Fear & uncertainty.

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography

I have a lot of fear and uncertainty in my life, and it seems to be validated daily.  Uncertainty is a very confident place to be.  By revealing myself in my blog I am letting go of that uncertainty and fear in my life.  I will become unattached to fear and uncertainty within.

As part of this fear and uncertainty throughout my life, I have looked to validate certain feelings and emotions, but I was causing more harm to myself than good.  Trying to validate if I was good enough with this blog, my photography, as a father, as a son, as a husband, as a friend, the world always found a way to confirm I was not good enough.  The same can be said for that feeling of belonging.  Do I belong to my friends, or in my job, or at the schools I attended?   Thoughts of being judged unfairly, not being able to provide for my family, death and losing the ones I love are some issues I have been seeking validation for in the past.  As have been the acknowledgment of my existence, accepted by others, fear of failing and people seeing me as a failure have also been energies I have wasted.  These have been lies I have told myself based on various fear and the uncertainty of a future I have no control over.  Fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The world found a way to prove my fears and uncertainty.  I have learned if I seek out something I will find it.  In these cases I did.  My self-worth and my belonging are not something I negotiate externally.  It is something I carry in my heart.  I have spent much of my life validating my fears and the uncertainty in my life, but now I will validate my reality and my self-worth.

Each day I am building a better me.  I am empowering myself by learning to stand alone.  Making decisions to stand alone with my beliefs has begun to positively mark my heart.  I am driven to sway from those simple or not so simple decisions to fit in and to do what my heart tells me to do, even at the risk of making unpopular decisions.  My direction is not to follow the crowd or make the popular decision but one of my internal compass.  I am going to be alone a lot and it is okay.  Even with the love and support of my wife, son and friends I will still be alone with my brain and heart.  I will still find joy in being part of certain things, but I will always belong to and believe in myself first.  Paul Tillich once wrote, “Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone”.  This solitude I find in writing, hiking, meditation, and photography helps me to counteract the daily stresses of life.  I am not in any way a lonely man, but I do enjoy my solitude.

F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real. I will embrace my fears, accept them and do what my heart guides me to do anyway.

Until next time,

Tim