Have you ever had to weigh the choice to step into an opportunity that held the potential to bring you closer to your dreams or stay inside your comfort zone?
Recently, this was my dilemma, when I was asked to contribute a new column at WhereItzAt Magazine called Soul Musings. At first, I was elated to explore a new medium to bring value to a community I loved, but underneath, I felt fear masking itself as comfortability.
Often, fear acts like a chameleon, camouflaging itself to match unreleased emotional pain. Inherently, fear is neither bad nor good. Think of all the times you have used it to respond to an immediate threat in your environment. That was you activating your primitive fight, hide or flight survival response. The challenge you face with fear is using it over a prolonged period to inappropriately express how you feel as blame, shame, guilt, unworthiness, judgment, and anger.
In my case, being asked to write a new column, created inner disturbances of fear which manifested as hesitation and doubt. The threat was, what if I’m criticized? What if my writing isn’t any good? What if my new audience didn’t connect with what I had to share? All at once, my old and apparently not so old fear of failure patterns, were the background music whispering softly but incessantly, to sit tightly in my comfort zone or what I like to call, fear zone.
It is natural to imagine various possibilities when faced with uncertainty, but they don’t all have to be “worst case scenarios”. Knowing how to detect and eliminate negative disturbances like I was experiencing is crucial to your growth and expansion. As I began to observe myself, I realized I was being presented with a decision to act with courage or stick to what made me feel comfortable. My current foray into writing was contained within my social media mini blogs and my fledgling company newsletter. In my role as creator of The Speid Experience, a social wellness brand that encourages individuals to awaken from a mindset of struggle to live a life of beauty through experiences in well-being and travel, I became aware that I was being asked to push beyond my comfort zone.
As a practitioner of mindfulness meditation, I have learned, over time, to slow down my mind, which helps me to observe my flow of thoughts. The science behind this skill is the slowing down of brain wave frequencies called beta, alpha, theta and delta to access different levels of consciousness. Modern science is giving us a deeper understanding of these levels of the mind and how they can be trained to access alternative states of being. The benefits gained from mastering this skill is a deeper awareness of yourself and the thoughts that don’t serve the highest vision of who you are becoming.
Often throughout my own personal experience, I realized that the dream I most desire seemed out of reach especially when faced with myriads of life challenges. I didn’t always have the capacity to discern for myself what choices were aligned with my own determined set of values. Learning these skills took time, divine self-love, and acceptance. Eventually I learned that the conscious choice to stay stuck in what feels safe and comfortable or step into the uncertainty of tremendous possibilities is what I call a lifelong spiritual practice. As each day passes, I am getting better, and better at tapping into my personal power to choose the latter and so can you. I am here to lovingly share how……
Tamara Speid is a heart-centered revolutionary, guide, and experience artist devoted to empowering you to awaken from the mindset of struggle by experiencing a life filled with beauty.
