The Thing About Climbing Out…
Let’s talk about fear. They say that you should do one thing, every day, that scares you. So here I am posting this video to my Instagram. My instinct is to pretend that this doesn’t exist, to quietly practice & never show anyone. Because I need more time, to look better, to be better. I’m not good enough right now. I’ll be good enough in the future. I’ll wait.
Right? Wrong.
Here’s the most important thing I’ve ever learned. All we have is right now. Nothing else. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Right now. That’s it.
Yesterday is gone, it cannot be changed. Tomorrow is not promised, it may not come at all. The only thing that we have is this moment.
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A couple of months ago, I restarted my yoga practice. It took everything to get myself to that first class, trembling with fear. For so long I told myself that I can’t be happy again, can’t be healthy again, can’t practice yoga again.
I thought that my life was over. I had resigned myself to the fact that I had failed. I lost everything. The best days of my life were over & the rest of my life would be spent surviving.
Fear ruled me. And then one day, I woke up. I started climbing out. I made a decision that I was not just going to survive, I was going to LIVE. This was not a miraculous overnight transition. No, far from it. It is a journey over many years that I travel to this day.
The thing about climbing out is this — and this is the thing that successful people know that no one else knows — YOU NEVER MAKE IT TO THE TOP. You climb every single day for the rest of your life.
Choice by choice, you climb. Sometimes you fall back, make the wrong choice. You slip toward that painful place from which you came. But you remember that you climbed out before & you will climb out again. Even though your arms are tired & that fear-voice says, “Just let go. Just fall.” You hold the fuck on. You dig in & take that next step & you RISE.
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I’m sharing this, shaking, because I know that someone needs this. When I asked my tribe what they wanted me to write about, you found different ways to say the same thing: There is something holding me back. I want to know how to climb despite the pain.
Let me tell you this, you have to let go of whatever is holding you back. Throw it off & climb. And then keep climbing. Choice after choice for the rest of your life. That’s it.
Let go of your fear & do what you think you cannot do. Because you can & you will.
Here I am sharing something that terrifies me to share, my yoga practice after two months. I would love to wait & show you my practice in six months. But I don’t have that. This is all I have. And this is enough. I am enough. Right now.
Comments (2)
chelsea jacobs
July 24, 2018 at 4:10 pm
“choice by choice, you climb.” I love that!!
Dena
July 24, 2018 at 4:36 pm
Thank you so much, Chelsea. So glad that the words touched you. ♥️