In these troubled times we may feel powerless to affect personal or social change. But within you lies a wellspring of FIERCE wisdom just waiting to be tapped into. Here's how to get started.
What does it mean to be FIERCE?
It's the biggest day of your life. You're about to interview for your dream job, give that game changing presentation, or ask the love of your life to marry you. You've rehearsed the scenario over and over in your mind for weeks. You've got this.
Then, at the moment of truth you freeze. Out of nowhere those well-rehearsed words are nowhere to be found. The circuits of your brain feel jammed, and all that you can do is stare blankly into space.
You desperately hope that you will regain your "mind", but there you stand in a state of psychological paralysis. When it's over you feel embarrassed, ashamed, silly. You are faced with two choices. To let fear prevent you from diving back in and trying again, or to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and be fierce.
What will you choose?
What does it mean to be FIERCE? Fierce is a way of being. It means living life with courage, determination and conviction. It means accepting that defeat is part of life, and using disappointment as a catalyst for change. It means staring fear in the face rather than repressing, denying or avoiding it. It means remaining open to life, and to relationship even when others have hurt you or let you down.
Being fierce means being brave enough to shine a bright light on your shadow side - the parts of your be-ing that may be difficult to accept, or at times, impossible to bear. We all have them, and many of us spend a lifetime wishing them away, only to find them taking charge of our lives.
It means getting out of your own way, and tapping into your innate wisdom. The wisdom that tells you when to jump in headlong, when to bow out gracefully, or something in between.To be fierce, in the words of Dr Susan Jeffers, is to feel the fear and do it anyway.
Ferocity is neither simple nor easy, but it essential for living an authentic, full, and purpose-full life, and for creating honest, heart-felt relationships that honor self and other.
Ferocity is not the absence of fear
When it comes to fear and ferocity there are two points that I cannot emphasize enough.
First, fear is not bad.
Second, fear and ferocity are not mutually exclusive.
Let's begin with the first. Fear is essential to your survival. It is an all-important sense that you're in danger. That you should turn and walk away from that dark alley, or get out of that destructive relationship. Fear is a powerful mechanism designed to protect you. But sometimes that mechanism can cripple you, particularly if you see it as an enemy rather than an ally. It is important to befriend fear, not hide from it.
Second, fear is not the absence of ferocity. just as ferocity is not the absence of fear. They dance together, sometimes with fear taking the lead, and other times with our thoughts and actions being guided by fierce wisdom.
Without fear we would rarely be compelled to explore the fierce determination needed to forge a new path, or excel at an existing one. Experiences that stretch our limits, or even break us apart, are often those that connect us with a deep wellspring of inner resources that we may not even know we have.
Fear is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Ferocity is your birthright.
What will you choose?
Join me in the coming months as I explore with you, and in my own life, what it means to live with fierce wisdom!
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