“Are You a Man or a Mouse, I mean a Woman or a Wouse?” (Name that quote)

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear lately and wondering if it serves a spiritual purpose. In the past, I have mostly experienced fear as a paralyzing force. As a singer, for example, I used to suffer from massive stage fright. I had 15 years of formal classical vocal training with one of the top teachers in the world. My expectation was that I should be perfect. Since no one can be perfect, the fear of making a mistake kept me from singing in front of people for many years. If I sang in front of a friend or family member, I would turn my back to them or make them sit in the other room.

It took a huge amount of courage to put together my first one-woman show and perform it in front of 75 of my closest friends and family…in the same room with me facing them. I was terrified! My prayer was “God forbid I make a mistake!” Not only did I make one mistake but, I made tons of mistakes. You see, it turns out I am lyrically challenged. Even if I have been singing a song for 20 years, I am notorious for forgetting the words. So I will always be challenged to face my greatest fear: imperfection. But you know what? I survived!

What I learned from doing that show and the shows that followed is this: making mistakes made me real and it made the show very funny because I embraced my humanness. Facing the fear built courage in me. Courage I never would have accessed had I not had the fear to begin with. Now when I feel fear, I draw on my previous experience to conquer it.

“A Course in Miracles” says, “The opposite of love is fear,” and only the love is real; therefore fear is not real. I believe it takes real courage to choose to love. We can’t develop courage without the existence of fear. So the road to the land of love goes right through fear city. I now understand that fear DOES serve a purpose and it’s a very noble purpose, to build our courage. Mark Twain said, “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.”

I recently heard a lecture by Caroline Myss. She said that everyone has a set of archetypes, one of which is “The Victim.” At first glance, victim implies something negative, but it is only through embracing the victim and choosing to face our fears that we become victorious. Overcoming fear requires an action and that action is to face the fear head-on, don’t deny it, accept it as a gift and an opportunity to be victorious and build self esteem.