Show the world who you are. Everything dark is waiting for your light.
There's so little time. Why do we wake up every day and act like we have infinite lives? We do not. We only have this one. And we only have right now. Show the world what you are made of, show the world your strength, your vulnerability, your expression, your joy. Remove all the layers - remove everything that obscures you - so that your light can shine out for all to see. Stand in your truth and let the world see you for you.
But fear wants us not to. Fear tells us that we will be annihilated. Fear wants us to hide.
I wrote an essay once where I imagined that being at the end of life, looking back. From that perspective, from your deathbed, all your life is already behind you. And when you have time for that life-review, the most painful moments will be the times when your fear made you do (or not do) something, something you now deeply regret.
Remove all the layers - remove everything that obscures you - so that your light can shine out for all to see. Stand in your truth and let the world see you for you.
And so on your deathbed, I imagine that the thing you will wish for more than anything would be the ability to time-travel, to be able to go back to all those fear-regret moments ... and do it right. To have a second chance.
Well, your only second chance is the first one. This one. You need to live every day as if you have just time-traveled back here from your deathbed. Look! There is your deathbed-you, cheering you on and saying, "Please, do the thing that scares you. Now. Because that is where the life is!"
So, please, don't waste these time-travel moments, the million or so moments you are still holding in your hand, unspent. Because you are time-travelling right now, whether you know it or not. The only second chance is the first one.
Take every last one of these moments as precious. Walk away from your fear the exact same way you would walk away from an abusive relationship: no looking back and everything to gain. Because it is true.
But Fear is also our teacher, the hurtle we are all given to leap beyond in order to force us to choose ourselves. Fear is the coach baiting you into thinking you can't, just to see if you can.
So choose yourself. Leap over fear with the gusto of being in an Olympic event ... because you kinda are. The gold you will win is a live worth living, a life the deathbed-you will be so damn proud of.
Leap the chasm. Drop your shields (shields prevent harm from getting in, but also keep light from getting out). And dare.
Dare to shine your light and be you.
OK, good enough for now,
~ Quest Barely, all!
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Kemson Cooper is the creator of QuestBarely.com, a site about using the body as a path to explore the Self. He is also the author / artist of "Love Yourself ~ A Body of Work" (perhaps the world's first naked self-empowerment book)