What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of new situations? Falling? Heights? Walking home in the dark? Someone you love dying? Are you afraid of losing your health? Losing a friend? Losing your phone? What about spiders? Cockroaches? Maybe snakes? Are you afraid of hurting yourself? What about hurting yourself emotionally? Are you afraid of not getting what you want? Not succeeding? Not thriving?

I'm personally afraid of a lot of things- rational and irrational. There are times when I think I give into my fears a little too easily, I don't even try to get over them. With spiders, I just ask my boyfriend to take care of it, no question. But with bigger situations that are more socially or emotionally based, I give into them with negative self talk, by backing away from a precarious situation, pulling into my little shell and cowering from whatever it is that is making me uncomfortable.

Sometimes that fear has nothing to do with something treacherous at all. Sometimes it's meeting someone new, one on one. Sometimes it's being honest and not knowing the reaction I'm going to get. Sometimes it's just being myself. Some days I'm just too tired to be courageous- I'm too weak in my spirit. It's those days that I've come to realize are indicators that I have not been doing my part to keep myself strong. I have not been giving myself the time, the self care I require, and as a consequence I lack confidence.

One thing I've learned is that to build courage takes practice. It doesn't happen over night. Negativity towards oneself and giving into fear is something that we can do daily and far too easily. Positivity and bravery are also things we can do daily, but they can seem much much harder. And how do we get over being scared? I for one will stop, take a deep breath, let it out, and soften into myself. Giving myself that moment is the first and most important thing I can do to remind myself that I am here- I am with myself, and I am here for myself.

It's like any relationship. If you were to treat yourself like a good friend, like a best friend, what kind of affection and honesty would you give yourself? What kind of jokes would you tell yourself if you were feeling poorly? What kind of motivational words would you give yourself, because if you know that if you were talking to your best friend you would want them to deeply feel and hold onto the confidence to succeed in whatever task, large or small, they were pursuing.

This week starts my yoga teacher training, and although I am excessively excited, today I think is the first day I'm actually pretty nervous. I'm not feeling very well, and I haven't practiced in a hot room in almost a month. With all the traveling and moving around I've been doing, I've skipped out on a lot of personal one-on-one time with just me. It's amazing how just a few weeks without concentrated practice can effect a person.

Which is what made me start thinking about this post. In the time that I haven't been giving myself time, I've notice a dwindling in my courage. The negative self talk comes up and it's harder for me to hit down. The little fears appear and instead of facing them, I tuck myself inside my shell and either wait for them to go away, or I simply walk away. These are in no way actions of bravery, these are moment of giving into my vulnerabilities.

But this is my breaking point. This post is my declaration of a new beginning. This new journey of TT is on my horizon and not surprisingly the theme of the course is courage. I have signed myself up for the class of fear facing! So now it's coming time to really ask myself, what am I afraid of? And most importantly how do I plan on overcoming those fears? And today begins the first day of me turning my course, turning back towards what I'm afraid of and learning to know it, understand it, overcome it. One of my big fears is putting myself out there, honestly and openly, so I plan on doing a lot of sharing on this blog about my journey.

I'm ready, I'm willing, and I'm so in need of yoga. I'm nervous about the challenges, I'm scared of what I might have to let go of in myself. I'm definitely afraid of not doing my best, but I'm so excited for all the growth that's ahead. The best thing about facing your fears, facing the bad stuff, facing the uncomfortable parts of you, your life, the people and things around you, is that once you do there is nothing that can take back those moments of courage. And that courage becomes a part of you.

So let's do this!!