Let Go of Your Fears and Just Jump in Already!

I thought I was good at letting go and moving on. In some ways I am, as long as I don’t stop to take a break and let my mind think.

I’ve learned growing up, that things aren’t always as they seem. Much like when you are a child, places seem bigger, the future so far ahead, you have all the time in the world to do whatever you please, you bounce back from mistakes quicker because they were expected out of you.

Now as an adult things are different.

I remember this park down at the end of the street I lived on in Miami. There was a jungle gym type of thing in the middle of the park. It looked like two arched ladders leading to the center platform piece, which fit about five or six of us comfortably. We would climb to the top of this jungle gym and feel like we were on top of the world. We were pretty high up there, my heart would race a little if I looked down at the ground.

Then someone would come up with the brilliant idea of running and jumping over the arched metal ladder long ways. First of all, the platform wasn’t that big and there wasn’t enough room to get much of a running start. Then you had to jump outward as far as you could so that you wouldn’t fall short and clip yourself on the ladder coming down.

It seemed impossible, risky and potentially dangerous. But when you’re 9 years old and you haven’t been exposed to very much danger you really don’t know what you’re getting into until it’s too late.

One by one we jumped. Everybody cleared the ladder but not all of us had smooth landings. I remember the feeling when I hit the ground and rolled a little bit. It didn’t hurt much, maybe shook me up a little, but I survived. I was so relieved and couldn’t believe I had doubted myself. I made the jump!

No serious damage was done except maybe some scratches and grass stains on my pants. I felt so liberated after doing the impossible. I let go of my fears and jumped. And everything was okay.

I’m not sure what happened to that little girl or maybe as I got older my jungle gym also got bigger, higher up, the ground below isn’t as soft, etc. My list of excuses grew right along with me. I’m not exactly sure when things started to get complicated and my fears began to take over. I’m not exactly sure when I started ignoring or acting bigger than my emotions and feelings, thinking I can control how they affect me rather than acknowledge them and allow them to take their course. I have no idea where my superwoman complex, as I like to think of it, came from.

What I know now is that I need to start paying attention to myself and realize that the answers are indeed within me.

As a child, I somehow knew how to overcome my fears and let go of things that weighed me down. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been hurt very much at that point in my life but why do the scars have to bring out the negative? 

Why can’t they be a reminder of a time when you beat your fear and you survived the jump and not about a mistake or bad decision that you made? Letting go shouldn’t be so hard, so why is it sometimes? I’m linking it to a fear of some sort, but i’m having trouble figuring out what is so scary about a life full of endless opportunities?