Watch your Step!?!

Watch your Step!?!
 
Everyday we take thousands of steps and yet it is so rare that we think of any one step or a set of steps. We just take them in stride and they all work out. I know some of us stumble and trip or even fall. We get up and dust ourselves offs, starting walking again without any real thought given too it. There are so many days and so many steps with so few thoughts of placement. So many steps with no thoughts of the pace of each or the length of each step, we just keep going till we get to our destination. Then when it is time to go, it happens all over again. It is just part of life and seemingly effortless.
 
So my question is why make so many other things in life that should or could be as simple as a step so much more difficult. It often seems that simple things are more complicated and the placement of those steps is a challenge, a life altering challenge. We become timid, like walking through a mine field. Where do we step? How hard? We can see road blocks that we can’t easily walk past and begin to think about each and every step. Where do we place our feet? How hard? Before we know it we have become bogged down and the walk is down to a snails pace and then even slower. We just can’t keep the stride up and blow through the perceived minefield. We become so afraid of the misstep that we don’t step at all. We begin to take what should be easy and turn it into something difficult, like learning to walk all over. If we could find a way to trust and accept our own beliefs then we could walk with confidence right to our destination.
 
My battle with anxiety disorder turns me into someone walking through the mine field and someone who wants to inspect each rock at first, then each pebble, and then even each piece of sand that seems to be out of place around it. I need to know everything before I can move a muscle and begin to place my foot for that next precious step in the minefield. I believe I am heading towards safety but I never get there because I have lost the ability to trust any step. I have lost the ability to take a carefree stride. I am so sure that the end of the mine field keeps changing that I just do not give up the belief that I can actually get out of the mine field. Each step is painful and each step is so timid, so unsure that I barely am able to make progress. There are so many grains of sand to look at before making one step!!!
 
So how did I get myself out of the mine field and learn to walk again? How did I learn to make those strides and head toward my destination with vim and vigor? I will not tell you it was easy because it wasn’t easy for me. I battled and in fact I still have times and days or even a few days still where the battle slow down my pace as I again figure out the key to my pace, my steps. Then I just go and keep going until there is another bump. Some days maybe I am like the Tortoise from the Tortoise and the Hair stories. The point being that motion forward, steps forward will get me to my goal. If though I pause and begin to look at the rocks, or the pebbles, or the grains of sand that progress is more like ice melting in 33 degree air… slow..so slow and the progress is barely noticeable. So the key to constant steps and not slow painful ones is that you need to trust yourself. Look around you and you will see that others are moving in the same place as you without any hesitation. Same place, same field and yet they walk with a pace to a destination. See them and be them. Find that trust as you will not stumble or fall and you can certainly make it where they make it. You can!!! I did!! I am no different than you are and certainly no better. I am your equal and I made it. Trust me, believe me, take that first step after thinking your need to stop and look. Take it and see, you will be around to take the next step as you are only in your own personal mine field. So walk, trust yourself that is just does not exist because others around you are walking just fine without trouble. They do not fear a misstep to end their Worlds and neither should you. Take your own beautiful steps, the first ones are the hardest, just like when you were a baby, but they are the beginning of a lifetime of steps on your own. Your steps, your choice of placement and pace!!! You can do this, walk, be free!!! WALK!!!!!!!!!!!! NO NEED TO WATCH THOSE STEPS!!!