I subscribe to a blog called Active Response Training.  I have posted about Greg Ellifrizt before, most recently in regard to my kids and school safety. I started goggling him and following him after reading several article that JD from Guns, Guns, and More Gosh Darn Guns  had posted.  I find him to be a no non-sense valuable resource on a variety of topics concerning self defense and firearms.  You might want to check him out. 

This morning he posted an article called The Simple Guide To Growing Some @#$%ing Balls  He actually posted several links to several really good articles.  This was the top story. but I skipped it.  I read every other one first and then went back and thought what the heck.

I have often talked about the act of doing.  That writing as been cathartic and the support of others has been invaluable, but what has helped me heal, helped me grow, has been the doing. 

For example after the March ordeal I was afraid.  I mean rocked to my core afraid(this is old news to most of you, but recently several new folks have joined us, so for their benefit I say it again).  Doesn’t matter if that fear was overblown or justified or not(I don’t think it was, just saying).  Many people have never had one bad or scary thing happen to them, but just the thought of the ugliness they see on the news and the possibility of it happening to them is enough to paralyze them.  That fear is very real.  They live in fear for years, maybe always.  They get security systems and some may even get a gun, but they are still afraid.  I have seen it here on this blog and in the emails I get.  As an aside this is not a judgement.  I know what it is like to be afraid. It isn’t fun. Everyone’s time table is different. I am fortunate that no one ever said to me, it’s been long enough get over it, but the truth is eventually it is long enough and eventually it is time to get over it.  Not because someone else says so, but because living in that state of fear or depression or whatever it is that keeps someone in a place of misery, just isn’t worth it anymore.

I say again: Doing, that is what heals.  I didn’t feel ready to take my first gun training class.  I was a mess, but the millisecond after the mugging was over, I made a choice to learn how to protect myself and my family, so I showed up to that class and I stayed the whole scary time. About 3 months after that I decided I was no longer going to live in fear. I started making conscious choices to face those fears while still being afraid.  Strangely, you can’t wait to get over the fear to do the thing that scares you.  You have to do the thing you are afraid of and then the fear eventually goes away.  It’s masochistic, but true.  The funny thing is, for me, it didn’t really matter if it was a positive event or a negative one.  The simple act of facing the fear and living through it gave me courage and confidence even if I failed. I didn’t think I was ready to take the NRA Instructor Course and even though I passed, to be honest it wasn’t all that pretty of an experience(I was a nervous wreck and it showed), but I still gained a ton of positive thing from that course.  Things that have stayed with me. Things that I have used in other situations where had I not faced a challenge, faltered and grown, might have caused me to fall apart.

Even with all the craziness of my childhood and the mugging, I have had a good life.  I have enjoyed it, but I haven’t necessarily lived it. I will continue to fight to stay alive, but there are more important things than being safe, than simply being alive.

Like living.

Not a big revelation.  Every self help book says it, every talk show host says says it, every motivational speaker will tell you it’s true, but once a person grows a set of @#$%ing balls for themselves all of a sudden it is like a GIGANTIC revelation sent from heaven and you(by you, I mean me) think, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” 

I have faced a lot over the past 14 months, but there are still more mountains to climb. Some I am sure I am not even aware of yet, but I am finally ready to face another fear and it’s a biggie(ok, maybe not a biggie) 

I have an irrational fear of talking on the telephone.  I don’t know why, but I hate it.  I can email, text, chit chat in person, I can write letters, blog, FB, even use a CB, but the phone intimidates me.  It will take me a week to get up the gumption to call the doctor to make an appointment for my kids.  I do it, of course, but I put it off until the last possible moment.  Several of you wonderful folks have given me your number, but I have never called any of you(except Dann in Ohio. I owed him an apology and I may be a chicken, but I am no coward.) because I have been too nervous. No more!  I am grabbing my balls and making some phone calls.  So, be forewarned, if you have giving my your phone number in the past, next week, I will be calling.  If you have since decided you no longer wish to receive calls from me then you better change your number, cuz I am going to keep calling and calling until I talk to you, all of you. 

**I know you all are quite accustom to my many typos and lack of editing, but I am in a real hurry here, so if this one is extraordinarily bad, I do apologize.