Free Yourself from Fear and Live a Life You Love! by Stacey Curnow | #AspireMag

Helen Keller once said, “We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.” I would amend that statement to include “and if we never did the thing that scared us most.”

If we try, we can remember our own past bravery as a way to help us feel more courageous as we contemplate stepping onto the road less taken. Sometimes, though, when we look back on our life, we can only remember the times things didn’t work out. And those memories can get in the way of choosing to be brave today.

Things went wrong in the past, what if things go wrong again?

Things haven’t always worked out great for me. When I returned from Mexico after working with Doctors Without Borders in 2002, I had no job waiting for me. My husband wasn’t working and we had used up all of our savings.

As soon as I got back to the States I applied for every job in the nursing field I could find – even jobs that were way below my level of expertise (and former earnings). I went 2 months before I received a job offer.

The offer I got was as a community health nurse. It would have required working 5 days a week, and would have involved very little actual patient care since it required a lot of travel and paperwork. The salary would be fraction of what I earned previously.

I knew I needed the income, any income, but when offered the position, I just couldn’t accept it. Every fiber of my being knew that I would be miserable at that job. I thanked the nurse manager but declined the offer, hung up the phone, and BURST into tears.

I felt cursed by the warnings of my father and so many well-meaning others who had told me that I was foolish for quitting my good job as a nurse-midwife to take a volunteer position in Mexico, and that I was crazy to think that I could find an even better job on my return.

All that is to say that I am familiar with the demons of grief, anxiety, self-doubt and despair that can haunt you when you get off the beaten path. Very familiar.

Leaps of faith and acts of bravery don’t always work out exactly as hoped.

In fact they’ve often found me down on my knees in despair asking God how I could have been brought this far to fail. I’ve since learned that breakdowns often precede the greatest breakthroughs. Crisis often leads to a pivotal moment when we become our most creative and find the perfect solution.

Another month after that “down on my knees” dark place, I did get my dream job, working as a nurse-midwife for a busy hospital-based birthing center that cares for predominantly Latina patients – working 24 hours a week for more pay than I made working 50-60 hours a week in my former midwifery position.

However, I almost didn’t find this job because the hospital is 80 miles away from where I live, and it only came onto my radar when I decided to cast a wider net. Since I worked only one 24-hour shift a week, the commute was not only manageable, but enjoyable because I used the time to listen to interesting and inspiring audio books.

I worked that job happily for 11 years before I decided that it was time to leave it for my next leap – where you find me today. And, yes, one year after quitting that job, this particular leap hasn’t worked out exactly the way I hoped either.

My experience of the road less taken has not always been filled with bright sunshine and frolicking unicorns. And yet, when I finally stopped fighting the questions and the doubts and the fears and allowed myself to simply be sad or confused, I realized that everything actually was okay.

Even when things are not at all the way I want and expect them to be, they are still okay.

“Things are still okay”? What does that mean??

What it means to me is that I can focus on what I am doing and—most importantly—how I am doing it, and then I can let go of needing to control, or even worry about, the outcome.

Yes, I’ve experienced many failures, but what allows me to keep going is that I now look at failure as a badge of courage – a testament that I’m doing hard and interesting things with my life.

Show me someone who hasn’t failed, and I’ll show you someone who has a boring and undesirable life. This may sound harsh, but I talk with women every day who say the fear of failure is what holds them back from pursuing their dreams, and that’s not okay.

I don’t want them to be at the end of their lives, look back and wish they had challenged themselves more to create a life of purpose and authentic success. So I’m willing to take a powerful stand for them.

As a character in Kate DiCamillo’s children’s story, The Tale of Despereux, says, “There are many wonderful things out there to be afraid of.” But your regrets about the past or worries about the future shouldn’t be among them. In these instances, recognizing your fears for what they are—stories about the past that might not now apply, or stories about the future that might never come true—will help.

Everything will be all right in the end.

The Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho has said, “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not, then it’s not the end.“ I’ve contemplated that quote enough in good times that it helps me to keep putting one foot in front of the other when things get tough off the beaten path.

Whether you know it or not, whether you’re currently connected to it or not, you have a purpose. You’re here to make meaning with your life – to do good – in service of something larger. The more you do it, the happier you’ll be. The more you do it, the more successful you’ll be.

If you serve your Purpose, then you will be happy and successful. It might be a long path, and the success may look really different than you imagined. You might even fall down a time or two. But if you are deeply in touch with your purpose, your Big Why, you’ll get there.

And, if you’re at a place in your life where you feel disconnected from your purpose, never doubt that you can find it.