(5min read)

** I wrote this post in the midst of my respite. For three months I was wrestling through some hard things and this post was written in the midst of that time. 

I've been quiet. Especially these past couple of months. I haven't been posting on Instagram, creating new podcasts, writing blogs, sending out emails, or really doing much to move the needle forward "professionally." I've honestly felt so unmotivated and un-inspired that at times it has felt a little scary. I'm lacking vision and that's just not like me. 

 I've been launching clients, which always leaves me feeling both immense joy and a certain measure of grief. I genuinely love the women I walk with. Pair that with the void of new clients coming through, there's been a very real fear of scarcity that persistently attempts to overcome me, almost daily. For the past year my life has been filled with loss, uncertainty, and everything I am tempted to rely upon or find confidence in has been shaken or completely dissolved. Do we ever get to a place in our journey where we experience seasons of pruning with ease? Right now it's all so painful, triggering and scary. 

I know I'm in also in a pivoting season, and yet the thoughts and feelings are just so loud. I don't see the next step, but the ground beneath my feet is disintegrating quickly. I feel this constant sense of urgency but I don't want to fix it, I want to learn and grow through it. Do you ever feel this way too?

At first, when all the lack and uncertainty got really loud and everything felt like it was falling apart, I became so weary and felt like I had no fight in me. I've been here before, many times, Im here again? Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, and nothing I did. In the nothingness I began to regain some strength and since then I've been actively choosing not to stress. It's easy to say "be anxious for nothing" when there's nothing to be anxious for. Faith really gets tested in the fires of trials and testings. I've been actively practicing to not strive but simply rest, some days that's easier than others. 

I've spent quality time with family and old and new friends. I've watched the entire fourth season of 'The Chosen' in theaters. By the way, when it is released through streaming I highly recommend you watch it, I swear this series only gets better every season! I've cooked lots of comforting and nourishing food. I've cried, a lot. I like crying, crying is good! 

Through it all, I've held onto hope that something, somehow will come together and that this is all working out for my good. I've felt trapped in an inspiration and motivation drought, but now, here I am, writing to you, and trying something new. 

In the past couple of months I've been bombarded with thoughts missioned to discourage and defeat me. Maybe you know those thoughts? The ones that try to convince you that you're not good enough, smart enough, able enough, likable enough, influential enough, anything enough and never will be? The thoughts that yell at you that you're a failure and always will be! The voices that attempt to shut you down, shut you up and make you live small. They've been loud, but I have not let them take me out! I may lay low, but I will not back down! Just because I feel like a failure, doesn't mean I am one. I've had this little truth statement playing in my mind on repeat. It doesn't feel true yet, but to let my feelings override the truth would be emotional reasoning, so here I am, catching my thoughts and renewing my mind. 

Learning to become the observer of our thoughts and curious with our emotions changes everything! Really believing in our core, beyond all intellect and emotional experience, that everything in life is happening FOR and not TOO you can make a person unstoppable. That does't mean we don't wobble. As my dear mentor says "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down." Often times we wobble when we are in strength and resistance training. We've got to learn to make peace with and embrace the wobble. 

In spite of the battle going on in my mind and the deeper layers of limiting beliefs being exposed in my heart, there have been moments I have felt spurred to take some action. Life is not all or nothing. A lot of women I've walked with share that they are afraid to let themselves be honest and feel because they are afraid their feelings will take over and the will completely lose control of their lives. We can learn how to wrestle and feel things deeply and then shelf what's going on within us to step into what we are responsible for before us. There is a difference though between shoving something under the rug, the bed or in the closet and shelving something to come back to later. I've become a master shelver over the years.

In spite of feeling like I'm failing in life,  I just completed building out Living Beautifully's very first digital course. I'm playing with a new platform, the one you'll most likely end up reading this post on, should I publish it. Im feeling lead to migrate my website and it all feels daunting and my inadequacy is loud. It's been hard; I'm not going to lie. This stuff does not come naturally or easily to me. As Sheryl Crow sang, "we do what we can" and yes, I just had to click over and it's now playing in the background, such a moody song! I'm doing what I can, one day at a time, even though Im lacking total and compete confidence in myself or that I'm even making strides in the right direction. And yes... this is part of what living beautifully looks and feels like. The highs and lows are the heartbeat of life, learning to ride them fully and freely is the only thing that allows us to live wholeheartedly. 

I don't know if you'll relate, it seems that a lot of people manage to have it all together in this world, but my life has been one long series of trial and failure. There was a time that I not only felt like a huge failure but actually believed I was one. It hits different when it locks into identity. I would get an idea and run with it, and maybe I would thrive for a time, but inevitably it seems I was destined to crash, and crash, and crash again. Nothing really lasted. Nothing fully thrived. That leads to a pretty hopeless life. 

I read a book about 10 years ago called "Failing Forward" by John C Maxwell and it was the beginning of a process of dismantling the strong hold failure had in my life. It was a paradigm shift. As Joyce Myers says, 'the battle field is in the mind." I began to reframe my perspective on failure, and as I have, I don't fear failure as I used to, nor do I define myself by it.

I've tried and failed a lot. I've tried to be married, and failed at it twice. I've tried to take jobs I loved and turn them into careers, I've failed at that.I've tried to foster teenage girls, and that did not turn out the way I had hoped and believed it would.  I've tried to spark new friendships with no reciprocated effort offered (fear of rejection is another thing we can talk about another time!) I've created so many websites, blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels over the years and non of them have sustained, let alone taken off. I've tried to build a social media presence only to expense little to no engagement. There is a time when I would have judged these perceived fruitless attempts as failure, and at times the voice of failure still creeps up, but I get to decide to partner with it or not.

Here's something I've realized, and am totally and completely convicted in: we can't actually accomplish anything great with our lives if we bow down to failure. The truth is, through it all, I've gained experience. I've been refined. And every time I try something new, the wisdom and knowledge from past 'failures' I carries through.

Often times, when pursuing the fullness of life, we must begin again, and again, and again, and again, taking what we learnt and applying it. Life really is about practice. And, in time, whatever we consistently  practice, we perfect. 

Sometimes, we don't want to try because we don't want to fail. Sometimes, we feel that we've failed so much we just want to quit. But my friend, I've learned that the only way to truly fail is to not try at all or to not try again. When life throws us curveballs or things don't go the way we hoped, we can rest, process, learn from what that experience holds and then pivot. This is how we grow. This is how we evolve. This is how we take new territory and live expansive lives. 

So even though there's a voice telling me Im not enough and never will be, there's something deeper within me calling me to "the more," again. I get to chose which voice I listen to. 

When I was in the trenches of transformation years ago, and really going through a hard time my mentor said "Tanya, there are women waiting for you on the other side of your breakthrough." I've seen this declaration manifest in recent years, but a holy dissatisfaction is growing in my heart, longing for more. 

More women are longing to live whole-hearted lives of genuine authenticity, vulnerability, freedom and courage. More women are longing to live from peace with presence, purpose, passion, and even pleasure in their day-to-day lives. I may not be able to inspire hope in everyone but I'm hoping to inspire MORE than I have before.

I, maybe like you, am still very much in process. I haven't yet become the version of me I see when I envision the me I long to be, but, I remind myself often that I still have a long way to go. I have a long way to grow. The only way for me to get there, to become 'her,' is to show up each day as me, learn, get out of my comfort zone and just try my best! On days that I feel weary, I cry, I rest, but quitting or settling is never an option. We must live lives worthy of our calling and that is not for the faith of heart my friend!

I hope you find comfort and rest in my confession. It's sad to me the amount of women who suffer in silence and alone. I share, transparently, because I know I'm not alone and I want you to know you're not alone either. It's OK to not be OK! It's OK to wobble. It's OK to wrestle. It's OK to be emotionally honest with yourself, and other safe people! This is freedom. This is healthy. This is growth, 

Wherever the fear of failure, or feelings of failure, may be holding you hostage, I hope and pray something sparks in you a fresh courage to try, or try again. We must overcome the fear of failure if we are to unlock our full potential. Who cares if you make a mistake, at least you tried! Who cares if no one gets it, it's not their path or purpose anyway! Who cares if you never get there, maybe you're destined for something else and "there" is just a course correction. The fear of failure is connected to a fixed mindset which is focused on results. The remedy? Cultivating a growth mindset focused on learning and experience. The fear of failure can also be fed but the fear of (wo)man. When the opinions of others matter more to us than our Makers we  risk miscarrying our assignment and have no hope of living an authentic life. 

When we get wobbly in life and the fear of failure (or rejection, or any fear really) strikes, we must slow down, pay attention to our thoughts and heart and do the soul work of aligning them in truth. This is NOT "positive thinking," it's an active process of sifting through the noise to pan out the honest and hope-filled thoughts that are anchored in what is true. It's allowing our emotions to reveal what our heart is experiencing and then tenderly loving our heart back to a place of peace. It's amazing what can change in our lives when we are focused on the right things and learn how to renew our minds and keep watch over our hearts in a life giving and freedom increasing manner! It's simple, but not easy. 

Jesus never said a life of soul prosperity would be easy, but he did say it would be worth it, anything less is not living at all. 

Making our relationship with ourselves one of our top priorities and learning how to tend to the garden of our souls,  is foundational to living the beautiful and abundant lives that we long for and were created to embody. We can learn to love ourselves and care for our inner being without becoming a lover of self! Don't let that religious lie limit you from living in the fullness Jesus has for you! He came to set us free and to live in the light, to live honestly, no masks needed. No "fake it till you make it", that just isn't Kingdom culture. 

I created a digital course to help you do just that. Even deeply spiritual and growth minded women have a hard time sitting in stillness, silence and practicing self-reflection. We can busy ourselves with really good things, like reading blogs and listening to podcasts, but if we aren't taking the time to digest what we're consuming... we don't absorb all the nutrients and can end up being more harmful than helpful. It's a dangerous thing when we know a lot, but don't actually embody it.

If you haven't already, I invite you to embarking on the Radiant You journey with me. See what setting time aside with each of the 31 day Soul Care Activation can ignite in your life. The beautiful thing about the digital course is you can go through it at your own pace. 

 How do we overcome the fear of failure? Fear of failure may continue to pop up in our lives in transient times, but we don't have to live with it.  The main point I will make is this: if you want to overcome the fear of failure, you simply must not give into it! Whatever we give into, we empower and it takes over and wins.