Fear and faith…and a little about what I am learning lately

When starting and developing a company there is a lot of initial fear.  So many of us have been told that we ‘can’t’ or ‘shouldn’t’ or are not ‘enough’.  To me, those are swearing words. More than what society tells us are cuss words, these along with ‘stupid’ and ‘shut up’ are words I am shutting out of my life.  They tend to do more damage than help in our lives. 

I sat in fear for much of my life. I let my actions and reactions be centered around fear.  This is a hard place to get out of.  I have worked for over 20 years to move past the ingrained fear that has been trained in me to have learned this powerful lesson this past year. 

Fear and faith are the same…the focus and results are different.  With both fear and faith, you are fundamentally believing in something that is intangible.  Fear comes from your brain protecting you from uncomfortable situations that you don’t know about yet.  Faith comes from a belief that you can handle those situations. 

The example that continues to show up in books is the concept of driving in the dark.  When you are driving, or as a passenger in a car at night, the car headlights are shining 20-50 feet ahead of you on the road.  Not the whole road, not the whole path, not the whole way home.  But you have faith that the road will still be there past the headlights and that just knowing the next few steps, moments or feet will continue to show you the path.  Yes, the road might turn.  Yes, there might be a bump or pothole that you must navigate but the road is still there.  That is faith.

In that situation, if we only had fear, we would potentially creep along the road.  Or simple stop and wait for the full expanse to be in sunlight.  I am sure you are also shaking your head about how silly that sounds out loud.  That would be illogical, right?  You KNOW that the road is going to be there and that you can navigate it. 

Why do we turn to fear so quickly?  When our lives shift from the known course highlighted in the sunlight to be shrouded in the darkness of the unknown, we still have our headlights.  We need to remember that each part of our lives is truly just the next 20-50 feet. Even in sunlight, you are only traveling one foot at time.  Fear comes in when we try to control what is outside of that little beam or space of light. 

And we have so many things in our lives shouting at us to fear the unknown or what is outside of this space of light.  I have drowned in that fear before.  I have sacrificed my well-being to that fear, and I have made the active decision to stop. 

I will no longer live in fear.  I will trust in my next steps and have faith that the path is still there for me and that I will figure it out.  Learning, trusting and faith are what I surround myself with these days.

My Craft Dealer was born to be a safe space for home crafters that might not have the full resources demanded by other online consignment platforms to turn their art into income.  This is the safe space for that initial step. 

ALL home crafters are welcome. 

We don’t live in fear here.