You’ve seen the horses at the derby waiting in the gates. They are in a frenzy to charge the gates, but the door is holding them back and the gun hasn’t gone off yet. The jockeys feed them some kind of calming agent to keep them steady until the gates open. But man, when the gun goes off and the gate lifts WATCH OUT!
We all have that “thing” that paralyzes us and keeps us stuck in an unproductive state. The paralysis comes in many forms: laziness, procrastination, wasting time– you name it. We have that significant thing that we are supposed to do with our life—but we are just stuck. Our bodies are in fluid motion, but we don’t realize our soul and dreams are just stuck.
I love the movie Coach Carter. Samuel L Jackson plays a coach that took over a failing basketball team in a failing school. His character asked one of his players “Son, what is your greatest fear?” The player didn’t know what to say because he really didn’t understand the question. He didn’t know what his greatest fear was. He seemed paralyzed by the question.
My Greatest Fear
For the past two years, my fear was losing it all. Sometimes I sat and looked out the window and wondered how I even got there.
I am not the same person that I was before my divorce. That’s a great thing and it’s a horrible thing.
It changes you and whoever says it doesn’t is straight-out lying. I have noticed that I have gotten a little quieter. That little bubble that I used to live in called “bliss” has busted. It gives you some edge, a hot dose of reality.
That’s what I felt like while I was waiting for the final paperwork phase of my divorce. My faith, the blog, wine, and food were my calming agents while I waiting for my release.
I had ideas, plans and dreams of some things that I wanted to do. I wanted to start a business.
I’m one of those people who likes to compartmentalize everything. I like to start new things in a fresh space. I don’t like to put new wine in old wine skins.
So the plan was to just sit and wait until everything ended. I was so focused on that my life was put on hold. I felt like I needed to wait until the divorce was over before I could start. It’s great to want a fresh new start, but that’s not always ideal.
I was in a battle between fear and faith. I had faith that God would pull me through, but I also walked around with anxiety and the paranoia that my world and my things would be snatched from me in an instant. I knew that it was a faulty perception because my attorney had already told me that once you file divorce papers, whatever is acquired after the posting date is considered yours and cannot be used in the agreement phase. Although I knew that, I was still paranoid.
I fell into fear, you know the ‘False Expectations Appearing Real.’ At some point I had to stop the fear because worrying and being in fear means that you don’t trust God. Period.
At the end of the day, I had to revisit my lesson on competing commitments. My competing commitment was that I put my life on hold for fear that I would lose my future business.
What all this meant was that I was allowing a person to have control over me, my life and my actions.
When Coach Carter’s player became tired of being asked what his greatest fear was, he did some research. So the next time coach asked him, he was ready:
Oh, But When the Gate Lifts!
At some point, my girlfriend Sharon said “Look Boo. You can’t put your life on hold. Just go ahead and do what you need to do. God will take care of the rest.” That was the same Sunday morning I talked to my friend Donna to get unstuck on an issue.
At that moment, I got my release and it was like the scene from Rocky II where Adrian was in the coma and Rocky was waiting for her to wake up. She woke up and said one word. That was all he needed. He and his trainer made haste like a bat out of hell:
Unleashing the Fear!
The Serenity Prayer
Now of course I didn’t have some guy slapping and punching my abs and I dang sure wasn’t chasing chickens but you get the idea. I was a force to be reckoned with though!
Once you have realized and acknowledged your deepest fear, take these action steps:
- Make a list of the problems or issues that you are dealing with.
- Determine which are things that you can change and which ones you can’t (remember the Serenity Prayer?). This is key as we waste a lot of time here.
- Place focus on the things that you CAN change and put together a plan. Start with the things that are really small and you can get out of the way. It will give you a sense of accomplishment early on.
- Find out what your calming agent is (i.e food, tv, drinking, etc.) and begin eliminating the negative one–they are a distraction.
- Check out my recent blog posts Un-Stucking Thyself and Un-Stucking Thyself…Some More. There are a list of items and action steps to get you moving.
Good luck and God Bless. You got this!
A special shout out to Donna, Sharon and Oglatha for helping me weed through this process.
