This is no ordinary post.

Nope.

This is a baby– get up, dust yourself off, and tell fear it can’t be your DJ anymore plea.

I’m not sure how long you’ve let fear drive you in the opposite direction of where you wanted to be. Or why you keep letting it sit in the passenger seat controlling your comfort, your perceptions of yourself and those around you and your joy moments, the moments when that one song comes on —you know the one. The one that leaves butterflies fluttering in your soul, the one that makes you feel alive again, the one that makes your fingers tingle with all the potential sitting inside of it. Stop letting fear control the music, stop letting it write the narrative.

I’m not yelling at you.
I’m not trying to get you to do something that would be impossible.

I’m simply hoping to urge you.

Friends,

fear wakes up besides me everyday and does everything it can to whisper to me all the reasons why I shouldn’t get up. All the reasons why I have nothing to contribute, whispers lie after lie that I won’t measure up but you know what? Everyday is a chance to get up and push fear to the backseat. Yeah, I’m not saying you can’t let fear ride with you in fact it should ride with you because it keeps us level, humble and reminded that great works happen through us but not because of us.

Yeah, let fear ride along with you but give it back seat instead of a primary one okay? Give it rules when it gets in your car. Fear, cannot drive and it cannot ride in the passenger seat. Fear cannot touch the radio, tell you where to go or how to get there. Fear can only sit in the back, fear can only ride along with you.

I listened to a few Podcasts today with Elizabeth Gilbert + Rob Bell (Search “The Rob Cast” episode 74 | A Good morning with Elizabeth Gilbert) and also Elizabeth Gilbert + Brene Brown (these podcasts and a 5 hour drive is what sparked this post). Specifically the one with Liz Gilbert and Brene when they started talking about fear. (I can’t remember which one said it) but of them mentions that we put a lot of fight and weight into overcoming fear. It’s all about kicking it in the gut and fighting it but she said what if we thanked it instead? What if we embraced it, let it be there but we stopped letting it control us.

Fear can ride in the backseat instead of us trying to take it out all together and while it’s there? We can thank it.

Yes, we can thank fear.

Thank fear for challenging us.

Thank fear for offering directions to all the wrong places and when we never asked.

Thank fear for helping us become the people we are today.

The resilient, victory holding, dusted off version of you and no no don’t confuse it my dear, fear didn’t make you but it absolutely played a part.

So let it take a ride in the backseat, it’s inevitably going to be with you as you journey through a life of decisions, risks, doubts and love– to an extent it is healthy and necessary. But it doesn’t get to DJ anymore nah boo, you get to do that.

So turn it up, turn it loud.

You know—that one song.

The one that leaves butterflies fluttering in your soul, the one that makes you feel alive again, the one that makes your fingers tingle with all the potential sitting inside of it.