(Notes from FB Live Sept 16 2018 ~ Click to Watch)

I love how hearing a story from someone’s experience can smack me out of panic and chaos that keeps me stuck not able to move forward toward my dreams. Les Brown’s daughter Ona shared her story of almost drowning.

She talked about how she was a grown woman who was embarrassed because she didn’t know how to swim. While everyone else was learning she was hanging out at the side clutching the ledge waiting for circumstances to be just right. Not too many in the pool. Not too much splashing. In life we wait – kids are in school then in college now getting married. There will always be something.

She decided enough was enough. She had been practicing in her bathtub! She put herself in the middle of the pool and then lost her footing! She panicked and was thrashing around screaming and yelling and confused why no one was coming to save her! Did everyone want to see her drown? Through her chaos she heard someone yelling “STAND UP!” She was 5′ 9″ and was drowning in 3 feet of water! All she had to do was stand up. She talks about how we may have to drink a whole lot of water on the way up but to tell our selves “The chlorine is sweet baby!”

I turned the video off and sat on my couch and took in this paradigm shift. I scanned through my dreams and looked at my own chaos and fear. I realized that a lot of my anxiety was my own production because I was holding on to that ledge and not venturing forth. And the areas where I had let go and jumped in, was floundering around desperately reaching out for someone to save me.

I realized right then and there that all I need to do is Stand Up Inside Me. Stand up for my values and my right to have my own opinion! My own style. My own values! Stand up for who I am how I am. I am so re-energized by this!

Today right here right now the circumstance is just right to Stand Up and propel myself toward my dreams with my first aid kit in hand to treat scraped knees and bruised elbows!

#standup #drowning #bathtub #dreams #chaos #save #lesbrown #onabrown #courage #ptsd #claimingwellness