This past Monday morning, while making breakfast, I had a thought that simply said, "Stop operating from a place of fear."

I've been listening to a lot of talks on showing compassion & love because this world needs a whole lot more of it and I can only start with myself.  I keep wondering if maybe I heard that phrase from one of the many talks or maybe it was a higher power or consciousness reaching out to me...I don't know.
Either way, I wrote it down and reflected on that during my work commute.

I've personally had a long history of operating out of fear. It's something I can attribute to my upbringing in Nigeria and my continued existence in America as a black woman. You're programmed to live in this mode of fear; fear of authority, fear of failure, fear of abuse, fear of abandonment etc.
I began to realize that many of my choices in life had come from a place of fear. For example, I had this terrible habit of staying in relationships way after they were dead (to me, at least) because I was afraid to be alone.
That's operating out of fear.
The fear that no one else will want to be with me.
The fear that I'm letting go of my only chance at love. 
The irony of these situations is that in the absence of love and passion in a relationship, additional fear sets in.
The fear of "Do they really love me?"
The fear of "Are they moving on to something/someone else"
So, there was no escaping fear and I was basically torturing myself.

From a purely physiological perspective, it places you in a fight or flight state and with increased cortisol levels, my body is literally burning out in this hyper-aware state because it thinks I'm in danger. From an emotional standpoint, it makes me obsessive, unhinged and weakens my capacity for rational thought.

Put simply, fear really hollows you out.

The other day, I was on the phone with my sis, Nandi and I was having a full-on breakdown session because fear was building a home inside of me once again and instead of working through it, I was bottling it up.
She gave me an invaluable piece of advice,

"Write it down - write down everything: how your coworker pissed you off, how some shit is annoying and whatever else you're feeling. Just write it down"

So, I did.

I'm on Day 6 of writing it down and many nights when I do settle in to spill my thoughts in my journal, I get emotional under the weight of my feelings (Scorpio problems) but what writing has done for me was give me a way to release my fears; fears of not being good enough, not smart enough, not beautiful enough etc., into those pages.
Releasing that allows me to operate from a place of love, courage, passion and compassion.

Not being smart enough becomes " I have a deep passion for this field and I'm learning from every mistake to be the best clinician I can be."

Not being good enough becomes " I am good enough for myself & for those that truly love me. Anyone that can't or won't recognize my wholeness doesn't need to be a focus to me."

Instead of ignoring or hyper-focusing on the negative, my thought process has been focused on reworking the narrative and being able to attack those thoughts of fear in the moment.

On Tuesday, I had a mini-meltdown at work and when I felt it coming, instead of shoving it down, I got up, found my favorite bathroom and had a nice, long cry.

I literally sat on the sink and I just fucking cried.
Amidst my tears, I was able to give myself the time to rewire those thoughts and comfort myself. Releasing those emotions allowed me to recenter myself and give myself the positive reinforcement I needed to move past my fears.
I basically gave myself a big-ass hug.
Post-tear session, I wrote down little daily steps I could take in order to make operating out of fear a thing of the past and I would love to share that with y'all.

• Write daily.
• Follow the Mel Robbins 5 second rule.
  • "If you have an impulse to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill the idea."
• Stop procrastinating on things that make me uncomfortable.
  • Send those uncomfortable texts, ask the questions that are giving me anxiety. Don't let life happen to me without my say-so.
• Turn all my negative thoughts into positive thoughts - even if I don't believe them.

I know that with time, these habits will become routine and I'll operating on a more positive wavelength and that's fucking exciting. It's only been about a week and I feel so much lighter.

I can only imagine what a year will do.

Til' next time.

Rachel.