For the last few weeks, I have realized just how much of my life I had been living in fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of the “what if.”
Fear of making the wrong decision.
Fear of failing.
Fear of succeeding.
Just…fear.
Ironically, I didn’t realize it because of something I was doing.
I realized it because of my cat.
Tiny came from a home where he was used as a bait cat for dog fights. Dogs terrified him. He also has asthma, and when he gets stressed, his breathing is affected. The house where I rent a room has dogs, and when everyone told me to just let him roam, my answer was an immediate…
“No.”
There was no way.
I didn’t want to deal with a scared cat.
I didn’t want to deal with the dogs.
I didn’t want to deal with an asthma attack.
So I convinced myself I was keeping him safe.
One day I left my bedroom door cracked open by accident.
Guess who wandered downstairs?
Tiny.
Nothing happened.
He saw another person besides me, panicked, and ran back upstairs, but he was okay.
Later that day I asked myself,
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
So I opened my bedroom door again.
This time, I left it open on purpose.
Do you know what happened?
I discovered I had a very happy cat.
He explored the house.
He sniffed every corner.
Yes, he and the dogs had a few heated conversations, and they’ve had several since then, but nothing terrible ever happened.
That’s when I realized something.
I thought I was protecting him.
But fear had quietly become his prison.
Tiny had already survived things I could never imagine.
He didn’t need me to hide him from life.
He needed me to trust that he could live it.
Then I had to ask myself a much harder question.
Was I doing the exact same thing to myself?
A few days later I was sitting in a drive-thru when an old childhood song suddenly popped into my head.
“Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”
I laughed.
Then I got quiet.
Because I realized the Big Bad Wolf wasn’t a wolf at all.
The Big Bad Wolf was the world.
For years I built a box around myself.
Inside that box I felt safe.
I performed.
I wore masks.
I became who everyone else needed me to be.
I walked through life carrying armor that I thought protected me, when in reality it was only hiding me.
Healing has shown me something I never expected.
The world wasn’t nearly as frightening as I imagined.
The wolf I’d been afraid of my whole life…
was mostly a story I kept telling myself.
The world isn’t waiting to devour me.
It’s waiting for me to step into it.
Then came the realization that changed everything.
I’ve always loved helping other people succeed.
I still do.
I love encouraging people.
I love cheering people on.
I love watching someone discover what they’re capable of.
In my mind, life became a catapult.
I was always the person holding the rope.
I’d pull the catapult down.
Help someone climb in.
Release the rope.
Then I’d stand there smiling as I watched them soar.
I’d cheer.
Celebrate.
Pull the rope back down.
Help the next person climb in.
And I’d do it all over again.
I genuinely loved being that person.
But one day I asked myself a question I had never been brave enough to ask.
Did I really love holding the rope…
…or was I simply afraid to fly?
That question unraveled everything.
Because I realized something.
For years I had been carrying a bag full of rocks.
Some of those rocks were mine.
Fear.
The need to earn love.
The belief that my worth came from what I could do for other people.
The masks.
The armor.
The stories I kept telling myself.
But there were other rocks too.
Rocks I picked up because I thought I was supposed to.
Other people’s responsibilities.
Other people’s happiness.
Other people’s disappointments.
Other people’s burdens.
I carried them all as if they belonged to me.
Healing hasn’t been about pretending those rocks never existed.
It’s been about sitting down beside that bag…
and unloading it.
One rock at a time.
Some rocks I laid down because they were mine to heal.
Some rocks I laid down because they never belonged to me in the first place.
As the weight became lighter, I noticed something.
I could finally pull the rope down for myself.
Then something beautiful happened.
The very rocks I had been carrying became the foundation that held the catapult in place.
My pain.
My healing.
My lessons.
My failures.
My growth.
Nothing was wasted.
I wasn’t throwing my past away.
I was building from it.
Then I started climbing.
Some days I slipped.
Some days I questioned myself.
Some days I wondered if I should just climb back down and go back to holding the rope for everyone else.
But I kept climbing.
Eventually…
I climbed into the bowl of the catapult.
Then came the hardest part.
Cutting the rope.
Because once you cut the rope…
you don’t get to stay where you’ve always been.
You fly.
For years I confused being safe with being free.
They are not the same thing.
Keeping Tiny in my room wasn’t freedom.
Keeping myself hidden wasn’t freedom.
Holding everyone else’s rope wasn’t freedom either.
Fear convinced me that staying small was wisdom.
Healing taught me it was simply fear wearing wisdom’s clothes.
So…
I cut the rope.
I stepped out of the box.
I stopped looking for the Big Bad Wolf around every corner.
Now…
I want to explore.
I want to experience life.
I want to feel the wind instead of wondering what it would feel like.
Because I finally understand something.
The world isn’t asking me to prove myself.
God isn’t asking me to stay hidden.
Life isn’t asking me to keep everyone else flying while I remain on the ground.
Sometimes…
the most faithful thing we can do…
is trust that it is finally our turn to fly.