I feel like I'm back in graduate school working on a huge research paper today except my joints, cranky from sitting all day, sharply inform me I am much older! I've spent hours refining my presentation for my session next Saturday at the Virginia Association for the Gifted Conference "The Many Faces of Gifted," and am feeling pretty good about it. Though brain boggling, there is also something exhilarating about synthesizing months of reading and connection making into a neat and compact product. I'll make plenty of changes over the next week, but the soul of it is there!
While leafing through books, I came across this tasty tidbit underlined in the pages of Mary-Elaine Jacobson's book on gifted adults:
"We fear being overwhelmed as much as we fear being constrained. We fear being undersupported as much as we fear being controlled. We fear success as much as we fear failure, for after all, once we achieve that first success, expectations and risk rise."
Need I question why, of all the highlighting I've done, these lines stand out to me today? I'll turn it around on you instead.
What is keeping you from acknowledging the greatness you already have within?
Fear has always had a grip on me. Now that I've recognized it for what it is, I'm learning to step outside the box and into life! I found your blog last week by finding your business card in a book at B&N in Va. Beach...
ReplyDeleteHi SuziCate. Welcome to the blog and thank you for finding me! I hope you'll discover something meaningful here.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about you, but I have accepted that fear never really goes away. That might not be a bad thing, as it has a practical purpose after all--it keeps us from harming ourselves. Fear becomes a problem, though, when it keeps us from exploring the world and progressing in ways we desire.
You said that you have "recognized it for what it is." I also have found that the more I face my fears the better I am at managing them when they inevitably surface. As a title from a book I read many years ago encouraged: Feel the fear and do it anyway! I am guided, too, by the idea that most of what we fear never comes to pass. I love that you're stepping outside of the box even though there is fear.
Please visit the blog often and share your thoughts. I love to hear and learn from readers!
~Kim
I love that quote and it really emphasizes the fact that life is full of paradoxes. And it is the paradoxes that keep me from conquering the fears or accepting accomplishments.
ReplyDeleteI suppose, Nancy, we have to find the middle place. Or go on ahead in spite of the fear.
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