“Courage is fear that has said its prayers” is a powerful statement I came across many years ago at a time when I was first confronting a lot of fears that had long gone unrecognized. Ones I was working my hardest to not see or deal with. Ones that were driving me to be and live in ways that were hurting me.

So it was nothing short of miraculous to hear I could find a way to be with what I thought I could not be with.

I turned to this sentiment as a touchstone to get a handle on the fears that were driving me. Getting into it, I saw the fears that were the scariest were mostly centered around (and still do) what would happen to me if I really stepped into the full expression of who I am.

Stepped into being the one beyond what others believed she should be. Stepped into being the one who used her own unique voice; even when that rattled the status quo. Stepped into being the one who did things differently because she had gotten clear on her values; even when those around her hadn’t and where that clarity might be perceived as a threat.

The fears I am referencing are deep and primal, and are the ones we all carry. They include the fear of being rejected. Of being retaliated against. Of being kicked out, not loved, gossiped about, ridiculed. I think you get the picture. As a matter of fact, I know you get the picture because these are the fears that keep all of us from being who we are.

Whether these fears are intentionally disseminated or are just being passed onto us, they are the ones that cut the deepest because they are the ones we learned about in childhood. The ones that came in when we didn’t have the cognitive capacity to discern whether to take them on as valid or not. The ones that came in at a time when it was impossible to go out on our own.

The ones that showed up at a time when we had to negotiate who we were, in order to stay within the safety and belonging of the group. And now, because we live in a world ever more infused with a kind of growing comfort around being surveilled, where our very actions, and soon to be our thoughts, are known and can be used against us, our belief that being ourselves is dangerous, is being amplified.

If you believe I am overstating something here, or have gone off the deep end, just think about the cancel culture that has been birthed out of our unhealthy attachments to social media where if you say something unpopular, you can be de-platformed and publicly humiliated; serving, in effect, as a kind of modern day stockade in the public square where you are held up as an example of what not to do as your community jeers at you.

Or how about the current practice of the social credit system in effect in China now (as well as being considered by other countries), where if one does something outside of the officially sanctioned government narrative, you lose access to things you need to live as a functioning member of society.

All of this to say: Never has it been more difficult to be who you truly are, and never has it been more important for the future of a world leaning more and more into a kind of enforced groupthink.

It is a very big ask of each of us to explore who we are beyond what “they” expect or demand of us because it requires us to be with our fears. To seek them out and to challenge them. To feel the fears we all experience around being ourselves and to step forward anyway. Not as a way to re-traumatize ourselves, but as an act of sovereignty and bravery that says “My life is far too precious for us all for me allow it to be silenced by out-of-date and culturally-induced fears.