Hey everybody!  It’s Stacy Rocklein and I’m out here on the beautiful trail by my house.

I’m lucky to be here.  I got to walk through some fear to get here and I just want to talk about that for a couple of minutes this morning.

Some of you may know that I encountered a rattlesnake on this very trail a couple of weeks ago.  That day I successfully navigated my fear, but ever since…in the mornings or afternoons or whenever I’m deciding what I’m going to do outside, I can choose the sidewalks in my neighborhood or I can choose my trail.

I’ve been doing a lot of rationalizing about the sidewalks.  I come out and think, “You know, that route would be a little bit longer and it would be a little bit easier on my knees.”  But I can feel that there is something in there.  And that can happen when we’re making a choice sometimes where we can sense that there might be a little bit of fear in there.

When I thought about the trail, a little bit of that fear of seeing that rattlesnake again was hanging out underneath my decision.  But the thing is that this is MY trail.  I’ve been on this trail hundreds of times.  I’m like Snow White on this trail.  There are little bunnies and birds following me around.  My heart is here and I just love it.  THAT’S where I wanted to be!

So I really had to ask myself, “How much is my decision being motivated by fear?”  And that’s a good question to ask yourself when you can sense that there is a little bit of runaround being done by your mind…rationalizing and justifying.

Here it was.  There was fear.  And the thing about fear is that it’s not like I got to just face it the one time and it’s over.  You know?  It comes up.  Those things reappear and you have to kind of continually face them and decide what you’re going to do.

Who’s going to win?  What is going to rule the day?  Is it going to be my mind which is so good at rationalizing?  Or is it going to be my heart?  Which one is going to win?

And so TODAY I got out on the trail and it was a gorgeous day and I got to actually enjoy it.  But I’m reminded of that and I wanted to share that question with you, because I ask myself that question a lot.

How much is fear motivating this decision I’m making?

And that’s not how we want to live.  We don’t want to live with fear motivating our choices.

There you have it.  Enjoy a brilliant day yourself.  Until next time!