It’s been a minute since I’ve sat down to write a blog; with the busyness of Seminary, motherhood, reading, writing, and [no arithmetic], I’ve had little time to do anything else. I’ve also been waiting for the new things I’ve learned about God and the bible to settle in a bit before I hit you guys with anything. Bear with me!

However, today is a day to write.

I was going through Instagram today and I saw a photo posted by one of my most favorite people, Myleik Teele. If you don’t know her, she’s the brain child behind CurlBox. Yes, she’s that woman. Anyway, she posted a picture of her dainty, well manicured hands on the steering wheel of a Porsche. The caption said:

Last July, my mentor/sister @tremedia handed me the keys to her car and said, “Drive it. Stop living in fear.”

The post went on to say: “I was always afraid to have more because I didn’t feel like I needed/deserved it. She’d always tell me: ‘Myleik… you are a phenomenal woman. You deserve everything and more.’ I fooled around and believed her.”

Fear is paralyzing. It keeps you stagnant. Fear puts your feet into cement blocks so you cannot move. It renders you helpless to help yourself and will drive you to pull away from the very purpose for which you are called.

Fear will cause you to believe that what you have been destined to do/have/be is only reserved for someone not as [insert flaw/short coming here]. Fear will cause you to shy away from opportunities to grow, stretch, and shape yourself into the person you see in your head. It is, my friends, the ultimate paralyzer.

The verb “paralyze” means to “cause a person or part of the body to become partly or wholly incapable of movement.” It also means, “to render someone unable to think or act normally, especially through panic or fear.”

Wow. So, paralyzing fear not only can keep your physical body from moving forward, but it can cause you to be unable think or act normally. (I read normal to = what you were created to do/have/be).

This means that what you are trying to accomplish right now — in any capacity — is and should be normal for you. It was why you were created. A telephone is not afraid of being a telephone. It makes and receives calls because that’s what it was created to do. It does not shut down, run away, or hide it’s capabilities because of the fear of being itself. It simply does what it was created to do. No fear.

What I’ve come to realize is that my fear is deeply rooted in what Myleik’s fear was: that I am not deserving or do not need what it is I desire. There are more deserving people. There are greater causes for which I could rally to help others achieve their dreams. I am too this, or too that, or not enough. We tell ourselves these lies for so long until they become ingrained in everything we do and say. Sometimes, we need a shake, a wake up call to let us know that we deserve everything and more… and be foolish enough to believe it.

What do you have to lose? How often are we afraid of failure when we’ve done nothing to even approach the thing of which we are afraid of failing.

I don’t know who this is for or who it will help, however, I challenge all of us to look deeply into the reasons behind our fears; conjure them up, stare them in the face (because you may be the very thing that you’re afraid of!) Acknowledge them. Then, do something totally opposite of what you’re afraid of. It can be something small; take baby steps.

Get free of fear. It is nothing but a dirty liar.

On the fearless chase,

Alisha L.