Get Up, Shake Away Your Fears and Dance!

 “You know it’s on your mind
So get on up until you dance
Try it out
You’ll never know until you do
Try it out
Take a chance
You can do it
Try it out
Don’t feel sorry for yourself
You can make it
Try it out
Take the time, take a chance
Every minute, every day
Try it out”

Gino Soccio, Try It Out

Too often in life, we don’t want to “try it out.” We’re afraid of taking risks. We’re afraid to get outside of our selves, outside of our own internal head-worlds. Essentially, we’re afraid to live life in the real world.

This is especially true for many recovering people because we have been so damaged by outside sources, by people in the real world. For some of us, it’s even terrifying to think of attending our first 12 Step meeting. We’ve become so accustomed to holding ourselves inside of our own little world, that we are fearful to let ourselves out; to be vulnerable in front of other people.

We are fearful and we are often trapped in the darkness of our fear, and yet, at the same time, we know that living life to the fullest is on our minds. We very much want to be out in the real world having fun with other people and feeling fully alive. We want to get up and dance. We want to join in the dance that is life, in all of it’s beauty and excitement. But we’re afraid.

And so we often cling to our little head-worlds while feeling sorry for ourselves. We feel sad inside and we are desperate for someone to come and rescue us from our lonely little towers. Well, unfortunately, we aren’t Rapunzel and there’s no Prince who’s going to come and rescue us.

We have to be willing to rescue ourselves; to take a chance, to try it out, by getting out of our heads and into the heart of life. We have to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and we need to believe that we can indeed make it. We have to be willing to take the time to find that therapist who can really help us get our feet into those dancing shoes, or that 12 Step group that will teach us new dance steps for our new lives, or that Higher Power who can give us the inner-motivation to face our fears and get our booties out onto the big dance floor of life.

Every minute of every day we need to be willing to say “I’m worth it!” We also need to be willing to go against our gut; you know, the one that says “play it safe. You don’t want to get laughed at or hurt!” It’s time to tell our gut to shut-up! We don’t grow as persons until we are willing to take risks, get hurt, gain wisdom, grow and move forward by taking additional risks. This is how we are all called to live. This is what real life is all about. It’s about pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try, try again. This is being active participants in the dance of life. This is how we interact with others and grow as individuals. We get out on that dance floor of life; we dance away and we don’t care about whether we’ve got rhythm or not; we laugh at ourselves, have fun and in the process, we grow in every way possible.

People who are afraid to take risks and to grow are literally the living dead. So, throw your fears to the wind. We all have that friend who’s always asking us to do stuff—stuff we’re too afraid to do, like going to a CODA meeting or going dancing at a club—and it’s time that we went against our gut and accepted his/her invitation to live life. It’s time we took the risk, learned to laugh at ourselves and learned to finally, finally enjoy life.

Try it out!