You are a Badass (17 page)
Aside from the sickness factor, making time to do the things that inspire you should also be a priority because, um, what’s the point of living life without them? Where’s the fun in waking up at eighty-five and realizing you “couldn’t find the time” to enjoy yourself? What were you doing that was more important instead? This is not a luxury reserved for people who are richer, smarter, or less bogged down than you are. It’s a luxury reserved for people who take the time to figure it out and choose to design a more fun-filled life.
Use the tools in this chapter to make the time to get the rest you need and have the fun you want so you can enjoy your precious life while you’re still in possession of it.
4. LOVE YOURSELF
You’re doing an awesome job.
We tiptoe through life hoping to safely make it to death.
—Unknown
When I lived in New Mexico, a friend of mine took me to this cave she’d heard about up in the Jemez Mountains. “It’s more like a big hole in the ground, actually,” she said, “but I hear it’s pretty cool.” She didn’t do a great job of selling it, especially when she got to the part about how we’d have to crawl around on all fours the whole time, but I wasn’t really listening to her anyway. Caves don’t interest me, no matter what size they are; I was only going for the road trip and the hike through the mountains and this great burger place that I discovered the last time I was up there. The cave was just a necessary part of the trip, like stopping for gas.
After a glorious drive beneath the endless New Mexico sky and a
beautiful hike on a red dirt path through a piñon pine forest, we got to The Cave. It was just as she’d described: a little hole at the base of a small hill just big enough to crawl through. My friend tossed me a pair of knee pads and a flashlight and headed in. I followed her on my hands and knees, holding my flashlight with my teeth, and by the time we were about ten minutes in, I felt like the entrance, and my chances of ever seeing another burger again, had vanished. If anything came at us from inside the cave, like, say, a monster, or if there was a flash flood or an earthquake or a rattlesnake or a mosquito, we were totally screwed. The craggy white rock tunnel surrounding us had closed in so tightly that when my friend finally stopped crawling and leaned against the wall to sit, she had to do so with her head bent so far forward it looked like she was about to start chewing on her neck. What the hell was I doing there again?
“Okay, now for the cool part—you ready?” she asked. “Turn off your light.” She clicked off her flashlight after motioning for me to do the same. The instant my light went out, I experienced the absolute darkest darkness of beyond pitch-black holy fucking shit deepest darkest blackness ever. I felt the tickling of hysteria begin to worm its way up the back of my neck, and for the first time in my life, I completely understood fear.
Because fear was the only thing I could see in that hole. It sat there, omnipresent, gigantic, all consuming, staring me straight in the face asking, “So, you gonna let me swallow you up or what?”
I realized that with absolutely zero effort, I could unravel into a claustrophobic freak-out of such scratching, biting, high-pitched crazylady screaming colossal-ness, that it would leave both me and my friend staring at a wall, playing with our lips for weeks after they dragged our limp and bloodied bodies out of that cave.
Or . . . not.
The choice was mine.
To fear or not to fear, that is the question.
I’m pleased to report that I decided to forego the fear frenzy in favor of calmly crawling back out of the cave to the land of sunshine, open spaces, and walking on two legs. I emerged with not only an alarming amount of sand in my ears and severe lockjaw from cracking the flashlight with my teeth, but with a new and profound understanding of the
choice
aspect of fear.
It’s so simple; fear will always be there, poised and ready to wreak havoc, but we can choose whether we’re going to engage with it or turn on the lights, drown it out and crawl past it. I also realized that drowning it out is actually pretty easy, we’ve just been conditioned to believe otherwise.
We’ve made being in fear a habit.
We’re pumped full of it as children, like sugar, then as we grow we continue to take in the bad news on TV and the horror in the papers and the violence in books and films and video games and all this junk that fills us to the brim with fear about our world. We’re taught to play it safe and not take risks, and to caution everyone around us to follow suit.
And it’s become such an accepted part of our social conditioning that we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
For example, what would your immediate response be to someone you really loved and deeply cared about if they said, whilst sputtering with excitement, any of the following things to you:
I’m taking out a gigantic loan to build my dream business.
I’m going to travel around the world. For a year. By myself.
I’m quitting my secure, full-time job to become an actor.
I met the most incredible person last week and I’m totally in love. And we’re getting married.
I’m going skydiving.
For the most part, when we watch someone take a leap of faith, our first reaction is to scream, “Look out!” We’ve not only made a habit out of smearing our fear and worry and doubt all over each other, but we pat ourselves on the backs for it because we believe that it shows how much we care.
THAT’s something worth being scared of, if you ask me.
There’s something called the Crab Effect. If you put a bunch of crabs in a bowl and if, while they’re in there crawling all over each other, one of them tries to climb out, the rest of them will try to pull him back down instead of helping to push him out. No wonder they’re called crabs.
Imagine how different our world would be if
we
were less crab-like. If we were not only taught to
really truly
believe in miracles, yes, I realize how dorky that sounds, but were rewarded and supported, instead of cautioned and screamed at, for taking huge leaps into the unknown. We give a lot of lip service to the idea that anything is possible, and we all grow up with posters of kittens and baby seals on our walls that say
follow your dreams
on them, but should you actually
do
something radical, all the flashing lights and sirens go off. Know what I’m sayin’?
Fear lives in the future. The feeling of being afraid is real, but the
fear itself is all made up
because it hasn’t even happened yet
—death, going bankrupt, breaking a leg, forgetting our lines, getting yelled at for being late, getting rejected, etc. Most of the time we have no guarantee that what we fear is going to even happen and that if it does, that it’s going to be scary! Take death for example. For all we know we leave our bodies and melt into a state of pure love and light and sparkly things and unicorns and bunnies eternal orgasmic giddiness. We can be as sure of that as we can about anything else in the future, so why create all the drama?
All it takes to turn the fear factor around is learning to be comfortable in, instead of terrified of, the unknown. And this is done through faith.
It basically comes down to how you choose to go through life:
Is your fear greater than your faith in the unknown (and yourself)?
Or is your faith in the unknown (and yourself) greater than your fear?
While you’re making your choice, here’s a mouthful from good old Helen Keller:
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
There’s that incredible moment when you decide, “screw it, I’m going for it,” and suddenly the thrill overtakes the fear. And then you’re flying on the magic carpet—you’re signing on the dotted line to buy
the house, confronting your father, sliding the ring onto the finger, stepping onto the stage in front of thousands. I mean, talk about feeling alive!
On the other side of your fear is your freedom.
Here are some helpful ways to navigate your way through the jungle of fear:
1. VIEW FEAR FROM YOUR REAR VIEW MIRROR
Think about some radical thing you did in the past that literally gave you the shakes it was so big and scary. And now look back on it—how terrifying is it now? Can you conjure up any scary feelings about it? Even a weensy twinge of fear? Keep this in mind as you face each new challenge: No matter how intimidating your next great leap forward seems at the moment, it will be a pipsqueak when you look back on it someday. So why wait? Why not look at it through pipsqueak colored glasses right now? Envision your challenges from the future, look back on them from a place of victory, and they will lose much of their power to paralyze you.
I always use my first trip to India as an example when I’m being a weenie about doing something that scares me. It was one of my very first international solo trips, and even though my experience with anything Indian up to that point pretty much consisted of a couple Ravi Shankar CDs and some chicken tikka masala, I thought it would be such a cool place to see. I wanted to go somewhere totally new and
experience a reality that was as different from my own as possible. I thought going to India would be like going through the looking glass.
So I buy my ticket and then it hits me—what the hell am I trying to prove? Why am I doing this? I’d never gone anywhere that far away by myself before, where I knew no one, didn’t speak the language, had no idea what to expect, and I swear I built it up to become one of the most terrifying things I ever did in my life. Because I imagined myself as this tiny little dot, all the way on the other side of the globe, floating around in space where I was utterly anonymous, a ghost, a stranger, where I could disappear without a trace and nobody I loved would have any idea what happened to me. Poof!
It got so bad that I started fantasizing about seriously injuring myself or that my best friend would die so I wouldn’t have to go (for some reason, just canceling my ticket never entered my mind). As luck would have it, however, nobody died, and I found myself being driven to the airport like I was going to my own funeral. The moment I stepped into the international terminal at the airport, however, I was swept up in a sea of colors and people from all over the world and movement and languages and my terror was instantly bulldozed by excitement. I’m going to freakin’ India!
When I got on the plane, I sat next to this gorgeous Indian woman wearing a pink sari and huge gold earrings who turned to me, smiled, and offered me an M&M and that’s when it really sank in;
You’re not alone you ding dong. You are surrounded by people. And one of the most basic common human needs is connection
. I then proceeded to spend two months traveling around a country that is now by far one of my favorite places on this planet and that sparked in me a love for travel that has completely changed my life.
This, and other examples from my own life, keep proving to me over and over that:
Our greatest fears are the greatest waste of time.
Face your fears with the truth, that they are all in your mind, and they will lose their power over you.
2. FLIP THE FEAR
When you find yourself letting fear push you around, look at it from a different perspective. Start by breaking it down, finding what it is that you’re really afraid of and then flipping it around to make it work for you, not against you. Show it who’s boss. Feed your fear a suck-it sandwich.
For example:
I want to write a book but can’t get myself to sit down and do it
. Why not?
I’m scared that if I do it will be terrible
. What happens if it’s terrible?
If it’s terrible I’ll look stupid. Then what? People will make fun of me
. Then what?
I’ll feel ashamed
. Okay, so you’re not writing your book in order to protect yourself from feeling stupid and ashamed.
Now flip it: How stupid and ashamed will you feel if you don’t write your book?
Very. I know it’s a brilliant idea. And it’s a big dream of mine
. So will your strategy of not writing it in order to protect yourself from feeling stupid and ashamed protect you from feeling stupid and ashamed?
No
. And since you’re risking feeling stupid and ashamed either way, which version is worse—trying to write it and having it be terrible or never going for it and living an unlived life of mediocrity, wimpiness; and shame?
Living an unlived life of mediocrity, wimpiness; and shame.
Break it down so you can really look at, and defuse, what it is about a situation that’s scaring you. Fear is all about how you choose to look at things, so by changing your perspective on it you can let the fear of NOT doing the thing you’re scared of fuel your quest to greatness.
3. BE IN THE MOMENT
Is anything scary happening to you right now at this very moment? Right now, where you’re sitting, is anything bad actually happening or is it just the thoughts in your head that are freaking you out? You deplete the much-needed energy you need to kick ass by freaking out before something even happens. Instead, stay in the moment and connect to your higher self. If you’re about to walk into the courtroom or jump out of a plane or ask for a raise, breathe into the moment and stay connected to Source Energy. Keep your frequency high and your belief in miracles strong instead of falling prey to the fears in your mind, and you’ll find that not only are you much better equipped to deal with whatever situation it is that you’re headed for, but that, nine times out of ten, it’s much scarier in your mind than it is in reality.