Shaking.

Trembling.

I’ve been there.

I’ve been there so many times. How am I going to muster up the courage to do this? How can I say this? And then the head gets going with its barrage of perfectly executed right hooks to my mind. It took me a long time to realize that if I just leaned up against the ropes and let it punch itself out, that I could survive that attack. But that, is for another story completely.

Today is about trusting your path…

Even if, you’re scared to death.

There’s a leap of faith we must all take. Imagine going cliff diving for a second. You’re at the edge of this rock getting ready to jump but there’s that moment of panic. It’s not really even a moment of panic about the water below. I don’t even think it’s much about the distance. You know you’re going to do it – that’s why you’re there.

But there’s this big pause.

I guess I never really knew it until I just thought about it now…

It’s really about that feeling of when you jump and you feel gravity start pulling you down.

It’s that moment…of being completely out of control.

You can’t stop the momentum.

You can’t stop the falling.

You’re just going.

In a way, taking a leap of faith in our lives is similar to this jump. You dive off this place of “where you are comfortable” and for a moment you are completely out of control.

Why?

Because you’re living in the unknown. You’re living in this place that you have absolutely no context for, no experience, no reference point and there is that sense of panic of “what do I do next?!”

And while that panic is there, eventually you get to this place of surrender.

Somewhere in that jump, you surrender to the reality of it all and try to make yourself as comfortable as possible. You’re falling, you’ve accepted that, and really it starts to become okay.

My feet have trembled in many ways throughout my life.

I’ve had to step into moments I didn’t think I was ready for. I’ve had to see people that have hurt me badly in the past (talk about one of the scariest moments we confront) and I’ve had to look my own demons dead in the face and challenge them in the battle for my soul.

These moments will make you shake.

But as you sit there shaking, you are actually shaking into a body that can hold that moment. You never tremble when something ordinary is happening. You only shake when you are facing something completely new and can’t handle it with the body you currently have.

So it readjusts…and you settle…and you step into that fear and face it.

A long time ago, when I hit rock bottom, I came back to school a complete mess. I hadn’t eaten or slept properly in weeks. Every single day, as I walked full of anxiety to class, I would pop in my headphones and listen to the same two Eminem songs over and over again.

I’m not afraid.

No love.

There was hope and darkness in me. I shook and shook sometimes sending my entire body quaking.

But I kept walking. I kept moving forward.

And eventually, those days got a little less dark. But I had to tread through the darkest parts of my life to ever begin to understand that there was no light at the end of the tunnel…but rather that I was the light itself.

There was no escaping this.

There was no adding something onto my life that would make it all better.

I had to be in it, walk through it, and continue the path I was on despite the conditions around me. If I did that and I took care of myself, I knew that I would find myself in brighter conditions.

There will always be a fear of what might happen in the future.

But if you don’t walk your path today, you will never find out.

You won’t ever know what that special person would have said if you don’t say it to them.

You won’t ever see your potential if you don’t begin to chase it.

It’s not going to work out every time, but that’s the point. It’s not about it working out. It’s about you learning how to walk into the great mystery of life with confidence and a curiosity that could rival a child’s playful heart.

It’s about discovering “what is.”

And letting that be just perfect the way it has shown up.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project