Come out of Hiding
During the Y-camp, the participants also had a chance to do the Para-jump, which is a 14 meter jump off from a four storey building, very much like a bungee jump.
If you would have done one of these jumps before, you would have experienced the fear as you stood up there at the edge of the jumping board. The longer you stood up there looking down, the longer you would try to rationalize yourself out of the jump.
“I got to be crazy to do this.”
Coming out of hiding is very much jumping off.
As you seek to come out of hiding, be it:
Speaking up in a group meeting
Wanting to confront someone
Revealing your inner most thoughts to a friend
Having to perform in a situation you are uncertain about success
Performing or speaking in front of a crowd
Or even asking that girl out…
You’re going to feel at that point in time like this exactly: “This is crazy, what am I doing?”
But yet, it is that very point in time that you must break out of that fear and just go ahead and do it, whatever it is.
In a way, there is a sense of abandonment as you jump off the edge; a certain willingness to just ‘heck it, let’s just do it.’ And it’s the same sense of abandonment we must have when we comes to revealing ourselves. Forget the people who will talk. Forget the possibly of rejection. Forget whatever people will think of you.
And this is where we can begin to reveal ourselves fully; that bit by bit. There’s no secret formula to becoming fully you; fully alive. There’s no one step to doing it. We just have to begin to overcome these fears, one incident at a time.
And it comes with practice. As we begin to discern the voice of fear, we learn to shut it out and go forward in spite of it.
As the saying goes, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
Indeed, revealing our glory takes a lot of courage, and it is a continual journey that we choose to take till the end of our days. And remember, we can never change who we truly are; our choice is only in choosing whether we hide it or we reveal it.
But choosing to reveal it is like choosing to jump off that edge down the 4 storey building for the Para jump or maybe for some of you, a bungee jump, at the end of it when you reach the ground; you’ll be glad you did it.
If you have always been afraid to speak up in a group meeting, coming out of hiding means starting to speak up and stand up for what you believe in.
If you have always been afraid to allow somebody into your life, coming out of hiding means starting to open up your life to someone whom you know you can trust.
If you have always been afraid to confront that person who’s been ill treating you, coming out of hiding means to stand up and speak to the person instead of gossiping and talking about it behind his/her back.
The list goes on, but whatever it is you’re coming out from; you would have known you were afraid, but you did it anyway. You overcame. That’s the glory of it. =)
