Fly Above Your Fear

On Tyler Perry's twitter feed a couple of days ago he wrote, "Fly above your fear," and posted this video:

Throughout the video, Tyler gives bits of advice. One that sits heavily on my mind is this:

Seek to understand what you're afraid of.

As of today, I have three fears that continually pop up in my life. I'm sure there are more but the two that press heavily upon my mind and causes a significant amount of stress are as follows.

FEAR #1:

The fear of others' expectations of me... especially my family and close friends. So often I feel constrained by the expectations of others. I don't think of myself as being a prude but I feel like I have become that. 

In terms of my cultural and religious upbringing -- there's more judging going on than loving and people respond more to LOVE than they do to JUDGEMENT. Religion is centered on judgement, isn't it? Maybe it's just the brand of religion that I was raised in that causes so much conflict inside of me. I don't think God is EXCLUSIVELY for ((insert religious conviction here)). My God would be and/or is a God that includes all of his creations. Gay, White, Black, Hawaiian, Samoan, Chinese, etc. etc. There are no qualifications to attain God's love or is there? And if there is, why?

FEAR #2:

The fear of leaving my family... I think this may be more about control rather than leaving. I don't know. Inside my head, I feel like I'm the one that holds it all together; but that can't be true. The house dynamics right now consists of my father and my 15-year old brother and me and my husband. My husband and I have to move closer to my husband's children in Colorado. I don't wanna leave **sigh** but it looks like I have to to preserve my marriage. My desires of being right here, in this beautiful place, the only place I have ever or will ever want to be.... is out the window to preserve my marriage.


My mother passed away just over a year ago. Leaving my father with a 15-year old kind of scares me. Leaving him to pay his own bills scares me also but I suppose I can continue to do that when I leave. Everything is online nowadays. So why am I afraid to leave?


Finally FEAR #3
Am I losing WHO I AM? For me, living in Hawai'i has been my only ideal location for the rest of my life. Perfect weather all year round is so desirable but it's so much deeper than that. My bond and connection with this land is deeper than perfect weather. I feel like I'm abandoning my battle against capitalism and the restoration of native rights.  Am I less Hawaiian for moving away from these islands? Am I less of a loyal daughter by leaving? 


I identify with the following labels:
Daughter
Sister
Wife
Hawaiian
Samoan


I started out in this world as a daughter, sister, a Hawaiian, a Samoan. Am I abandoning all of that by tending to my "wifely" duties? Leaving these islands with my husband, does it make me less of the other labels and only a wife? This has been my battle for many months. How do I balance all the labels? How do I continue to be who I authentically think I am? Is reinvention absolutely necessary?

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So here I am today. Scared as heck to FLY ABOVE MY FEAR but finding that this is the only way to live my life. I pray that I will be able to FLY.