Wow y’all! Two days in a row!! What is my world coming to?? Hopefully, good things.
Today, I wanna talk about fear.
I am literally the most scared, fearless person you will ever meet. EVER. I know that sentence doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, but its true. I try so hard to be “Fearless”. If you ask me what I’m scared of, Ill tell you rodents and tornadoes, and that’s all I’ll admit to. But if I’m honest with myself, that’s not true at all.
I am scared EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I have been doing a lot of soul searching over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking and praying, and trying to discern the voice of God in my life, and in that, I have discovered that I am truly terrified most of the time. Now, Im not talking about my anxiety, my anxiety that is so bad, I was up for HOURS last night thinking about everything from the bible, to how I should show more grace to rude people, to if I put something in the work computer incorrectly, to something I said in 11th grade that just randomly decided to haunt me in the middle of the night, and anxiety, is one of the biggest battles that I face, but anxiety is not fear.
My Fears are the deep dark worries that I hide from the world, that ignore myself, and I hope are never brought out into light. They are the demons I force down almost daily, they are my shame, my burden. AND I AM DONE. I am done carrying this burden alone. I am done being driven by fear, and I am done letting fear define who I am and what happens in my life. I am done hiding from my fears, and I am DONE letting people think I’m “Fine”.
I’m not going to list them out individually because you don’t have 27 hours to read this. But I am going to give you the top three, not so that you feel sorry for me, not so that you feel like I’m begging for attention, but I am going to share them with you because they are my truth. And they have been a driving force in my life for too long.
Number 1: I am worthless
Without going into my issues ( I have more than vogue), I will tell you that this is a genuine fear for me, and it is the make up of who I am as a person. This is my driving force, this is why I struggle in the areas that I struggle with, and this is the underlying issue behind all the others. I fear being looked at as though I have no value. I FEAR that people wont see my worth if I am not “Winning”. All of my life, I have been number one. I have always gotten what I wanted, if I really wanted it. I have always had the tenacity to go after what I wanted and usually, it was a short lived victory, because I would just find something else I wanted, and I’d go be number one at that. Also, I am THE WORST loser you will ever find. EVER. If I don’t win First, I’m mad, If I don’t win First, I take it out on myself, I berate myself and I wonder why I even decided to participate, and this is a quality that I HATE in myself. But it stems from a feeling of worthlessness that all the love in the world ( and believe me, I had it) could never take from me, until I started to love myself. LOVE MYSELF. Like Jesus does. I have THE GREATEST family in the world, you don’t leave a room without someone telling you they love you. There were always lots of hugs, discipline to show you boundaries, but never over board, Laughter, and always a listening ear, but let me tell you, NONE OF THAT MATTERED. I was cherished and loved and hugged and encouraged to do whatever I put my mind to, and I still thought so low of myself that I couldn’t keep my head above water, where this came from… I know, but that’s another story, the point is, that through figuring out that no matter what I did, Jesus would love me, I started loving myself, and this fear, though I battle it daily, its getting smaller.
Number 2: I will never be a mom
This one isn’t a long standing one like number 1, it’s one that I fairly recently discovered. I didn’t realize it was important to me, until it hit me one day that I’m almost 33, I’m unmarried, and biologically, time is getting shorter. I know there’s still time. I know we have made huge strides medically, but really, until Paisley entered my life, I didn’t realize how AMAZING it is to watch this little person grow into someone that you are molding them to be. I didn’t realize that it’s a desire I’ve had since I was a kid. I didn’t know how Important it was to me. After a routine doctor appointment yesterday, I broke down for 45 minutes. What if I can’t have kids? What if there is something wrong with me? What if I never get the experience of having someone call me “Mamma”? My doc assured me I’m fine, but its still real to me. It’s a fear I’m trying to overcome, but this is changing the way I see the world.
Number 3: I am ugly
This is the one where I know people will roll their eyes. This is the one that makes me seem vain and self absorbed. This is the one I feel the least validation on. This is a huge one for me. It isn’t about my weight. It isn’t about my imperfect teeth. It isn’t about how long or short my hair is. It isn’t really even about my face. But I literally have a crippling fear that what I see in the mirror is different than what you see when you look at me out in the world. I fear that my soul is ugly, and that others can see that I’m sometimes judgmental, sometimes angry, sometimes impatient, sometimes edgy. I fear that my eyes will tell you how much pain I hold inside some days. How much anguish anxiety causes me. How panicked I am at just being in an aisle at Walmart with 6 other people. I fear that my nose is too crooked, my teeth too yellow, my eyebrows too bushy, I fear that everything I see is a lie. And I fight this every. single. day. I have to wake up and tell myself that the girl in the mirror, shes a rock star. She is the keeper of the band aids for Paisley, shes the logical one of all of her mothers children, shes the keeper of knowledge of Grams Medical history, shes funny, shes clumsy, shes a mess, and that all of those things and the rest of the things that make up who she is, they are what make her beautiful. That her flaws are part of it. And that its okay to not be perfect.
Though these are just 3 little fears that I have to overcome daily, there are a TON more. There are the irrational fears ( no a mouse is not going to get in your bed, bite you and give you Aids), there are the small ones ( Did I forget that email?), the big ones ( Ill never be a homeowner ), and they all add up to me not letting God have control of my life. And as I said, I am done. Fear will no longer be my driving force, I am not going to be afraid to show my face without make up, my scars, or the uglier parts of me anymore. I am exactly the person God meant for me to be RIGHT NOW. And fear is not of God.
The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly. – John 10:10
Live abundantly. Live fearlessly. Stop letting fear make your decisions, push you into things, and change who you are.
Love and Hugs Y’all. Please read the caption at the bottom of the photo.
Holly Lynn ❤
lifeashollylynn 