Today, when I awoke, I was thinking about my days in L.A. when I was pursuing an acting career. I wasn’t very successful in Hollywood; yet, when I was doing musical theater in Albuquerque, auditioning and performing with a full orchestra to over 1400 people at a time, I had a sense of being successful. Was I a big fish in a small pond who when transplanted to Hollywood just had too much competition and couldn’t swim in the big ocean? I think that is what I thought, but what I came to know is that I was just plain scared. I didn’t know what I know now and I had convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough, when all the time, I was just plain scared.

What was I scared of? Perhaps it was fear of not being good enough. I remember one audition where the casting director asked me why I was so nervous, “You are very good, you know,” she said. Then, she cast me in spite of her assessment of my fear.

Why did I think of this today? Why did this memory surface into my conscious awareness if not for a reason? What comes to my mind os the idea of how everything that holds us back is based in some kind of fear. It might be fearing of losing something or someone. It could be fear that life has let us down and will do so again. There are many things we can be afraid of everyday.

However, for me, the opposite of fear is faith. In the case of my Hollywood days, it would have been faith in being good enough – being great at what I do. It would have been faith in my ability to do anything set before me not because I have to try so hard, but because it is my innate nature to be successful. The Power that works through you and me is up to anything and capable of moving mountains if necessary.

The past is over and I’ve learned what I’ve learned. Would I want to go back and replay those Hollywood auditions? Not really. However, if I did, I know that I’d have more fun. I have an understanding that I didn’t have then. I see the fear for what it was – nothing but an idea that I had made real. Shining light on it now, allows me to see that.

When it is said that fear is False Evidence Appearing Real, I get it. The evidence is so real that we’ve made it the truth of us when in fact it is just an idea we’ve concocted to keep something away from ourselves. Everyday we are either pulling things toward us or pushing them away. Fear pushes things away, faith pulls.

Fear is healed by faith that we are enough. It is healed by allowing ourselves to surrender to our True Identity that has everything – wisdom, love, intelligence, clarity and strength. We have all of that and more because of who we are. As Ernest Holmes once wrote, “We are not creatures; we are creators.” We create our destiny in every moment, and even when we think we aren’t or that we are choiceless, we are still creating our destiny. In fact, we can’t get away from it. We are always creating; so, why not create from faith – and leave fear behind.