Courage: Overcoming Fear and Igniting Self-Confidence (8 page)

As Tia recounted these experiences, she was filled with rage, resentment, blame, and anger. The issue was clear to me: Tia couldn’t move forward in her career while still saddled with the shame and fear that surrounded her relationship with her mother. She had grown up feeling ashamed of her mother. And Tia was not only afraid of her mother’s wrath, but also afraid that others would find out about the dark insanity that was a part of every day of her life. The ground of her life was so shaky from the start that having faith in and surrendering to a protective, divine force were inconceivable for Tia. When I suggested that, in order to allow herself to move forward in her career, she would need to let go of the mother she was waiting to have and instead surrender to the mother she’d been given in this lifetime, she said it was the last thing she wanted to hear. She insisted: “It was her job to be a good mother and to get herself help if she was sick. Why did I have to get the mother I did? It’s unfair!”

At my urging, Tia began the process of healing her emotional wounds around her relationship with her mother by first accepting that her mother was mentally ill. As she surrendered to that sobering truth, Tia could begin to see the gifts of having the mother she did. She could see that she’d learned from her mother how to sense people’s moods and how to anticipate their needs. Her intuition and empathy had become highly developed. Tia was also able to see the choices she made, out of fear, to numb herself, and she understood in a new light why she had worked so hard to stay invisible and to play small. She had no faith that anyone else, or anything else, would protect her. As far as she was concerned, she was on her own.

Confronting the way that fear had influenced her every move, she could see how she had been trying to avoid the rejection, embarrassment, and shame that seemed to be her cross to bear. She could see how her denial of her mother’s mental illness had drained her life force. It drove her to doubt herself, it kept her stuck in anger and resentment, it stressed her out, and it made her hide in many areas of her life out of fear of scrutiny and confrontation. Now Tia could finally admit that she was scared when people looked too closely. She was afraid that they would see she was just like her crazy mother. And, most surprising, Tia was able to identify the ways in which—despite her repeated and emphatic promise that she would never be like her mother—she
was
like her mother. She got postpartum depression after her son was born and wasn’t able to be there for him—just the way her mother hadn’t been there for her. She could see that she can be moody and strict. She could see that she had taken on the job of criticizing herself in the very way her mother had criticized her as a child.

As Tia surrendered, she felt what she described as an unfamiliar feeling toward her mother, one of love. One morning when she went to church and was asked to call out a name of someone she wanted to pray for, immediately Tia thought of her mother—the person she had hated and blamed all her life, and the last person on earth that she would ever think she wanted to pray for. She felt the prayer for her mother passing her lips: “Dear God, please bring my mother release from her pain. Please help her to find peace inside her heart. Please relieve her of the suffering and allow her heart to mend each day in your loving embrace.” Tia understood that she could finally let go and step into the new life that had seemed like a distant dream. She could trust that she was growing and evolving right on schedule.

Do you want to struggle to maintain control over what you can’t control anyway? Or do you want to surrender your life to its divine design? Do you want to choose resistance and struggle, or do you want to choose surrender, which will restore your confidence and courage, allowing you to move forward? No one can be a warrior for you. No one can make this choice but you.

We have to make the choices and surround ourselves with people who make us feel strong and can see who we are beyond the limitations of our past.

I recently read a piece by Bishop T. D. Jakes, who says, “Let Them Go!”

There are people who can walk away from you.

And hear me when I tell you this!

When people can walk away from you, let them walk.

I don’t want you to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you.

I mean, hang up the phone.

When people can walk away from you, let them walk.

Your destiny is never tied to anybody who left.

I promise you that as you surrender and let go of what you’ve been holding on to, new people, inspiring people who see your greatness, will show up in your life. It is in this peaceful, heartful state of surrender that you can have what you want, know that it is safe to speak out, and know that you are worthy of relaxing and moving forward rather than staying stuck in a past that can never be changed. When you learn that you can trust life, life will deliver treasures beyond your imagination. You will find the courage and confidence that will remain with you every day for the rest of your life.

And just as we need the Code of Divine Guidance to feel that there is always a partner by our side, the Code of Surrender allows us to exhale and see ourselves beyond what we know about ourselves. One of the many voices of surrender says, “Trust. Trust. Trust that you were designed perfectly and that each experience has gotten you to a place where you can be your most powerful self.”

When Miyoko came to train with me, she wanted to find her voice again—a voice that even during our phone calls was quiet, meek, and timid. When I asked my students to look at the areas of their lives where they felt stuck and faithless and to then focus on one such area they needed to surrender, Miyoko raised her hand to share. Stumbling over her words, she admitted to the group that there was a secret she had long been keeping, even from her fellow students in our intimate learning community. She shared that there is a part of her that is attracted to women. She went on to tell us that she’d known from a very young age that she had these feelings. When she was in high school, she even fell in love with a classmate. But then fear took over, and she stopped the relationship.

Miyoko knew that her family and her Japanese culture would disapprove. She had a clear idea of how hard it would be to be so different from those around her. In her mind, she had tried many times to imagine what it would be like, and it never got easier. She feared the judgment, the ridicule, and the stigma that would come along with being who she really was. She didn’t trust in herself or in the feelings that resided deep within her. So Miyoko willed herself to ignore her feelings, to deny her impulses, and to do anything she could to kill off the part of her that was attracted to women. She focused all of her attention and energy on her education and then on her successful career in the biotechnology industry. She knew that something was missing from her life, but she rationalized that it was a small price to pay. She became rigid, controlling, and closed-minded as she fought off the inevitable attraction to women that would surface as she dated men and pursued a more traditional life.

Then one day, fifteen years later, as we embarked on the conversation about courage, Miyoko suddenly came face-to-face with this part of herself that she had so thoroughly rejected. She could see that she would need courage to be able to let this part of her live—and not only live but be loved—and she finally surrendered. Instead of fighting it, Miyoko opened her heart to the truth: that a part of her is attracted to women. When she surrendered, she was flooded with courage and confidence. She didn’t have to conjure up courage and confidence; they simply arrived on the wave of her deep honesty.

Soon after, Miyoko invited a woman out on a date with her, and she even kissed her at the end of the night. She began to allow herself to imagine sharing her life with a woman. She confided in a cousin she was close to, only to find out that this cousin was a lesbian who had been hiding it from her family, too. Miyoko felt liberated and exhilarated, amazed that the life she had always wanted—one even greater than the one she had tried to create out of the sheer force of her will—unfolded only when she at last let go and surrendered.

The power of Miyoko’s transformation is captured beautifully in Lao-tzu’s simple observation “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

When we surrender and let go, we must resign as general manager of the universe. We must mind our own business. We must stop believing that we are in control of everything. We must take our power where it lives—in this moment—and surrender to a path even if we don’t know where the path is going. The hardest part of turning our lives over to the care of a power greater than ourselves and choosing surrender over control is that we have to resign from this lofty position. We have to give up our way of doing things, our efforts to control the situations and circumstances of our lives. We must let go of the things we believed to be true. The truth is that we really have no idea where the universe is trying to guide us. But wherever it is, I believe it’s essential to stop and listen for the whispers that the Divine offers through its many different voices. The Voice of Courage, the Voice of a New Future, the Voice of Our Own Greatness will sneak in when all the activity stops—especially the activity of the mind, since our minds cannot take us where our hearts long to go.

THE SURRENDER PROCESS

Pick your favorite writing spot again, and settle in for a little quality time with your inner world. Take just a few clarifying minutes for personal reflection.

1.
What are you not accepting?
Make a list of any areas of your life where you’re experiencing some conflict or inner resistance—where you’re refusing to accept things as they actually are.

2.
The Voice of Control:
What does the Voice of Control say to you? Write out the negative internal dialogue that limits your ability to let go in any part of your life.

3.
When things were beyond your control:
Make a list of the times in your life when you tried to control circumstances and it didn’t work. What default behaviors or strategies did you use? And what were the outcomes?

4.
The Voice of Surrender:
What does the Voice of Surrender tell you? You’ve probably heard its voice many times in your life. Write out the wisdom and comfort that the Voice of Surrender whispers to you.

5.
Dear Universe:
Write a letter of resignation giving up your position as the general manager of the universe. And be sure to write down the specific date by which you will leave your post (note: the sooner, the better).

Courage Activator

Pick a song about courage as your personal anthem. Don’t hold back. Allow yourself to sing and dance to it in the mirror every day. Even if you’ve never done this, it will activate your courage, so make sure that even if you’re uncomfortable you take this step. Suggestions can be found at debbieford.com/courage.

Confidence Builder

Frame a picture of yourself as a young girl and put it by your bedside. Give her a positive, confidence-building message every day.

Courage and Confidence Bonus

Make a list of five risks you have taken in your life. Let yourself feel proud of your courage and confidence.

Emotional freedom is the doorway to our dreams and the goal of the warrior within. This warrior woman is the part of us standing for our greatness, our magnificence, and our joy. She is filled with the courage, confidence, and inner strength to leave the past behind. She knows that there is no way to express herself fully when she is still carrying burdens that need to be released. She won’t settle for a reality that is dragged down by unfinished business. She embraces the present. Her strength returns even after the worst defeat because she has grown to trust herself. She is intensely honest with herself. Unwilling to have negativity or old fears stop her, she is strong, determined, and single-focused. Like an alchemist, she creates an elixir out of wisdom and courage to resolve any remnants of emotional toxicity. The warrior woman has found freedom.

Emotional freedom means embracing responsibility and accountability. To allow ourselves to move through our experiences instead of staying stuck in them, we look for how we participated in the circumstances, experiences, and conditions of our lives. As we embrace responsibility, we are given the gift of clear sight and are able to see how much we have grown and evolved from the experiences we have lived through.

Then, as we answer the following questions with sincerity, we move from powerlessness to empowerment, from victim to victor, from heaviness to lightness:

How can I learn from this?

What is the message I need to hear?

What is the gift that this experience holds for me
?

What, if anything, do I need to do to unburden myself so I can move forward with grace, determination, and divine confidence?

The gift of taking responsibility for our journey allows us the kind of emotional freedom that can’t be gotten anywhere else. We’re able to see and claim for ourselves the immense inner strength always available to us.

So why is it that so many of us hold on to experiences from our past, refusing to let them go? Is it because we don’t know how to let go and move on? Or could it be that our familiar emotional wounds are part of our story, our human drama, and we somehow feel more like ourselves when we’re holding on to them?

To experience emotional freedom, we must accept, surrender, and let go of our wounds. We must be willing to take responsibility for what we’re holding on to, which is usually a hurt or pain from the past that leaves us feeling victimized. The Code of Emotional Freedom calls on us to let go of “I’m right,” “You’re wrong,” “I’m good,” and “You’re bad” so that we can stand fully in our power. It calls on us to take responsibility for our lives and then, with grace and ease, to let go of our excuses, reasons, justifications, and righteousness.

Now, that doesn’t mean we’re suddenly deaf, dumb, and blind to the impact that others have had on us. Becoming accountable doesn’t mean letting the other person off the hook. As my friend Marianne Williamson always says, the universe will deal with them. But taking responsibility does guarantee that we will reclaim the power we have given away and regain our freedom to glide through the universe unobstructed by old beliefs or other people.

Holding back from taking full responsibility is common to all of us. Our wounded human ego wants to pin the blame on someone else—anyone else! Being a victim allows us to point our fingers and justify the condition of our lives. It gives us a way to explain why we don’t have the strength or the courage we need to make changes.

Blame is a clever trickster. At its root, blame is a form of fear that helps us avoid accountability for our lives. We can be assured that every time we are blaming, we are casting ourselves in the role of the victim and somebody else in the role of the victimizer. But the underbelly of this victim mentality is that it winds up victimizing us as well. When we point our finger at someone else and say, “They lied to me” or “They cheated on me” or “They betrayed me,” there is an accompanying internal dialogue that goes along with it: “How could I have let that happen?” Or “I should have stopped it.” Or “I had the impulse to stay away and didn’t.” In this framework of blame, there’s plenty of condemnation to go around. The pain and resentment that build over time from the experiences we feel victimized by prevent us from being able to digest and let go of our old emotional baggage. Instead, we stay stuck in the grip of fear.

The good news is that something magical happens when we own and embrace something we’ve avoided taking responsibility for in the past.

I experienced this in my own life when, five years into my career as a bestselling author, teacher, and leader in emotional and spiritual education, I found myself embroiled in a crisis with a group of consultants I had hired to run and operate my business. Even though we were thriving financially, problems frequently cropped up that I had no desire to deal with, and I was excited to find a team who could competently handle the details of my growing enterprise. When I hired them, they had promised me everything a fast-growing business needs—professionalism, full accounting and reporting, business planning, profitability, and 100 percent accountability for the business’s success. I was delighted to be freed up from the day-to-day administration and management of the company.

I soon realized that the promises they made had been broken, when someone on my staff called to tell me she wouldn’t be getting paid that week. I was appalled when I saw that the bank balance was dangerously low, the staff wasn’t getting paid, and the finances were in the worst condition they had ever been in. Although there was much confusion as to how the consultants were managing the distribution of funds, it was very easy to see the hundred thousand–plus dollars they had taken for themselves. Of course when I called them, they blamed everybody else, taking no responsibility whatsoever. Listening to them on the other end of the phone, I felt angry, frustrated, and powerless. All I could think of was how I had been screwed yet again.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time I had found myself in this mess. In fact, I had handed my business over on a silver platter three different times before this. My pattern was that I would find a man or company to manage my business and be 100 percent accountable for its success. If I liked them and felt good around them, nothing else seemed to matter. I would get caught up in the promises they made and the vision they had for a fabulous future because it already was a thriving business.
What could go wrong?
I thought.
No one would want to derail a company doing such valuable work in the world.

But then I would be snapped out of my fantasy. Inevitably things would fall apart. They would spend more money than what was coming in, and I would find myself picking up the pieces. It never took much to clean things up—a testament to the service my business was providing to the large numbers of people who enrolled in our workshops and training programs. All it required was that I take back the reins of my business and meet regularly with the staff. Usually within three months, whatever issues there were would get cleaned up. Then, three or four weeks later, I’d start searching for the next person or company that could take the management of the business off my hands and relieve me of the pressure I felt. And each time things fell apart, all I could think about was the famous quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” That was me. I was definitely doing the same thing over and over again, and each time I was expecting a different result.

Even though everybody wanted to give me their opinions and valuable advice, I was committed to being right (even if I was horribly wrong), and there wasn’t anyone who dared cross that boundary except my mother. She handled all my personal finances and often my business finances when I took it back from the hands of consultants—which gave her a unique window into my insanity as it unfolded. Even though I would tell her, “I don’t want to hear what you have to say,” she would slip it in there anytime she could. “Why did you hire these people? I knew they were going to do this. You have
sucker
stamped across your forehead. They have no idea what they’re doing. They’re idiots.” But instead of being angry at the people who were messing with my business and leaving me in a compromised position, I would get mad at my mom, like it was her fault. I made her wrong. What did she know? I can tell you one thing: she knew that I was working eighteen hours a day and that other people were taking my money. That’s what she knew.

The trauma, pain, and upset of this pattern gave me plenty of ammo for beating myself up. It cost me my peace of mind and the freedom to enjoy all the amazing things that were happening in my life and career. It cost me the opportunity to take time off and just be present with my son. It cost me the desire to trust other people. It robbed me of the ability to be in the presence of all the miracles that were taking place in the lives of the people who were training with us. When others observed my business and the transformation that occurs for people as a result of it, they wanted to soak it up and dwell in it. Instead I always wanted to run from it.

By this time, I had to look at why, despite all this evidence, I was so resistant to managing and being accountable for my own business and its money. How could I be so successful and so stupid at the same time? And why would I—without knowing much about someone, but because I felt a connection with that person—hand over the keys to the safe to him? Why was I so resistant to taking responsibility for managing a business that was fulfilling my life’s mission? All I ever wanted to do was train leaders to be who they are at their core, to stand strong in the middle of controversy, to take risks even though they’re scared, and to let their magnificence and power shine. So why did I resent the pressure I felt in fulfilling my mission?

No excuses could absolve me from the need to see that this was something I had to deal with. No layers of denial could shield me from the reality that if I didn’t make a radical change, the stress was going to kill me—literally—because it had already taken my energy, my joy, and my happiness away from me. So I did what I would coach anyone to do—some serious soul searching. I asked one of my staff coaches to take me through one of our processes. As she had me close my eyes and look back into my history, she wanted me to call forth a memory that was causing my resistance.

In my mind, I could see my mother dressed beautifully, getting ready for work as she got us ready for school. She was very young when she got married, and at some point she decided that she could no longer fit into the mold of a 1960s stay-at-home mom. She became a great pioneer and leader among the other women in our town. She was one of the only mothers I knew who got a job, decided she wanted a divorce (which no one at the time was doing), and got the training she needed to become an insurance agent. She became a successful businesswoman and a powerful presence in her field.

As these memories of my mother came to me, I could begin to feel the conflicting emotions within me. On the one hand, I felt proud of the choices that my mother had made. But then I also remembered being so young and feeling ashamed and embarrassed that I had a mother who was so different, a mother who wasn’t there when I got home from school every day, making me cookies. I was surprised by the shame and embarrassment I felt back then, and it sparked realizations about my own inner conflicts about being a working mother. I began to think about some of the guilty feelings I was experiencing in having a young son at home and at the same time being on the road, being very committed to my career, and seemingly being able to take it all on. People around me would say, “You’re the strongest woman I know,” even though I could see that in the running of the business I felt weak, powerless, and overwhelmed.

Today I would brag to you about how my mother wound up owning her own insurance agency; how she was one of the first women to work with Lloyd’s of London; how she learned to fly an airplane; how she became a gourmet cook; and on and on. But for a long time I wasn’t able to reconcile the conflicting feelings I carried about my mother’s choices. Inevitably, I had made conflicting decisions that were showing up as contradictions in my life. I was a working mom, just like my mother, and yet I was fighting against that reality. She was totally into running a business, and I was totally against it. I came to the realization that I set up the same situation time and time again because I wanted someone to save me. I wanted somebody else to be responsible, to be the driver, and just report to me how great everything was going. And as I looked even deeper, I unearthed my belief that a
man
needed to run my business in order for it to succeed.

Standing in the truth that I had been the one to create these repeated disasters with my business, that I was responsible, I suddenly had the deeper insight that responsibility brings. I could see that I was not just caught up in a pattern in which my appointed saviors were screwing me. I had screwed myself by not taking any responsibility for running my business. I had drawn into my world people who had conflicting motives, people who really didn’t care or didn’t know how to run my business.
Mom, you were right.
I was the one who kept giving away my power like a hot potato that I couldn’t toss quickly enough to someone else.

As soon as I took responsibility for the choices I’d made, I knew I had to take my power back as a woman, secure in my belief that it is okay for women to be great business leaders. My feelings of stress and inadequacy started to melt away. My staff became a more cohesive team. We found the perfect person to handle the financial reporting for the business. As our vision began to grow, running the business ceased to be a chore and instead became a place for me to contribute to the world. This was the beautiful gift of taking responsibility—one that has positively affected the lives of thousands of people around the world.

Looking back, I can see that blame kept me feeling bad and trapped in a position of powerlessness. The only way for me to reclaim my power and heal my heart was to take 100 percent responsibility for all of my choices and circumstances. It was this taking responsibility that granted me true freedom and the ability to walk out of the prison of being victimized by this pattern. Although the tricky voice of my ego warned me, “It’s really not your fault. You’re a victim,” my willingness to be accountable and honest with myself gave me a new vantage point.