Those are words meant to empower my daughters. To identify the fears holding them back, so that they can be successful.
Oh, I am an angry Mama.
Today, Parry woke up sick; I woke up finally well. While cuddling on the couch watching Good Morning America, we see a segment on The Empowerment Project. Two young women took a month to travel 7000 miles across the country, interviewing 17 successful women the media knows nothing about. They challenge all viewers (i.e. girls) to ask themselves: What would you do if you weren't afraid to fail?
Really.
I started to seethe.
#1) Why, as a girl, am I ASSUMED TO BE AFRAID?
and #2) Why is FAILURE a negative for girls?
Fear, lately, has been getting far too much credit for our lack of success. I talked about it last Thursday in the blog-I feared hiking Granite #261 due to a bad episode with the air monster the day before. I never got over the fear during that hike (in fact, I'm certain it will accompany me this entire week); fear marched by my side. It didn't stop me from succeeding-I succeeded in spite of it.
Fear of failure does not stop our girls from becoming who they want to be. What stops them are two intertwined things: knowledge & resources. Looking back on reasons I wanted to quit the Quest, you might have called some of them fear; fear of pain being primary. Let's break that down.
What caused the pain?
1) Air monster (aka undiagnosised exercise induced asthma)
2) Being unfit for # of years
3) Doing exercise above my fitness level
Are any of these really fear-based? Or are they facts that needed to be acknowledged and properly handled?
1) Air Monster: got a diagnosis, now get an inhaler. Problem fixed (thank you, Kim O for correcting my oversight on that.)
2) Being unfit: yep, and you're gonna be sore for about three months. Knowledge: it will take about three months when you are 43 and completely soft.
3) Doing exercise above my fitness level: maybe you shoulda spoke up, eh? Heck-you're a flipping reporter! You could have stopped and just reported! Additionally, I lacked knowledge in this case of proper form (since corrected by The Professor.)
Knowledge makes quitting illogical.
Resources-had I made USE of the plentiful resources (i.e. prepared) I could have avoided most of the injuries.
The point is: knowledge and resources where, and are, available to me. I CHOSE not to use them (I've since corrected this error.) In my case, it was thoughtlessness. With our girls, however, it's usually naïveté. They simply do not know what is available to them.
As a girl growing up in a 900sq ft ranch house with three other siblings, eating Kraft macaroni & cheese, and having just exactly what I needed, I had no idea HOW to make my dreams come true. At age 15, I visited Arizona. I decided I wanted to move there, and wrote down the numbers for realtors on the big signs off I-17 as we drove to the airport (let's think about that for a second...I WANTED to buy the land inbetween Bell Rd and what is now Anthem. Granpa laughed at me in 1987. Sigh! I still have them in my journal...)
When I returned in 1990, I thought my only two college choices where Prescott College and Embry-Riddle. Wrong again...and let's chat about ASU, Grand Canyon College and NAU. Why didn't I apply there?
Quite simply, because I didn't have the resources to attend, or the knowledge to change that.
So I buy a book about hiking the Inner Canyon on 5-11-90...
Oh, I cried. Big crocodile tears.
I didn't fear failure. Fear didn't stop me. Lack of resources and the knowledge to get around that stopped me.
All weekend, I feared being unable to do today's workout, and I still fear my breathing capabilities in hiking this week. Thinking of today's misplaced blaming of fear, I decided to enjoy the workout (it was yoga, after all) and see if I could make it more challenging if I found I was able.
Yoga, sweet blessed yoga (I'm with yoga instructor Katy Kolasa all week.) Today I experienced truly EMPOWERED yoga. With shoulders back, dropped and lats on (thank you, Professor!) I created resistance within my movements, using my own body weight (thank you Sgt Steve!) Tonight, my pects and biceps are happily sore-from yoga! I created a variation using knowledge-and I loved it! I look forward to doing this all week-and note who did the empowering. It wasn't Joey or Steve-they simply passed on the knowledge. I used Katy's class as my resource-and viola!
Did I overcome fear of failure? No. Failure isn't even something I fear. You LEARN so much from failure that it helps you succeed down the line. I tried an adaptation, and blessed be, it worked. If it hadn't? So what?!
Today-I had my very FIRST exercise high.
I could conquer the world.
I stepped into the Arena.
Makes me weep; I'm inspired to get up at last.
No one "empowered" me. I didn't have to find something I could do if I wasn't afraid of failure. I simply had to lay down the DISTRACTIONS, FOCUS on a clear VISION, and move towards it. So what of fear tags along. So what if I fail.
I'm gonna dust myself off, smile, and get right back to it. Did I mention I now can fit in one of my favorite dresses again? And my Lucky jeans?? Oh, today was good. Not because I was empowered. Not because I thought about what I could do if I wasn't afraid of failure.
Because I took fear by the hand and said-
Let's have some fun.
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