Becoming Fearless: Learning to Walk in Your Power

2013: the Year of the Cosmic 2×4 – at least it was for me. For most of the year, I felt like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump. The hits kept coming so fast and furiously, I finally told the Universe, “Bring it on!” And, of course, it did. Be careful what you wish for…

The real revelation came when a woman I had only met once Facebook messaged me out of the blue at 6:00am one morning in early November. Her message was simple and to the point: “Why aren’t you walking in your power?”

After the initial shock that a woman I barely knew was calling me on this, I realized she was right. I hadn’t been walking in my power, but it sounded like something I should be doing.

The first thing I had to figure out was what “walking in your power” actually meant. To me, it means this: We are all here for a purpose, our life’s mission if you will. But many of us get sidetracked along the way. Caught up in the day-to-day chaos of our lives, we forget what we came here to do. We attend to things that we think are more pressing (like catching up on our 100+ unread emails at 3:00am or spending way too time on Facebook), and we lose track of what really matters. The thing that brought us here: our life’s purpose.

Maybe you don’t know what you came here to do – although given you read Aspire, I’m guessing that’s not the case. But if you truly don’t (and aren’t just hiding by feigning ignorance), then I encourage you to reflect on that question. Some of my friends call this, “The Big Why.” As in, “Why are you here? Why are you doing what you’re doing?” It’s a question that deserves an answer, and you owe it to yourself to find out if you don’t already know.

But for most of us, that’s not the issue. The real problem is this: I think most of us – including me – really do know our life’s purpose, but are afraid to act on it. It’s like my favorite Marianne Williamson quote:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Easier said than done. Our playing small may not serve the world, but it certainly helps get rid of the fear! After all, if we dim our light, we don’t have to worry about shining too brightly or about what other people think. In short, my answer to the question, “Why aren’t you walking in your power?” was that I was scared to death of it – still am, if you must know. I was afraid to let go of the safety and security of the life I’ve created for myself to pursue my true purpose, afraid to let my light shine.

Of course my refusal to shine my light led to its own set of problems: namely, being stuck. I couldn’t move forward and I couldn’t return to blissful ignorance pretending I didn’t know my life’s true purpose. I sat between a rock and a hard place. Blindly clinging to my old path wasn’t working, but stepping on a new path took courage that I wasn’t sure I had.

Then something started shifting in me. The Universe kept sending people my way who wanted me to speak in teleseminars about being successful and overcoming my fears. As much as I felt like a fraud for doing so, I realized that those offers were the Universe’s way of nudging me more squarely onto my path. Baby steps to help me get unstuck.

Am I done? No. Do I walk in my power every day? Yes – but usually not all day. I’m still a work in progress. But I do feel I’ve made significant advances along my path over the past year. So here’s my challenge to you: ladies, it’s time to walk in your power. To finally figure out what you came here to do and do something about it.

For the next 30 days, I want you to do something that truly gets you walking in your power. Something that scares you a little – or a lot – but needs to be done for you to own your truth and live the life you were meant to live.

Before we start, let’s lay the groundwork with a few journal prompts. The answers to these questions should help you figure out what to do on each of those 30 days.

1)      What’s my life’s purpose? What am I here to do?  For example, my life’s purpose is to heal myself and own my truth so that I can empower, inspire and support other women to do the same.

2)      What does my ideal day look like? How would I spend my time? What would I be doing? – my ideal day would be spent getting my message out to as many women as possible and helping them on their path. This would be through a combination of blogging, speaking, writing books and e-courses, etc. At this point, I spend one to two days a week doing this. The rest of my time is still devoted to my ‘real job’ that pays the bills and allows me to move closer to my goal.

3)      What would it take for my ideal day to become a reality?  Think of this as an A to Z process. Write down everything you need to do to make that happen. It doesn’t matter how big or small these steps might be.

4)      Organize these steps into chronological order – and do yourself a favor, do this in a Word document or on your smart phone so you can reorganize the steps – I promise you, you’ll have to at some point and likely many times!

5)      Make a timeline – how long will it realistically take for you to get from A to Z? Start putting dates by your steps. You may need to add substeps to the bigger goals to make them more do-able.

6)      Pick out your 30 days and assign one task to each day – don’t make these tasks too small or too big. They shouldn’t be too easy or too challenging. The goal here is to stretch you a little bit, not scare you into giving up!

7)      Print this 30-day calendar out and put it where you will see it often.

8)      Start your 30 day challenge today! – If you put it off until tomorrow, you’ll likely keep putting it off. Take it from someone who knows!

As I shared previously, I’m a work in progress. So I will be doing this challenge right along with you. I’d love it if you’d reach out to me and let me know your daily successes and struggles and I’ll do the same. We can hold each other accountable and keep each other honest. And maybe, just maybe, truly embrace walking in our power along the way.