Everyone I talk with this week seems to be fighting our own what-if monsters.  What if I buy this and then lose my job?  What if I I really let myself fall for him and it doesn’t work out and I get hurt again? What if I take this offer and then the other one would have been better? What if they think I’m a fraud?  What if I tell my daughter she can’t date that boy and she hates me?  The energy this weekend can really take us into our fears and insecurities, and this helps us learn how to manage our dreaded what-if monster.

What If?  What’s underneath that question?  Trusting ourselves to make the right choice.  Trusting that if we follow our Divine Guidance…what?  All will not work out as we hope?  Expectations?  What if is a huge leap of faith!  Faith in ourselves.  Faith that our Divine Path will be as good or better than we hope. Judgement that we think we know what’s best.

For me, there is a lot of  ‘what if I’m not good enough,’ or ‘more specifically, ‘what if they discover I’m not good enough’?  There it is.  At the root of it all is a shadow belief driving  everything I do.  Believing I’m not good enough and fear they will see it.  Is this a place of power from which to live?

I’ve known this not-good-enough thing was inside me for a while now.  My warrior upbringing that was so well refined in a man’s business world that I learned to tell that scared inner child, “Suck it up!  We’re doing this!”

Sure, that works, and I’ve achieved a great deal in my life that way for which I am thankful.  However, is accomplishment the goal, or is it happiness?

Dr. Brene Brown is amazing, and she sparks a lot I feel to journal about when I watch her and read her work.  In her teachings about vulnerability and shame, she touches upon love, gratitude, and compassion.  (She’s even launching a 6-week online class with Oprah soon.)  Dr. Brown’s work ties in well with Dr. Karyl McBride’s book, Will I Ever Be Good Enough?  Both women teach us that it is not the traditional warrior goddess approach that we have used that will ultimately heal this fear.  It is love.

We may think of ourselves as compassionate and loving people, but if we do not give this to ourselves, then what we give to others is not authentic either.  I know that’s harsh, but think about it.  You know that we can’t give what we don’t have.  What we may exhibit is patience or tolerance, or simply niceness so they’ll like us.

When we finally begin to give our inner child acknowledgement for these very real fears and then lovingly, honestly go into that fear and explore it, it begins to really dissolve.  We have to feel the truths that are there and own them before we can work through them, and pushing ourselves through it without that self-love is not an authentic, deep journey into peace.

This is a moment-by-moment journey.  It is the core of all we are and all we do.  It is not easy, and at times I own that it is actually damn hard!  However, every moment is worth it.  We truly do deserve the deep joy and peace that we find within ourselves along the way.

Namaste and much love,

Sheryl Sitts, Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

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