So today I want to talk about doing things that scare you. Mainly because today I have done something that was very scary for me to do. And I think the first thing to do is really just understand the nuance in that sentence of do things that scare you. It doesn’t mean do things that are widely perceived as scary.

So what I mean by this is me filming these videos, me putting a camera on him. I can just talking Free. Free thought free form doesn’t scare me that much. Me making mistakes and stumbling, if my words doesn’t scare me that much. But I know for a lot of people this would be a very scary thing to do.

Not like the actual process of it would be scary. Never mind even putting this out on the internet for other people to watch. And I think sometimes and I say this from like a personal experience is easy to trick ourselves into thinking that we are pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone when we’re doing things that on the outside that seem scary.

But inside we are actually quite comfortable with and in turn avoiding the things that we truly find scary and to bring contexts. All of what I’m saying right now. One of the things I found really scary, which I didn’t really realize until I was pondering life in bed last night what I should have been going to sleep is the idea of collaborating with people.

I didn’t really realize the extent to which I don’t naturally like. I trust people. I totally trust people. But when it comes to collaboration and the thought of it, I feel very guarded. And that scares me because of fears I’ll be taken advantage of, that things will go wrong, that relationships will be complicated and messy and know likely stems from a lot of my own experiences in childhood, which I’m not going to go into right now because that’s not what this is about.

But this idea, I really realized that collaborating is actually holding me back in executing a lot of the ideas that I have and a lot of the ideas that come into my mind. And so I actually, in a spirit of messy action today, I actually put out a thing into the world, an open call seeking collaborators on a not for profit project adventure I have in mind, and the act of actually putting out there was terrifying for me because I’m worried no one’s going to respond.

I’m also worried that if people do respond, which they have and what that means for me, what am I getting tied into? Am I now responsible for these other people? It’s bringing up a lot of emotions that if I hadn’t done this thing, if I hadn’t really identified this area, that scares me and leaned into it. These limitations within me would go unnoticed. They would go unknown, and yet I would still be able to walk around with the projection of, Look, I do scary things all the time. I put myself out there on the internet, I do these videos, etc., etc.. And yet all the while avoiding the things which to me feel scary. And I think there’s just a lot of liberation and learning and growth and wonderful lessons in the human experience that we can gain by truly doing the things that scarers, even if they don’t seem scary to other people. It’s about having the self-awareness of not what’s the most showy single, what’s going to create the biggest splash in terms of other people’s perceptions, But what’s going to bring me closer to becoming a more whole open and expressive human? Because I’m sure for some people the idea of collaborating is one that they find easy. They find it easy to work with others, and I generally do.

Just to say that in my career, maybe that’s not true. Like I said, this is unprocessed emotions, which you can see the term. I love it, but this is a journey I’m not embarking on is the question. The beliefs that I actually hold about myself in the world and really look at whether they are actually serving me or whether they’re holding me back.

But it’s only something that I believe I will grow into by taking action and doing things in that area, because it’s all well and good to identify a potential sticking point that you might have in terms of doing something or making something happen. But we cannot theorize our way to healing. We cannot theorize our way to growing, to evolving, to changing. We have to experience it. We have to experience it on every single level. And that, I think, is what life is really about.

I think if we’re here on this planet, let’s let the full human experience what we’ve got to gain by half our singular. I do want to acknowledge there’s probably a certain level of privilege to what I’m sharing right now. Like I understand there’s going to be people in situations where this just won’t land, and they might be like, Yeah, it’d be great to go and live fully. But I’m so preoccupied by the challenges which life presents to me that what you’re saying just isn’t landing. And that’s fine. I don’t believe my message, my words. What I’m sharing is for everyone by any stretch, but for the people who is for.

I hope that within it you find internal questions being raised that you don’t have to answer, but that you can carry with you and see what cracks in your patterns of form. What change can you detect just by carrying these questions of what truly scares me? What am I avoiding that is holding me back that other people might laugh at, That other people might be like, Why do you find that scary?

Who cares? Right? A big part, I suppose, of what I want to push here is an internal dialog and being okay with your own internal dialog and not needing to feel like you need to perform in any way other than what your experiences and what you’re going through in your struggles.

So what’s one thing that you could do that would scare you? And like I said, you don’t need to answer that question. And in fact, my own personal preference when to have these kind of questions to play with is to really look for silence first, because the true answers for me are often a whisper, and only by getting quiet can I hear that true answer, such as last night on the in the state of meditation and relaxation, as I was trying to go to sleep, did this little gem of a fear present itself around collaboration. And it was only because I was calm and relaxed that I was able to actually hear it. And then as a result, this morning, do something about it. And for me, I have to do something about it with enough speed that I don’t let my ego get in the way, that I don’t let my fear stop me. I have to do quick enough that I don’t overthink it, but that’s just me.

Maybe that’s not just you too. That’s what I want to give to you today, is that question of what truly scares you and what other ways in which you can lean into it without overwhelming yourself to see what lessons, what adventures might lie in that path.