Beginnings

<BODY><script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-47423994-1', 'fortunecity.ws'); ga('send', 'pageview'); </script> <center> <br> <div> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://ad.broadcaststation.net/ads/show_ad.php?width=728&height=90"></script> </div> </center> <EMBED SRC="../sound/NightsInWhiteSatin.html" LOOP="2" AUTOSTART="true" HIDDEN="TRUE"> <P><IMG SRC="../graphics/spacer.gif" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="1"></P> <CENTER> <H1>Beginnings</H1></CENTER> <P><IMG SRC="../graphics/spacer.gif" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="1"></P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT SIZE="-1">Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. - Langston Hughes, African American poet (b. 1902) </FONT></P> <P>Like a Phoenix from the Ashes</P> <P>Where is the best fruit on the tree? I have been told it is at the end of the top branches. The hardest place to get to. The riskiest place to pick. But it is always worth the risk.</P> <P>How do you live your life. Do you take what drops off the tree to the ground, or do you take the risk, stretch out to those top branches and savor the rich rewards? </P> <P>I believe many live a risk-free existence, bored, frustrated, half-asleep, tired, and unwilling to change, deliberately avoiding risk. Is there anything sadder than the mother who can't tell her children she loves them? The husband who can't hold his wife's hand? All because it would mean taking a risk?</P> <P>Psychologists asked a group of soldiers when they felt the most alive. They all answered, when they were going into battle. They knew the next moment could be their last. So they were fully focussed, fully alert, and fully present.</P> <P>Are we all not a little like that? When all the winnings ride on the next role of the dice, when the outcome of the game is uncertain, when she may say yes, that is when we feel the most alive. Risk is online. Life is exciting. Yet we avoid it like the plague.</P> <P>Now most people have substituted melodrama for excitement in their lives. Let's be clear on this. People, consciously or subconsciously, create melodrama in their lives to get a payoff. The minimum payoff is an adrenaline rush, although it may go deeper. </P> <P>The excitement I am referring to comes from the risk that shows up when we know what we want and start to take our steps towards getting it. It doesn't matter if it is a new relationship, a new job/ business, or a new home. The principle is the same.</P> <P>Our reaction to this risk can come from either love or fear. If it comes from love, we feel excitement. If it comes from fear, we feel panic. How many times have you seen someone prepare for an important date, and they are running around in a panic? Under that panic is a lot of excitement.</P> <P>Isn't this one of the basic questions? Are we in love, full of peace and joy, or are we in fear, full of conflict and scarcity?</P> <P>A friend of mine sits at home all the time, unwilling to go out into the world. She has given a lot of thought to what she wants. She has a plan to get it. She won't make a commitment to carry out the plan because she is paralyzed by the risk.</P> <P>If she takes the risk, she might improve her relationship with her partner. Their relationship might become again the wonderful, exciting, loving relationship it once was. Or it could end. That's the way it is with risk. So rather than move through the process, she stays stuck. In the process, she will feel more alive, more excited, more enthused, than she has in a long time.</P> <P>So what is a cornerstone of a successful, whatever that may be to you, relationship? I believe it is the willingness to take risks, to go through the fear. In all the relationships I have had, that did not work out the way I wanted them to, there was one and only one common denominator, me. In my experience, when I am unwilling to take the risks involved, whether it was speaking my truth, expressing my feelings in the moment, saying yes when I mean no, or visa versa, I hammered a little nail in the coffin of that relationship. I did not take the risk of being who I am, of showing the me beyond the mask, of being open, of being vulnerable. </P> <P>They always knew. Eventually they always left. </P> <P>Now I am doing it differently. Making new choices. Recognizing the fear and panic, and stepping through them, sometimes at a snail's pace, sometimes at the speed of light. </P> <P>You can, too.</P> <P><IMG SRC="../graphics/spacer.gif" WIDTH="25" HEIGHT="1"></P> <P>Next: The Secret to Moving Through The Fear.</P> <P><FONT SIZE="-1">© 1998 Scott Paton All Rights Reserved</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE> </BODY>