Your Fear is Not Your Reality - Fight It.

"Dreams are what you want to happen; goals are what you set to make happen."

Yesterday,  my humble little class and I were pinned as seniors, and at the end of the day, got a homework assignment with what we plan to do after we graduate, and setting actual dates for those goals.

And while it's incredibly exciting to think about finally having a career basis in massage therapy as I build my life as an artist, it also is gut-wrenchingly terrifying to think about suddenly being met with a reality that I want fruition from. I graduate in December. That's only a handful of months away. I've wrestled with a great deal of anxiety and emotional stress these last couple of weeks, but yesterday hit me like a ton of bricks, for some reason. I like to think of myself as a strong, level headed, passionate go getter, but the honest to goodness truth is this:

While I love dreaming, planting seeds for my life, and watching them begin to nourish and grow...setting dates in stone to make actually happen absolutely freaks me out. The steps aren't necessarily pretty to get there. It's not comfortable. It's this metaphorical effect of taking the train alone. Don't get me wrong, the thought of finally, after years of hard work and praying and thinking and failure and trial and error and wondering when it would be my turn to begin fulfilling these things...is absolutely amazing...but it also is exhilaratingly terrifying. If I'm being honest?

Last night, I sat down on my floor, and I ugly cried. I am apprehensive. I am scared. I am afraid of doing something wrong. I don't want to waste my life. There's so much to be done. I fear leaving important people behind, but by that same token, I also fear never taking a chance and risking my comfort and stability for something that could be adventurous, eyeopening, and Spiritually quenching.  The thoughts are daunting. Writing them out literally makes my heart rate escalate, and my hands feel a little clammy. I'm processing what date to set to pack my bags, and open my new chapter in Los Angeles. Do I dare to just rip it quick, like a band aid - away from my home and usual surroundings and jobs I have and people I love - and leap into the unknown as soon as 2017 comes to an end? Would it be too soon? And so, that little voice of fear nags my brain. What if it's a mistake? What if I leave behind people who I'm not meant to leave behind? Friendships? A near and dear relationship? Potential job opportunities and collaborations? What if I am supposed to stay longer? What if I end up lonely? What if I don't find love again? What if I fail? What if I unintentionally hurt others by leaving? And if I just rip the band aid, pack my bags, and don't look back...what if I end up financially unstable? What if I don't find stable roommates, or a roommate at all, or ever have a place to call my own? What if I end up killing my dreams, rather than kindling them, and it all goes to waste? How do I juggle 3 career paths at once, kindle them, and merge them so that I love what I do, yet support myself, but also continue chasing my wild dream of being an artist FULL time? And if I stay here a little longer...what if I end up settling, never daring just to take a risk and a chance? What if I resent friends and loved ones? What if then, my visions of traveling and being on the West Coast die, and I'm bound here? What if I become stuck in a comfortable routine, seeing the same stores, same places, driving down the same roads, same intersections, smelling the same cigarette smoke at the same places, feeling the same sensations, breathing the same air, living the same old, never changing life? 

Those are the thoughts that wake me up during the night. They are what I have found myself pondering, and often feeling a sharp twinge of panic about, during the day. And I try reassuring myself that they are just thoughts, not reality...but it is super hard, because you see - the thoughts feel like they already are reality. It makes me ache the deepest ache imaginable. It's silly, because as my heart races and my jaw clenches from stress, absolutely nothing catastrophic is happening. Life is still unfolding, and yet, my mind seems to keep determining that it already has unfolded, and that the daunting, devastating worries of my mind are my reality. Deep down, I know that is not true. I know that those thoughts do not come from God, and I know that his light eradicates darkness. It's spiritual warfare, really. It makes it incredibly difficult to experience full peace and rest in simply being content with saying, "Lord, Your will be done," however, when it feels as though the mind's full capacity has been invaded by fear and assumptions and predetermined devastation. Does that make sense? Probably not. But hear me out.  

I want to be ambitious of the future, but I do not want to fear. It's hard when everything seems to be colliding at once, and I feel as though I'm being pulled in a million different directions, with a million, fuzzy puzzle pieces in my brain that haven't connected and clarified yet. I love redeeming endings, and usually try and give some sort of perspective or things that have worked for me, personally, when I write...but today? I have no, "Eureka! Here's how I fixed myself!" conclusion. The truth of the matter is that all of this is something I literally wrestle with as I write, yet I also know the Biblical truth of it all, and the fact that although I feel these intense thoughts and emotions...I 100% believe they can be overcome. Today, I'm using this little space to admit that fear is a struggle of mine, accept that I don't have all the answers and that I am struggling really, really bad, but that I also am fighting it, and know that it will not last forever. Even though fear tries to make itself known as my "new reality", I am clinging to the promises that: God does not inflict a spirit of fear upon his children. He is not arbitrary, so he therefore does not place us as humans in (seemingly) nerve-wracking situations just for the heck of it. He delights, as John Piper states, in the good that pain leads to. There is growth in the pain. There is growth in the unknown. There is growth in denying human nature, and accepting the invitation to follow Jesus as Shepherd - Yahweh Rohi.

"God loves you even though you don't feel it. He can handle your life even when you can't." -Stephen Altrogge