Yes these are the lyrics to “Wake Me Up”. I’m listening to this song as I write this blog and find myself inspired. My mind is my greatest ally and my biggest enemy and I feel most of the difficulties I face and we all face are things we bring on ourselves. Difficulty staying motivated, achieving a goal, staying on track and letting external forces affect our progress in life. I have this very blessed life but I find that I have these moments of weakness where I question and doubt all that I am doing. I am not sure if any of you have ever felt this way but when I have these moments I feel extremely weak and find that I am trying to find my way through the darkness and the light is so hard to see even when it’s blinding me.
You see the light is the control we have in all of us….the control over our happiness, control over how we look and feel…see I didn’t even know I was lost until I made the choice to take control. I actually don’t want to wake up when it’s over because our journey is what makes us who we are. There is so much joy in the journey….
I have been talking to many of my clients and close friends recently about fear. Fear is nothing more than an obstacle that stands in the way of progress. In overcoming our fears we can move forward stronger and wiser within ourselves. I am going to speak from experience here because it is the only thing I know how to do. Fear—this four-letter word. So powerful, life changing and can have such an impact on your life. Fear has crippled me but also drove me. Let me speak in two aspects of my life… my career and my personal life.
Training for competitions is very hard to explain if you haven’t actually been through it. The pressure of competing especially at my level played a toll and many times I found myself fearful of not looking the way I was suppose to look. When I was in the height of my career and winning shows it became the pressure I put on myself and constantly being fearful. Why? Was my life going to end if I didn’t win or do well? No it wasn’t, but the natural sense to compare yourself to others and to fear that you were never good enough is so commonplace in competing.
I used fear to push harder and usually the outcome was good… but the last couple years when I was competing my fear was not so fun. Staying on top is extremely difficult and until I swallowed my pride and accepted the changes in my body, I accepted that I could not be competitive anymore at that level. Once I accepted it, it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders and I began to enjoy competing again and didn’t put so much pressure on myself to do well because in my mind I had already won. Fear in this instance made me stronger and made me realistic. It’s not realistic to compete at that high level for a long period of time and the experiences faced has changed me and humbled me.
On the other hand, fear in my personal life has not only crippled me at times but has also kept me from being vulnerable and really opening up with someone. Why? Abandonment and lies is what I feared and what I experienced. I do feel that fear defeats more people than any other one thing in this world and in my case kept me from probably getting to know some really cool people.
You have the choice to face your fears! Are you going to run and never know what you are capable of doing and becoming? Or are you going to go head strong into what it is you want to do. Most people aren’t afraid of heights, they are just afraid to fall. I would rather try and fail then never try and regret… the choice is yours!
Keep training hard, stay positive and thank you so much for reading!!
Felicia Romero
