Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood. -Kahlil Gibran
What would you do if you weren’t afraid? A lot, I’m sure. We all need to face fear, especially the fears that bother us the most, for those are the ones that hold us back in life, those are the ones that silence our true potential and keep us from living life to the fullest. Dorothy Bernard once said that “courage is fear that has said its prayers,” and I agree, for facing fear is the pathway to enlightenment on the road between who you think you are and who you think you can be.
This morning my courage said its prayers. Like any addict, thorns of my past addiction still litter my path; although I don’t like to admit it, I still battle anxiety with stepping on the scale, even though I have been “clean” from my eating disorder for well over six years. And while I firmly believe that the number on the scale has no reflection of my worth as a person, I typically only weigh myself one to two times per year to keep a solid baseline of health just to ensure that I never set myself up for an unhealthy “relapse” of obsessing over a number ever again. This morning though, I weighed. I weighed so that I can grow in my journey of redefining what a specific number on the scale means for me, and to establish that whatever number I weigh right now is the exact weight that my body should be. No more, no less; today, my body has found its happy point. Today I feel sexy. Today I feel alive. Today I have conquered a small dragon and I have made progress on bridging my understanding of who I am, what I weigh, and who I can become.
Face your fears. Yes, they may make you bleed a little, but it is only corrupt blood and it is the cleansing you need to redefine who you think you are and who you can become.