the fearful say what

What?

I sat on my hands and I missed my chance.

I have been reading Elephant Journal for about the same amount of time as I've been keeping this blog. I have always had the intention of posting for their site. I started the Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga series with the intention of submitting it to EJ. This, is a series I started last May. This is a series that interests me and I take pride in writing about. This is a series that a) I did not finish and b) I did not submit. So I finally muster the nerve to submit it to EJ and re-re-read the book and finish the series. I send in my query and a day goes by and I don't hear back, and then another, and my fear of being rejected impatience gets the best of me and I take a look through the site and see that someone else has already submitted a series of posts covering the seven laws.

Blurgh! Not only has this already been covered, but it's been covered really well, in a really creative way.

What was I waiting for?

During my usual 'net' time yesterday I came across yet another writing project: Reverb 11. And the first exercise was to pick a word that would describe my year of 2011. I donned my meditation necklace, grabbed a pen and journal and let the words flow. There were the obvious words: yoga, travel, adventure, change and growth. And then there were words that wrote themselves: Fear, frustration, limits. These are the words that stand in my way. Fear. I am fearful.

The ironic thing, is that the first law in Chopra's book is "pure potentiality". Finding stillness, letting go of your ego. Coming out of a fear-based state of being. I waited to post, because I cared what people would think. I was afraid that no one would read what I had wrote, or worse still, no one would like it. Scratch that, I was afraid of how I would feel if even one person didn't like it. Ego.

When we talk of ego and having an ego it's not about being an ego-maniac. It's about the fact that we all have an ego and it likes to be stroked. It's about being comfortable in yourself and learning to detach from your ego. Slowly, I'm getting there. Moment by moment. I'm finding a place in myself where I feel quite at peace with who I am and what I think and my ego isn't as fragile as it once was.

So here I am, ready to post and I missed my chance to post something original. My ego stood in my way. Down boy. Sit BooBoo sit.