While I have been pretty quiet the past couple of months, there has been movement going on in the background around my business.
It all started in March when I took myself to the ER for heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and tightness in my chest. I was fine, at least physically. It wasn’t until I was lying awake in the middle of the night a few days later that the source of my symptoms became apparent to me.
Anxiety.
I once told my friend Marna that I would never do a podcast. (Doing a podcast was only one circle of hell removed from doing video.) When I told her of my plan to do a podcast, she said I needed to warn her and give her a chance to sit down before making such proclamations!
So why a podcast now?
Although I am a lifelong writer both by nature and vocation and express myself best in writing, I knew I needed to start using my voice. I know that my expansion, both personal and professional, depends on me using my voice.
Befriending your fear—acknowledging its existence and listening to what it has to say—is far more effective in calming your nervous system and allowing you to move forward with confidence than when you resist it, pretend it doesn’t exist, or push through it. Those strategies only fuel fear and amplify it. Ignoring your fear only succeeds in keeping you stuck where you are.
I recently returned to my home state of California. This time, though, it felt different. It didn’t feel like my present. Instead, it felt decidedly like my past. What surprised me was how OK I felt about this. The shift was a welcome feeling, like I had finally let go of some part of my past that was keeping me stuck.
I recently returned from spending eight days in the forest, embarking on a new adventure. I’m spending the next six months training to become a certified forest therapy guide. “A certified forest what?!?!,” you may be saying to yourself. Trust me, no one was more surprised than me that this was something I felt drawn to do.
