I started journaling in the Otisville federal prison library.
I needed an outlet. I needed a safe place to process all the crap coursing through my brain.
I needed to get what was inside, out.
Nine years later, I rarely miss a day.
I used to count the days and brag about how many days in a row I’ve maintained this practice. The same with the other two practices I started in the Otisville federal prison library, meditation and gratitude.
They are practices I do for me, for my healing.
Succumbing to ego and fear were just some of the ingredients of the twisted cocktail that landed me in prison.
Bragging about how many days in a row I’ve practiced doesn’t serve my healing; it serves my ego.
The less I serve my ego, the richer with meaning my life has become.
Journaling, the way I do it now, does its best to strip away the ego. But, of course, it still arrives; I’m human, and my ego has a job to do – and it’s damn good at it.
I do my best to strip away all the BS; I do my best to push and go to the places I don’t want to go, to ask the questions I’m afraid to ask.
That’s been an amazing part of the practice, asking questions.
I listen to the voice within (the voice I ignored when I was committing fraud, the voice I ignored when I knew what to do to live the way I wanted to live but couldn’t find the courage to) and allow the sense of inquiry and exploration to wash over me.
This morning I was writing about a line I read last night before bed in David Brooks’ book, “The Road to Character.”
I can’t remember the line, but it was something about the hero and his scars. Or something like that.
Whatever was in that line, I can’t remember, triggered a question. So I do what I do and skipped down a few lines to isolate it, to give it the spotlight it deserves.
“Where can I follow my fear into the extraordinary?”
Life after prison isn’t easy.
I was wrapped like a mummy in shame, fear, self-doubt, self-contempt, and insecurity and still held prisoner by my constant comparison to others.
I was crippled by what Nietzsche called “the torture of self-mistrust.”
I stood in the burnt ashes of my life, a life I burned to the ground, the accelerants of the inferno, all the emotions that wrapped me like a mummy now, and saw two choices.
I could stay in the burnt ashes, in the familiarity, and in what I know, even though I know, I don’t want to.
Because they’re my ashes, I know them; they’re safe.
Or, leave the ashes behind.
For what I didn’t know.
I had no idea if there would even be firm ground for me to stand on if I left my safety. I had no idea what was outside the pyre I created, lit, and was fueling by staying within it.
I chose to step out. It was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done.
As it turns out, journaling was one of the steps I took out of the ashes.
And every moment since that’s helped me grow was born out of fear. I can look back and see the magic I created when I faced fear.
I can also see the lessons I learned when I didn’t.
So, that question, the question that equally lit me up and knocked me down.
The question I was afraid to speak into the world and give real life to because once words are spoken aloud, they’re cast into eternity; they can’t be pulled back in, as much as I’d like to sometimes, calls to me,
“Where can I follow my fear into the extraordinary?”
I froze when I wrote it; I said I didn’t know.
I also know that’s nonsense.
I know I know the answer; I know what I’m avoiding.
My nemesis, my demon, loves these moments.
It’s where he lives and breathes and grows; it’s also where his life is constantly on the line.
He lives on the razor’s edge of his own death and loves it there, waiting for my decision.
One decision gives him more life, and the other decision takes it away.
He/It, whatever I want to call it, is my raging sense of unworthiness.
The one word he latches onto that he inflates and holds in front of me with a taunting disregard for a rich and meaningful life is the word “extraordinary.”
He reminds me I’m not worthy of it.
I have evidence of moments I created the extraordinary; I know what awaits me on the other side of fear.
And that evidence cuts both ways; it illuminates the path and screams that I’m not worthy of walking it.
Facing my biggest fear of public speaking and delivering, a TEDx catapulted me into the next chapter of my life.
Holding my book for the 1st time, facing what had become my new biggest fear, being seen, catapulted me into the next chapter.
All wickedly powerful evidence that my raging lack of self-worth has twisted and morphed into a weapon of resignation.
Of, “you have enough, stay put. You’re not worthy of feeling that good again.”
What if I did what I did when I conquered those fears?
What if I got crystal clear on the outcome I’d like, how I’ll feel when I hit the mark, and then, much to the ego’s chagrin, dropped the outcome and focused on the work?
The work that I learn from and grow?
The work that brings me joy and meaning?
The work that fills my day with purpose and mission?
The work that genuinely transforms my life into the extraordinary?
The work that’s never done and won’t be until I breathe my last breath, and the work that when I do breathe that final breath, hopefully, has me thinking,
“Man, I’m grateful I…”
As opposed to the words that helped me step out of the ashes in the first place, the words that I knew awaited me if I stayed put.
“I wish I…”
“If only I…”
I know I don’t want to face those words; I know what I need to do, but right now, I’m standing at the trailhead, awaiting my decision.
It’s a bizarre limbo of hell and pleasure, desperately wanting to take the first step while screaming at myself that I’m not worthy of it.
The question, “Where can I follow my fear into the extraordinary?” is my guide to my next chapter.
The question I have now is, will I follow it?
Will I slay my raging lack of self-worth and take the first step?
I don’t know.
Yet.
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