Do it Anyway

I grip my hands, cold and numb, as I prepare to speak. My audience is only six, but that makes it all the more daunting. They sit, poised in front of me, there to both listen and critique. My innards vibrate their way up my throat and I wonder if anyone can tell how nervous I am. I want to bolt out the door and hide in a closet. I don't want to be seen, no, not really.

But I do it anyway. 

The words pour out of my mouth, unfiltered and wild. I'm not even sure what I say until the critique starts. For the briefest of moments I am speaking out of my heart, my mind too nervous to lead. This is vulnerability, my  heart exposing  what my head can not. It tells my secrets and betrays my facade.  I am splayed out for all to see, and it is terrifying. 

But I do it anyway.

Later that night I sit in front of a computer screen, looking at a total stranger. A stranger who I'm asking to help me with my words, the ones that sit at the bottom of the pit of my stomach, my story-words. I am afraid of them, afraid that they will offend, that they are too messy, too much.  And it all feels just a bit too personal for a computer screen. 

But I do it anyway.

Because it's not longer about what I fear,  it's about how I use it. Where I'm afraid to go, I go. What I'm afraid to do, I do. Fear becomes my compass and guide. It tells me what I believe about the world around me and how to challenge that belief. I cannot remember being more physically or emotionally uncomfortable than I have these last few weeks, but guess what...

I'm doing it anyway. 

Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~