Sharing can be scary.
The boy waddled over to his friend on the playground, a half-eaten animal cracker in his hand. He smiled awkwardly at the other child who had his hands full of sand from the sandbox.
“Um, hi.”
The sand monster looked up from his castle, eyeing the half cracker and licking his lips.
The first boy turned back to make sure his mother was nearby and then reached out a slobbery hand, “Wanna a cracker?”
The waiting was intense. He had never felt his breath catch so easily before, and the growing thud in his chest was a new sensation.
The sand monster dropped his sand, “Sure.” He tentatively took the soggy cracker and popped it into his mouth.
“Wanna help me build a castle?”
From our very first attempt at sharing to our thousandth attempt, fear comes with the territory. There is the fear of rejection (obviously), the fear of not getting it right, the fear of too little too late (holding back only to regret it later), just to mention a few. These thoughts are all legitimate. Each of those could happen. We could be rejected, we could try to produce a result and just plain fail at our intent, and we could give 10% towards a task instead of 100% and then regret our “one foot in, one foot out,” mentality later.
Let’s be honest; all of us will try and fail; all of us will face rejection, and all of us will scold ourselves for not giving our all. But we will also learn from ourselves. We will learn that if we let fear control our thoughts and actions, we aren’t really living. We will learn that the feeling of fear will dissipate with practice and time. We will learn that we bind ourselves more than anyone else does, and it’s up to us to decide what to do next.
I’ve decided to believe in my voice through writing. I’ve decided to share parts of myself that I’ve not shared before.
Now it’s your turn. Please let me know what fear has been holding you back and your plan on turning that fear around. Let me know what you’re choosing to share.
From Where She Stands 