The Path is Set, We Merely Need to Walk It

September 13, 2018

Today’s blog is by my coaching client Charlotte MacFarlane, DVM. Charlotte is a holistic veterinarian, award-winning fiction author, and health and wellness blogger from Alberta, Canada. For more health and wellness articles and to join the healing team, check out Happy-ology.com. Her fiction can be found on Amazon or through your local bookseller.

What if I told you that your success was guaranteed? What would you do? What would you believe you could do? How much work would you put in if you knew you could not fail?

I have a secret for you: our success is guaranteed. As is our happiness. It is only us that stands in the way.

My life is busy: I recently published my second science fiction novel (last week!) and have another preparing for print. I run my own business. I am growing and developing a health and wellness website. And I work with Louise to be constantly striving forwards and building myself in addition to my skillset.

But I have an admission to make too: I am tired.

I go through waves, swells of productivity and joy to crashes of exhaustion and frustration. What is the difference? In my productive swells, I know that I am successful, I seem to have this intuitive understanding that I am in the right place, and my thoughts are not focused on me but on what I am contributing. But in my crashes, my thoughts switch to me, they are questioning instead of knowing, and I experience doubt. And fear.

Fear is the mind-killer — Frank Herbert, Dune

My recent bout with exhaustion has been more difficult than usual — I accept that I push my body and mind nearly constantly, and need to take some downtime to let them heal, but this was more. I am sharing this with you because I have had to do some deep, soul-level work to explore and discover the root cause. And that root cause is fear. More specifically, a fear of giving too much, of drowning.

As a lifeguard, they teach you about the panic involved in drowning. They teach you that the frantic movements a terrified person will make in the water are actually the cause of — and not the result of — drowning. Turns out, if you stop thrashing and breathe deeply and evenly, you will float.

So what if we all stopped being afraid, if we all stopped thrashing and fighting the world around us? What if we knew the world would help us float, if only we moved with it instead of trying to beat it? What if the path was set, and our success was guaranteed?

We are already successful. We already know what we need to do to achieve. We just need to stop wasting our energy on fear.

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