For the last two hours I’ve been procrastinating writing today’s blog. I’ve been busy, of course, doing the dishes, letting the dog in and out (make up your mind, honey!), cleaning up my hard drive (it’s too full for me to install an update), surfing Amazon for books (like I need another one). Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with this one simple task–sit down and write. Not because it’s THAT difficult to sit down and write, but because, honestly, I’ve built up a lot of mental aversion to sitting down and writing every day, every damn day. Like, it’s exhausting, and I’m kind of over it.

As I’ve said before, this is my choice. Nobody is holding a gun to my head and making me write this blog. Also, I don’t intend to quit, at least for a while. I’m committed to this process. (Before it’s over I may be committed to an institution.) All that being said, this blog is about my being honest, and I think it’s important to–occasionally–authentically acknowledge how much this project wears me out. I mean, it gives a lot, but it takes a lot. In this sense, I suppose it balances itself out.

This morning I saw my therapist, and we talked about what you and I are talking about now–procrastination, this project, and balance. In terms of procrastination (which my therapist insists “smart people” do), I said that I have several other projects I’d like to tackle, maybe before but at the very least when this one is over. “But,” I said, “it’s like I have this familial issue with essential tremors, and there’s a book about different ways to treat it that’s been on my reading list for over a year. The truth is I don’t want to read it because, what if it doesn’t do any good? As long as I DON’T read it, I can at least tell myself things could get better, and it’s the same with my other projects. As long as I HAVEN’T started them, I can tell myself that’s why I’m not currently succeeding.”

“So it’s fear,” my therapist said.

“UH, YEAH IT’S FEAR,” I said.

My therapist said that, really, we’re just as afraid of succeeding as we are failing. “Stepping into your power is terrifying,” she said. I agree. Just the thought of living a bigger, better life is enough to make me go running for the hills. Because it’s The Unknown, The Unfamiliar, THE UNCOMFORTABLE. I mean, let’s get real, I’ve already experienced the bottom of the barrel. For me, this is The Known, The Familiar, The Comfortable. I’ve already experienced being embarrassed by my station in life. Ugh. My therapist says embarrassment is one of the most difficult emotions to sit with. “But if you can do it,” she said, “you’ll eventually experience confidence–because life balances itself out.”

Recently I mentioned the principle of polarity, the idea that for every hot there’s also a cold. For every up, a down. This is what my therapist was referring to when she juxtaposed embarrassment with confidence. In other words, they are two ends of the same stick. As I understand it, this means that both emotions reside within each of us as potential lived realities, so even if you’ve been hanging out on the embarrassment side of the emotional see-saw, it’s possible to scoot your way over to the confidence side. It’s possible to pick up the other end of the stick.

The same stick you’re already holding, by the way.

Taking a thought or an emotion that’s a source of pain and turning it into a source of strength is what an alchemist would call mental transmutation or turning lead into gold. Joseph Campbell said it this way–“Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave, that was so dreaded, has become the center.” To me this means that ultimately those thoughts, emotions, and situations in my life that have been so difficult for me to experience, truly, have the most to offer me. They’re like–I don’t know–blessings in disguise.

No. That’s not right. Blessings are gifts that come to us uninvited, and I’m talking about something different. Turning lead into gold requires work, The Hard Work. There’s a concept in mythology that if you slay a dragon, you receive its power. If we look at dragons as our shadows, or those parts of ourselves we haven’t fully integrated and transformed (for example, fear or embarrassment), another way to say this would be that if we can tame our dragons, they will work FOR us and not AGAINST us. Imagine how your world would change if the emotional power that used to weigh you down were now lifting you up.

Imagine that.

But back to The Hard Work. Taming dragons isn’t easy. (If it were easy, everyone would do it.) Not because the work itself is that difficult, but because it’s painful (which makes it difficult). It’s painful to experience fear, and it’s painful to experience the death of your illusions. Said another way, it’s painful to experience the death of your identity. What I mean is that I’m embarrassed, I’m weak, and I’m afraid are all ways of labeling ourselves. And whereas they’re not the sexiest of labels, they’re still labels we hold on to. If you don’t believe me, the next time one of your friends says they’re fat or ugly, TRY to disagree with them. They won’t believe you. If they believed you, really, they’d have to change. This would mean going from The Known to The Unknown, scooting from the “I’m ugly” side of the see-saw to the “I’m beautiful” side. Yes, it’s not just that we fear to enter our caves, it’s that we also fear to walk out of them transformed–beautiful, confident, and radiant.