The Invitation to New Ways of Being

AND, at the same time, this article is asking to be written.

It is not escaping me that as I am writing this article on fear and uncertainty, I am literally navigating fear and uncertainty.

Have you had a time in your life where you KNEW something needed to be shared or acknowledged simply because it just wouldn’t go away no matter how much you wanted it to? It’s like this thing is saying, “I’ll just wait here patiently, looming over you in the background until you are ready to say what needs to be said.”

That IS this article for me!

Fear and uncertainty can come up when we’re in unfamiliar territory. When we don’t know what the “normal expectations” are or what the “results and outcomes” will be. So often in our lives we have past experiences to go by to help us maneuver through the unknown, the fear, and the uncertainty.

But, what happens in those times when you don’t have past experiences to guide you through? What happens when you don’t have those past experiences to lean on? And all you have to go on is what is happening right now?

And this is where my story begins!

Fear and uncertainty show up in an enormous way when you’re being stalked and harassed.

I was uncertain of how long it would last.

I was uncertain of how far he would go to hurt me, my family, and my kids.

Would I be able to make it through the day without being followed to the gym or to the grocery store?

Would he be there waiting for me?

Would I be able to stay at the gym for the whole class or would I have to leave because he had scared my kids or done something to the house again?

Would I be able to sit in my yard today and enjoy the peace and quiet?

Would his awful and mean dog bust through our fence again?

Would he drive by the house today letting me know that he was there?

Would he have me chased home again tonight on my way home from massage school?

Would he show up in the girls’ school again today?

NOT knowing what was going to happen from day to day for eight years was the worst.

AND, I believe it was preparing me for my future. More on that later.

But, when I found out that he was bringing up false charges against me and that I was being criminally investigated for crimes that I did not commit, THAT was the last fucking straw. (I am now able to thank him for this day.)

Something inside me broke that day when I read my copy of the police report.

What I know now is that I didn’t break, I broke open.

I broke open to new ideas and because of these new ideas, I did something different.

I went to a police department outside of my town where I wasn’t being investigated. I told the police officer at the front desk what was happening, and he looked at me and said, “You are completely disempowered.”

I felt like saying no fucking shit, Sherlock.

But, I didn’t.

I asked myself, “Had he seriously not listened to a single thing I had just said? Did I leave out the part where I might be arrested? Am I crazy?”

You really do feel crazy when you are having this experience. The things that are happening are so out of this world that you even doubt yourself. For years, I couldn’t make decisions on my own while this was happening without calling my hubby or my mom to ask them what I should do. I couldn’t trust myself. I believed that I was the problem. If I could just stay smaller, he wouldn’t see me. I would think “oh he drove by the house again or went into my kid’s school because I must have made him mad, etc.”

I know, it’s crazy.

I must have had that “you’re an alien” look on my face because the police officer said it again.

“You are completely disempowered. You can empower yourself here. You are in charge of you!”

He must have taken a domestic violence course or something. Looking back now with more clarity and groundedness, I don’t think he completely understood what he was saying. But, whatever the case, he believed it and he believed it enough for me! I on the other hand had to go home and actually google what “empowered” meant to help me wrap my brain around it.

It took a few days for what he said to finally land in my brain.

But, it landed.

I laugh as I type this because boy, did it ever land.

From that conversation with the front desk police officer, I was able to flip the switch from completely disempowered to playing with the possibility of answering his question, “How could I empower myself?”

Not just empower myself, but empower myself as I was navigating the fear and uncertainty of my situation.

I knew that I could not control my circumstances. I knew that I could not make the harassment stop. But, I could choose to see the situation differently.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t mad or seething inside at the unfairness of what was happening to us. I was fucking mad.

AND, I knew deep down that I had the power to control my reaction. There was a different choice that I could make. I could tap into my own power.

THAT was what I was going to tap into — ME! That felt empowering! That made me feel like I was in the driver’s seat again.

My energy began to shift. Not a lot, but, a little, enough to feel it in my heart.

My ability to change my energy began to open me up to feeling better, calmer, more grounded. Because of this, new possibilities and ways that I could empower myself opened the door for me to be connected to some amazing people in my community that could and wanted to help me and my family!

So much help that I could finally begin to free up more and more mental space and start to focus back onto me and my family. Even if it was just going to the gym or to the girls’ cheerleading practice with peace; it was a start.

I began saying this paragraph over and over again to myself. It’s a mixture of a line from A Course In Miracles, a quote from Gabby Bernstein, and a line of my own making that I combined to be my empowerment statement:

“I choose to see this differently. I have chosen fear.
I forgive myself.
I choose again.
I choose creative possibilities and magical opportunities.”

I said this over and over again to myself. Especially in those times when the harassment was actually happening!

And boy, did my energy shift and expand even more and new opportunities started showing up regularly!

We started to feel safer and safer as each week and month went on. I finally felt safe enough to go to therapy and talk about what was happening, so I could begin to heal. Therapy was something that I never would have even considered before this.

The days, weeks, months became years, and we feel safe and at peace for the most part now. Anger still rears its head some days.

Here’s what I have learned from this experience…

The invitation to new ways of being, thinking, and feeling actually come through in times of uncertainty and fear.

What if when fear and uncertainty show up it isn’t a time to look to past experiences for our answers, but rather ask ourselves how we can lean into the fear and uncertainty to help us open ourselves up to new possibilities and new answers?

For me, this goes two ways:
1– If you go by past experiences, you are more than likely to get past results.
2– When you don’t have past results to go on or you choose not to do what you’ve done in the past, I believe, you’re likely to get different or, dare I even say, better results.

Going with what you know or is known will get you more of what you know. This is why to get somewhere different or to call in a different result you MUST leave your comfort zone and step into the fear of uncertainty.

Fear and uncertainty is the invitation.

Fear and uncertainty show up on the path to your dreams, visions, goals, and desires. This is why I believe that when fear and uncertainty show up so many people go back to what they know and what they have done in the past because they think it’s safe. We’ve all done it at one time or another.

Being willing to follow the fear and uncertainty brings us the ability to change.

Moving through fear and uncertainty brings you to surrender to stillness.

Fear and uncertainty are with us all the time. They don’t go away. What changes is your perspective and perception of fear and uncertainty. You begin to recognize what fear and uncertainty are inviting you in to. It’s about embracing fear and uncertainty and allowing the uncomfortableness of that to move you.

For me, fear and uncertainty are also a sign to remind me that I am relying too heavily on me and to allow myself to receive support, guidance, and new creative possibilities and magical opportunities.

I allow myself to trust fully in something even when I don’t understand how it works or what it does and just simply trust that it does and will.

And, this process just doesn’t happen one day. Navigating fear and uncertainty is a continuous process that gets repeated over and over again.

Can you think of a time in your life when you were feeling fear and uncertainty when suddenly things started falling into place?

Earlier in my article, I mentioned that I believe my experience was preparing me for something.

I believe that the years and years of not knowing from day to day what was coming next and navigating the fear and uncertainty that was happening during this time were preparing me to know how to embrace fear and uncertainty, accept its invitation, and trust that there was a bigger plan unfolding for us that I could not see! To be able to surrender and trust and be led and guided to my next new level.

Looking back now on this situation, and as my family and I are healing from this terrible experience, I find now that there is a part of me that is grateful for it.

You may be thinking, “How can you be grateful for eight years of abuse?”

I am NOT grateful for the abuse.

I am grateful for the opportunities that have come from it. These moments truly have been bittersweet experiences in our lives. I am grateful for the light switch that literally turned on in my brain that spoke to me and said there IS more to your life than this. There IS more to life than just existing and surviving to get through another day.

I am grateful that our family has a closeness that I cannot describe. We understand and appreciate and have immense gratitude for peace and quiet, and what a gift it is to be able to walk into our yard and be able to hear birds chirp because we had gone so long without that.

To feel the gratitude and appreciation to go out to a restaurant with my hubby and truly enjoy our time together because of how many times we sat through dinner looking over our shoulders, jumping at the slightest movements. We enjoy our vacations more than ever because we realize just how precious our time together is.

I am immensely grateful that this experience led me to retire from my career as a massage therapist (which I loved but I was limited in how many people I could help in a day) and to finding the meaning and purpose in my life, which is to be a coach and to be of service to others and empower them to see the possibility within them. Now I get to support others in being open to receiving creative possibilities and magical opportunities even in the darkest of times.

Has there been an experience for you where you navigated fear and uncertainty and the invitation that came with it?

I have asked this question and I am grateful and appreciative that I have hope again because I know what it feels like to feel hopeless. To have hope just about completely extinguished within you to the point where you become consumed by fear, bitterness, rage, resentment, anger, and frustration beyond measure to then digging deep within, opening up to possibility, making friends with hope, and trusting it again, and letting your purpose burn bright.

How can you empower yourself?