Day 10: The Fear of Expansion
In this month of personal challenge and inner growth, I am also taking steps for outer growth. At this point in my career, I have begun to shift my focus to where I’m heading professionally for the next 15-20 years. It is my intention to reach as many people as possible who are ready to take the next steps forward in their personal journeys.
Today I took some important steps in expanding my reach. It was exciting and definitely
pushing an edge for me. As confident as I am in my messaging, and as aware as I am for the need - individually and collectively - for a return to a more balanced way of life, one that is more connected to nature, I have my hesitations.
Who am I to be that voice? I’m a white boy who grew up in the suburbs of New York City. What right do I have to teach this? What will happen when my ideas do reach more people? Will I be seen as inauthentic, an impostor, a crackpot, or coopting native culture?
These fearful voices crop up every time I take steps to advance my practice. Fortunately, over ten years into doing this, I am familiar with those fears (which, despite having no evidence supporting them in this lifetime, persist and insist they are right). They did linger for a couple hours this afternoon. Fortunately, naming them and feeling their relative lack of depth, especially when compared to the deeper drive and righteousness of the importance of the message I wish to broadcast, helped reveal them as just the usual chatter from my inner shitty committee.
I recalled a journey I did a couple days before my very first time teaching a day-long class on shamanism. I was shown a stream of energy (it resembled a waterfall) that clearly had existed for millennia, and would continue well after my spirit is finished with my earthly body. It was into this stream that I was stepping. I was - and am - simply another in a long, long line of human conduits for this deep wisdom. I am not doing this alone. I am supported and guided by my ancestors and elders (those still embodied and those long gone).
More than once today (from independent sources) I heard that we all have support and access to the seven generations of ancestors which came before us, and that the actions we take now will affect the seven generations who come after us. Thinking on that scale, the worries which arise inside pale in comparison to the legacy I wish to leave.
A friend and mentor of mine - whose birthday happens to be today - reminds me that (and I’m paraphrasing) “I have never felt fully prepared for any challenge I was about to take.” So, as is always the case, and supported by my fears, I find myself today exactly where I am supposed to be.