That thing you've always wanted to do? Just f’ing do it. {My best advice for a happy and full life.}

“The next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.”

~Pema Chodron

You know that thing you have always wanted to do, but are afraid of?

You should just fucking do it.That is my very best advice for living a happy, fulfilled life.As I have become a slightly more public figure in the yoga world, people often comment that they could never do what I have done; they couldn’t handle the pressure, they just aren’t brave enough.  As I put more and more of my personal story out for others to see, yoga teachers often comment that they would love to have a full private practice like I do, but they never could because they don’t have the time, resources, or guts.  Sometimes smart, skillful yoga teachers pull me aside, and ask for my secrets. “You seem to have it so together! How did you become so fearless?”

“Starting your own business is so risky!”

“Teaching private yoga clients is so vulnerable and intense...”

“Depending solely on unreliable private yoga clients to support you, in such an expensive city, is crazy!”

“You are so courageous...”

So I would like to set the record straight.  I am not immune to anxiety and self doubt.

I am not fearless.

This is what the dictionary has to say about courage:

noun

the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, or pain, without fear

But if that is the case, if acting with courage means you face difficulty and pain without fear, then I am not courageous at all.

I am afraid, all the time.

I was terrified when I decided to forgo academic studies for a dance program in college, graduating with a BFA in Modern Dance Performance and no marketable skills that could actually pay the rent.I was sick with dread when I moved to NYC from Philly two days after graduation all by myself.I was shaking with fear when I taught my first yoga class and ridden with anxiety when I decided I didn’t want to dance anymore and wanted to try to spend my days {and support myself} teaching yoga full time.I was petrified when I went surfing for the first time in Panama, in an ocean filled with deadly sting rays.I walked on to a teeny tiny plane to go skydiving for the first time with the weight of terror on my chest.I was apprehensive when I gave an ex a second chance, {and moved to a new city with him!}, but I knew I had to do it anyway.I was nauseous and brokenhearted when I left said relationship, only 8 months after moving to DC together, and weeks before my 30th birthday. There was no other choice to be made.I just returned home from three solo weeks in Thailand. It was one of the hardest, scariest, most rewarding three weeks of my life. {More thoughts from that trip coming soon.}In the summer of 2014, I had a filmmaker come and film me as I taught several yoga sessions to private clients. On that sticky July day, as I was walking down 6th Ave with the camera following me, I was wishing I could crawl in a hole and die. It was one of the scariest, most vulnerable things I have ever done. I was nervous on so many different levels. I was worried about the student who would be filmed with me, I was worried about the yoga teachers who would eventually watch the video, and I was worried about myself. For my student, I wanted to make sure that her session was useful and meaningful and I wanted to protect her from the stress of being filmed and visible to the world; for the teachers watching, I wanted to teach a session that would be instructive and useful; and on top of all that, I was worried about how I was going to look in the video! More importantly I was worried about how my teaching and my way of being would translate into the medium of a video. Would it still be me on the flat screen of a computer? I absolutely wanted to die.And just last month, I finally got the tattoo I have been thinking about for 10 years. I got it in a place everyone told me was the worst possible place to get a tattoo...the rib cage. I was panic-stricken walking into the tattoo parlor. {And it did hurt like a motherfucker.}If acting without fear is what makes one courageous, then that is definitely not me.I am afraid all the time.The root word for courage comes from the Latin cor, which means heart.My dictionary said this:

Obsolete meaning: the heart as the source of emotion and action

I don’t think that meaning is obsolete. I think what makes someone courageous is when they act from their heart. I do feel courageous. I do things all the time that are scary and hard and painful and vulnerable. I am afraid all the time, and I never let that stop me from doing the things I want to do. {I learned that from my mom.} This has made my life big and full, and I am wildly grateful for the amazing, terrifying, exciting, and painful experiences I have had, and the fantastic relationships that hold and support me in my life.But I am not special. You get to have a big, full, happy life also.That thing you have always wanted to do? You should just do it. Risk, self-doubt, and fear be damned. It’s the clearest path I can see to a life of meaning and joy, and we all deserve to have such a life.If I look fearless to you, and you find that inspiring, I am glad. But I need you to know, I am not fearless. I am worried and anxious and struggle with vulnerability just like you.We all deserve a life that moves and breathes with a feeling of wholeness and is not weighed down by regrets. That life is yours for the taking dear.Tell me loves, what is something you have always wanted to do, but are afraid of?