia had invited us to their 80-acre wilderness property to commune with nature as we rang in the New Year.
“We’re putting you in the retreat cabin,” they had told us over the phone.
Wow. The retreat cabin. That sounded delightful. I imagined us falling asleep in front of a brick fireplace, waking up and having tea in a cozy kitchen, and then strolling next door to visit with our friends. In reality, the cabin was a rustic hut with no power—a dwelling that kept us in relationship, rather than buffered, from the natural beauty that surrounded us.
That’s where I woke up, yesterday, on January 1st, 2023.
Just before sunrise, I watched myself leave the cabin and hop into our car to get to the main house and running water.
Starting the engine, I was suddenly aware of how absurd it was to be driving instead of walking in this pristine wilderness. I was also aware of how afraid I was to do that.
So I got out of the car and started walking in the direction of our nearby host.
In my mind, however, I was on an arctic expedition, braving crippling temperatures (barely under freezing), desolate distances (really about a five-minute walk), and the threat of wild animals (in reality, their family dog).
Each of these elements was inflated to life-threatening proportions by the machinery of my survival-focused brain.
A famous radio broadcast in 1938 featured Orson Welles telling a sci-fi story (War of the Worlds) about a martian invasion that caused actual panic in the citizens of America. My own psychic programming has the same effect on the crowd inside of me—engendering a belief in outrageous stories and claims.
Slowly, I’m learning to recognize that the fears that broadcast themselves from my mental thought booth are more entertainment than news, but I’m routinely drawn in by the convincing dramas I stage for myself.
Like what I did with the forecast of the storm that was predicted to dump inches of snow on the mountain range we’d have to cross to make it from our coastal home in Vancouver to the interior of BC.
Many times in the days preceding I nearly cancelled our trip, imagining how utterly dangerous and fruitless it would be to navigate a two-thousand-foot pass and hundreds of miles of frozen highway just to spend a few days in the forest.
But a set of snow tires, the purchase of snow chains, the checking of highway cams, and a slow and steady trip, moving one mile at a time through the storm, brought us without incident to this winter wonderland.
The most serious threat we face as humans
I am convinced that unexamined and self-manufactured fears are the most serious threat we are facing individually and collectively as humans.
“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” — Mark Twain
Unexamined fears reinforce themselves through our own unconscious avoidance behavior, convincing us little by little that the reason we’re still alive is because we’ve been protecting ourselves from life appropriately.
I recently discovered, for example, that being honest about my jealous feelings for a friend wasn’t going to cause the end of our relationship. In fact, it completely restored our connection once I was authentic about it.
Unexamined fears are those we believe — like, “if I tell anyone about my jealousy I’ll lose their respect” — and then reinforce by reducing the size of our lives, hiding who we really are, and declining intelligent risks — all in the name of safety.
To examine our fears, on the other hand, requires that we do the one thing every cell in our body is trying to prevent.
Move toward them.
It’s only moving toward our fears that slowly, over time, provides us with accurate information about their validity or absurdity.
If we develop the habit of moving toward our fears, mostly what we experience is the silliness of them.
Do you want more freedom in 2023?
I chuckled at how comically easy it had been to get there as I reached our friend’s house and knocked the snow off my boots on the front steps. Just ten minutes earlier my lizard brain had already drafted the headlines of my demise.
As it turns out, moving toward fear is also the basis of having a sense of humor about the disaster factory that proposes to be our “adult” self. It’s why our kids poke, push, and prod at our rigidity. We could be joining in on the play, discovery and learning they model for us. Personally, I often double down on my reasons for being a stick-in-the-mud.
I suggest that if we want more freedom and more fulfilling lives in the coming year, we’ll need to start moving toward our fears, whenever we notice them arise.
The trick is to not force yourself to eat the whole elephant.
If there’s a difficult conversation you need to have with somebody, just take the first step by scheduling a time to talk in the future.
If you need to find a job, spend 15 minutes a day on your resume.
If you eventually want to publish a book, share a few ideas on social media or an article here.
After writing that first bullet point, a conversation I was avoiding popped into my mind. I immediately picked up the phone and resolved it. The difficulties I imagined were going to arise did not materialize in the slightest.
What I always notice personally is how much of an energy boost it is when I take courageous action. Not only is background dread converted to present vitality, the old belief that has been stopping me from taking action is diminished and holds less gravity in the future.
Courage Writer
I’m starting an online community this month (Jan of 2023) that will help all of us focus on moving toward our fears in simple small ways. Our capacity to live fearlessly, I believe, will soar when nurtured in community. And together we can enjoy accelerated learning about courage and authenticity by sharing our experiences in writing.
Writing is an excellent practice for self-development and leadership. Expressing our intentions, experiments, and results in language empowers us with personal clarity while at the same time inspiring others.
If you’d like to find out more about the Courage Writer project before it launches this month, you can sign up here to attend a free tour of the coming platform.