Increases Your Opportunities by Doing What Scares You

Has 2024 brought you new struggles too?

As soon as the clock switched over to 2024, I felt resistant, unsocial, and defeated. All in a minute’s time, and seemingly from no other influence than the clock.

Upon closer look there was another factor. A big one. A frightening one.

Months before the clock changed, I decided my word for this new year would be visibility. But the thing is...

I'm terribly afraid of visibility.

I've always liked to blend in, sit in the back, hide in the corners.

I had my first big visibility trauma at a dance recital at the age of 10. Plenty of smaller ones prior, but this one froze up in my cells. I had known and practiced the dance many times prior. But when the curtain opened, I froze up.

Nothing in my body wanted to dance. Nothing in my mind wanted to stay. I got through it, painfully. As if that wasn't traumatizing enough, someone recorded it, and I got to see it afterwards. Ouch.

I must have unconsciously vowed to never dance again, because I've never again had the impulse to dance. And when someone tries to pull me onto the dance floor, I make my body 3x heavier so no one can dare move me.

Over the years, I've successfully encouraged myself to be more visible. Not by dancing, but by speaking, leading, helping, etc.

I've pushed through my desire to stay in the corner. I've done hard things which cause me to be visible. I've even been surprised by feedback thanking me for how visible I am🤔

But, now, a WHOLE YEAR dedicated to VISIBILITY?

It's far too overwhelming for me. It's bringing up lots of resistance. It's painful.

While I acknowledge how hard it is, I also know I'm on track. I recognize good when I see it.

The process I'm undergoing can be likened to the shaking out an old dirty rug. When you want to clean a rug to provide for a fresh living space you have to pick the rug up and shake it out. A vacuum won't get the deep down dirt that a good shake will.

When you shake out the rug, dust and dirt go airborne. It's hazy for a while. You hold your nose and close your mouth to not breath in the dirt particles. You vacuum up all the stuff that came out of the rug. It's messy. It might take a few shakes. You need a shower afterwards.

But you're willing to shake the rug out because you know the end result.

This is why I'm willing to feel bad, messy, unsocial, and frightened this year. Because I know the end result....

A clean rug.

Just kidding.

My end result will be a visibility that I can stand in.

Not because of what it gets me, but because I decide I'm okay being seen, no matter the seeming good or seeming bad that comes along with it.

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Now, the thing that has you feeling down... are you recognizing it as the airborne dirt of a coming clarity?