I think sometimes life takes a look at what your doing and decides you need a little knock in the head, a little “wake up and smell the roses,” a “drink your coffee and lets get going.” In the past week, I’ve had a number of little signs put before me, messages from the great beyond saying, “Hey…listen, here’s something you should do” “Oye, güey, necesitas despertarse!”
I’ve gone thought phases in my life where I have been very outgoing and other phases where I’ve been somewhat of an introvert. It seems in the last few years, the later has been the case. Even to the point that family gatherings or school functions give me great anxiety. I don’t know why. I don’t like being like that.
Then there’s that little part in side me, that voice that is constantly challenging my introvertedness. I join boards and committees, where I have to make presentations. I have to go to planning and zoning boards for clients and present projects to the town and abutters, sometimes who are not particularly happy about the project that I am presenting. Last year, I took a conversational Spanish class, where I not only had to speak in front of other people, but speak in a language that I didn’t know very well and I had to try to hold a conversation. Lately, not only have I organized a seminar for this spring’s quarterly NHLSA meeting, but I’m going to be a presenter. I seem to volunteer and step into the nightmare constantly. I can’t seem to help myself. The little voice wants me to enjoy it, and it keeps urging me to take one more “no thank you bite”
Then the other night life had had enough. Another opportunity to rise above the anxiety and fears was in the works, and I was miserable. I was waiting to go to a planning board meeting, a meeting in my own town. A meeting where I knew that there were contentious people who planned to attack me in public. A meeting where the owner and president of my company would be presenting another project following mine…I would be on many stages. I had a bit of nerves going. Then, a couple little things happened in the course of a ½ hour that brought me just a little enlightenment.
I had about an hour to kill before the meeting. So to relax, I decided to sit down and read my book a bit. In the story, the characters were about to descend a very steep mountainside scree slope. All were terrified. One of the characters told the others to embrace the fear in order to find the joy in the descent. I’ve heard this before in real life. An article in Men’s Health talked about the very same subject. The characters began their descent and there were many perils, dangers and almost death experiences on the way down. But…by the end of their descent, they were exhilarated and high on endorphins…they felt the rush of passing danger successfully. An interesting chapter to read, on this of all nights.
Then it was almost time to go, so I decided to check my Facebook page before I left. Earlier, I had posted a portion of lyrics from a song that I recently discovered and like. The song has good positive lyrics and a poppy, up-beat, reggae-ish rhythm that picks me up. It’s an easy song to play on guitar, and my daughter Grace loves it. We sit on my bed and I play, while we both sing. She made me give here a set of the lyrics so she could learn the song and practice. We even talked about maybe performing the song (me on guitar and both of us singing) at her school’s talent show this year. I was all for it, (Daddies have no fear) but in my head afterwards I thought, Damn! Jumping into discomfort yet again. I had commented as much on Facebook and a good friend posted “ha ha, no fear. you're on guitar? Music makes you bullet proof.”
That’s when something clicked. I thought about that, and about the scree slope, and about the article in Men’s Health concerning anxiety and doing things that REALLY scare you to numb yourself to common daily anxieties. I thought, what if, instead of dreading this meeting, and making my fears a negative thing; what if, instead, I looked forward to the meeting. Change my outlook. Look at it as a chance to run down the scree slope, bullet proof. So I did.
I’m not saying that I wasn’t nervous, but it felt different. I was also exhilarated and found myself chatting up a number of people before the meeting, AND enjoying it. I came home and was positively POSITIVE, UP and AWAKE. This is the way to be. This is how I want to be.
I’m sure I’ll need a reminder now and then, but I think that night, Life was sick of me not listening.
