Has fear ever been the winner in your life? Were you once brave, but slowly found that bravery replaced by caution? Did you once risk everything, sure that it would all work? Do you still take risks for your dreams? Or do you call it “risk” when it really means “safe choice”?

Did fear win?

Fear beat me. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But it won. Or maybe fear just led the way for a while.

My sense is this is normal – that fear will sometimes win out. I feel like it can be easier to let fear lead the way and to make the safer choices. There is less stress, less worry, and less, well, fear of messing things up.

Ironic, right? When we let fear lead the way we, ourselves, become less fearful. Or so we think. 

I call bullshit. Yep, bullshit. When fear takes over you are losing. We are ALL losing. When fear is your leader, you are not living to your fullest potential and making the difference you were meant to make. You are coasting, and that isn’t fair to you and it isn’t fair to me.

I can say that knowing I let fear win, lead the way, and keep me from the greatness I know I am capable of. I hid myself from you (from me) putting on a brave face and pretending I’ve got this.

Because I don’t – I don’t have this, not all the time. I don’t know what’s best, what’s next or how I’m going to make things happen. I don’t have the answers…I only have the questions.

As I reviewed this blog, this body of vulnerable and sincere writing dating back a half dozen years, I realized I used to be brave and fearless and vulnerably invincible. I stared fear down and fear backed away. I marched ahead, despite every obstacle, determined I would beat it (whatever it was).

That worked for a while. It worked until all the things I was “facing down” became my history and rather than fighting through and for something, I was left with the sharp edges of broken pieces slowly, but surely, eating away at my insides. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t enough to battle through, I had to also resolve and put to rest those things I was fighting against.

I believe that we are all so busy fighting and forging ahead that when we rest, for even a moment, the legacy of our fight and all it means to our emotional well being, will jump in front of us and stop us cold.

Call it baggage, call it a scar, call it whatever you want. Each of us has something in our past that haunts us. Most of us have many of these things – past hurts, loss, physical injury, emotional injury, regrets, feelings of powerlessness, and more – and we bury them deep and cover them with pretty smelling flowers and a list of our accomplishments.

And when we are tired, fear takes the lead, and it feels nice to let go of control for a time.

But here is the thing, eventually you will realize that fear has taken over and you are no longer the one in control. When you do, fear has already lost and you have already taken control again. It is that simple – when you realize that you are no longer walking the path you want, you have already stepped off the path you are on. Now all you need to do is move back or on to the path that takes you where you need to go .

Simple…but so, so hard at the same time.

This artist’s life is not an easy one. We walk the fine line between emotional fulfilment and financial success. Sometimes those paths intersect. Often they don’t.

As tempting as it is to let fear take the reigns, I urge you to resist and fight through whatever is in your way.

Fear will still win the day sometimes, but it doesn’t win my life.