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If fear is caused by the unknown or the inability to control another’s perception of our actions, then I think it is important to look at the idea of how we present ourselves.  Over the last 20 years, there has been a significant change in language.  Most of this is the natural progression of communication.  As life develops and evolves, ways to describe and explain it and express it must also develop and evolve.  New terms are invented every day.

The part that worries me is that we have taken one of the truest and most sincere art forms and have become careless with it.  We have not treated communication well.  We have taken advantage of it and in may ways we have bastardized it.  Our lives have been whittled down from sonnets to 140 characters or less.  So much meaning and intent is lost in how we communicate today because we are lazy.  Now, don’t misunderstand, I perfectly understand that there is a time and a place for all types of communication.  But we have oversimplified our words and over-impressed our personal interpretations on them.

I think my age is showing a bit because there are words slung around by the new generations that I literally have NO idea what they mean.  I need to look them up.  And perhaps that is where my laziness shows as well.  I never felt the need to figure out what something meant and understanding felt natural to me.  As I age, I see that I need to find that communication, especially cross generationally, requires a lot more work.  I feel like my parents when we entered the age of Wi-Fi.  They had no context to what the hell we were talking about—and now I feel the same way.  There is an implied expectation that everyone will automatically know what you’re talking about and, now that I am on the other side of this group, I see that there are certain contexts that are specific to certain groups and demographics.  So understanding one another requires extra effort.

I’m not suggesting that we turn back the clock on communication because, in spite of my annoyances with our stunted and abbreviated lifestyle, I know that there are many important conversations happening in this new way.  I am suggesting that we re-evaluate the intention behind communication again.  I am suggesting that we consider shifting our expectation that people will automatically understand us.  We can only understand from where we are at.  So we have to learn to make allowances.

Language is a tricky thing.  George Bernard Shaw said, “The greatest illusion about communication is that it has taken place”.  We spend time aggressively shouting our opinions without ever making a point.  I’m guilty of that as much as the next person but it is our job to work towards understanding.  The expectation that people will automatically do the research to figure out what we mean is a selfish and unrealistic demand.  In our quest to dominate time and to talk more (without saying anything) we have turned communication into a power struggle.  We have made it a selfish endeavor in pursuit of furthering our own cause rather than a means to reach a common ground.  So let go of the demand that people automatically understand us—because they don’t.

Communication is about mutual understanding—and doing what it takes to achieve that.  We have mistaken the idea that we don’t need to explain ourselves in how we live our lives to mean that we don’t need to explain what we say.  Conversely, we have created and fostered a society that is intentionally obtuse.  We like to be offended and we like to pretend that people mean things they clearly did not.  And we like to say that we didn’t mean things we clearly did.  Intentional skewing of our words is gaslighting.

Say what you mean and mean what you say, let go of your ego and the expectation that people will automatically understand you, leave some room for a level of understanding, and leave room to discuss.  And for Pete’s sake stop taking everything so personally.

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I’ve noticed the overarching theme to much of what I’ve been discussing is fear.  I watched a short video today recapping “Breaking Bad.”  The clip is Walter White’s speech about living his whole life scared of what may or may not happen.  He said he had trouble sleeping because of these thoughts, finding himself awake at 3 in the morning.  He said that once he got his diagnosis of cancer he no longer had trouble sleeping.  He said, “I came to realize that fear, that’s the worst of it.  That’s the real enemy.”  I felt those words in my soul.  I felt how true it is that as soon as our backs are up against the wall, all the bullshit we create literally disappears.  We suddenly see what is important and the rest no longer creates precedence.  Why is it that we allow our entire lives to go by in this state of self-induced and self-created fear?

Fear is an emotion that weighs heavily on us but we fail to see how we invite it in.  We allow ourselves to lose sight of the things that matter because we give into the myriad of distractions this world offers.  It all has to do with our training, our conditioning into this society.  Everything we fear is entirely created in our minds.

See, once you get beyond what we are afraid of, we start to look at things differently.  We start to recognize what we really need and operate from our own agenda rather than what is assigned to us.  And that makes the system we live in very nervous.  Clear, autonomous thought doesn’t serve well in a society that tells us what we are supposed to like, buy, consume, how we are supposed to work, how we entertain ourselves, and what we are supposed to wear, think, and do.  A person who lets go of fear and works toward their own goals puts a system that tells us we need it at every turn on edge.

When I heard Walter’s speech, I immediately felt those nights.  The ones where I woke up at 3am worrying about the mortgage, different bills, if I was a good enough mother, the fact that I haven’t had another kid yet, how I needed to find the right job, how I was so behind on creating my own business, what was going to happen to my parents, that I needed to be closer to my family, that I needed space, that I needed clarity, that I would never have clarity, that I needed to be more spiritual, that I was going to die, that my family was going to die, that we would never make it, that I would always struggle.  And I had woken up on many nights like that from as early as I could remember.

Freedom isn’t about creating the life we are told to create.  Freedom is about creating a life we love—and changing it as we see fit.  Freedom is having the ability to go where we are called.  Freedom isn’t about consuming what we are told, it is about creating what we want through consuming what appeals.  Freedom is the ability to act on our own choices.

I want to be clear that naturally, we are NOT free from the consequences of these actions.  But we have CREATED specific consequences as a society and, really, the fear isn’t about performing the act: it is about failing in the act and suffering the consequences.

If all we fear is a response to an action then we have the opportunity to look at fear differently.  Once you understand that fear is about a potential perception of our actions, change what that perception is.  “Failure” is really a chance to learn.  Fear is what shows us where we need to go.  And Fear is what keeps us caged in a broken system.

So unlock the doors of the cage by learning to take meaningful chances in your life.  Take chances on the things that matter most to you.  Take chances on yourself.  Hell, take the chance on simply believing in who you are and that you know what you are meant to do.  Take the chance that you don’t need someone to tell you what to do or how to live your day.  Let go of the man-made restrictions and expectations that keep you neatly locked away.  Let go of the fear of yourself and your abilities and give into what you know you are meant to do.  There is nothing to fear when it comes to your authenticity.  THAT is your awakening and the consequence of that is living a fulfilled life.  I say if that is where fear leads me, then by all means show me the way.

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The last part I want to talk about in terms of deconstructing our system is our view on the past, mistakes, and experience.  We tend to view all of these things as shameful.  We are taught that the things we had to go through to learn our lessons are shameful things to hide.  We aren’t taught the value of integrating them and using them as the stepping stones to take us where we need to be.

We tend to have an unrealistic expectations when it comes to, well, anything.  Between expecting people to read our minds, our perfectionism, and our need for attention we have created our own failures before we even try.  Toss in our built-in need for control and power and soon we are living in a miserable fantasy land.  We learn to carefully construct our lives so they appear a certain way—and we pretend we have no power in our lives.  The illusion of lack of power leads us to seek it in any way we can.

Humans are not meant to be perfect.  We are not meant to construct illusions to garner power.  We are meant to tap into our innate power and to use that to fulfill our purpose.  We are meant to complement each other and to help each other through our weak points.  We aren’t meant to be all knowing, we are meant to learn and to help each other.

There are infinite possibilities in this universe and attempting to pursue the same dream is rather limiting.  The only way to get beyond that is to tap into what you are called to do.  We can’t learn what we are meant to do until we try what feels right.  And those things will not always turn out.  THAT is the lesson we need to learn: reframe those things that didn’t turn out into guideposts.  I have spoken about this many times as a personal tool.  That is always where it starts because as we begin to shift, those around us begin to shift.  Slowly more and more people begin to shift and soon we can look at the bigger picture.  So there is always value in wrong turns: they always end up getting us where we need to be.

When it comes to the overall look at the past, it weighs heavily on many of us.  It’s difficult to reconcile certain events and we all have a few moments we wish we could erase forever.  The truth is we tend to give the past too much control over our future.  That is another way we give up our true power.  The past is no indicator of the future.  The magic we possess is that we can change the future at any time.

So what happens when we decide that what was, no longer has any say in where we are going?  Anything.  And everything.  And exactly what is meant to be.  Reframing these thoughts is challenging to say the least.  We are reconciling personal trauma with historical trauma—the events that are passed to us from generations before who have endured the same traumas so often they are written in their blood.  The beautiful thing about working with the universe is that as soon as the decision to change is made, the universe conspires to make it happen.  All you have to do is jump in.

The goal then is to put the things long gone away safely where they no longer have an emotional impact on us.  They are things that can teach us, not hurt us.  Nothing more.  And shame—such an unnecessary emotion.  I don’t profess that we should never feel shame because, in the moment, it can quickly redirect us.  But to feel shame over things that are over serves no purpose other than to cut our mind all over again.  All we can do in those moments is pause and say, “thank you for the lesson, I take it and move forward.”

Imagine a world where this type of power is harnessed.  Imagine how accelerated our learning would be.  And for Pete’s sake, imagine what it would feel like in a world where people no longer judged what we did or what we should be doing.  While I know that is an extremely lofty goal, just imagine what it would feel like.  When we see the value in the experiences rather than lamenting them or chastising ourselves (or others) more possibilities open.  That, my friends, is what deconstruction is really about.  It’s about giving up what we know, what we know doesn’t really serve, in favor of the rebuild.  As I said before, deconstruction doesn’t mean devastation.  These parts are all essential to what was and what will be.  But in order for them to work we need to do the work…break it down and adjust.  Maybe then we can create the space for us to all fly again.