Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure

Marianne Williamson's "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure," has been cited and re-appropriated many times. I've heard it numerous times in sport contexts, particularly in martial arts: training music, walk-out music.

As someone who has lived in deeper underlying fear growing up, this did not make any sense to me. How can our fear be the relentless power within ourselves? No way, I thought. I'm scared of external things as well as external things that affect me internally: death, failure, loneliness etc.

It's only until I began actively and consistently working on being the best version of myself did I begin to understand Williamson's quote. As Williamson says, you shouldn't"live smaller than who you truly are," you shouldn't "dim your light to allow others to shine." This can be easily misinterpreted as recommendation to be overtly egocentric but of course, everything requires balance. Anyway, I digressed.

When you are trying to heal, rather than to actively grow, your present and future are held back (rightfully so) by your past. It's difficult to imagine the future or imagine being a better you at present. There is not much alignment and peace, there is plenty of dissonance and turbulence in your day to day life. It is hard to see that the obstacles in your life are actually tests and opportunities. You are not in control of your mind, your mind is in control over you, your emotions, your identity, everything.

Through active deliberation, discipline, positivity, routine and all these powerful and underrated non-magical forms of self-development, I begin to CREATE who I am. I've become a firm believer of a hybridity of George Bernard Shaw's "we don't find ourselves, we create ourselves." We need to find ourselves through all the mess, but after that, we need to create ourselves. Looking back into the childhood, something I advocate highly, you can remember who you were before the social construction got to you. And we must rebuild! Relearn. Undo. Sometimes, redo.

There is a baseline you need to get to. Everyone's baseline is different. Once alignment begins to happen, you feel something stirring inside. It's not fake confidence. I know when I had fake confidence, I had nothing to back it up except lies in my mind and soul. True confidence does not need to be rushed to be backed up. You know it. The truth shines brightly and powerfully, in the long term, truth does not need to be defended. It will outshine the lies over time. Your skills that you hone over time, not a sprint, a marathon, will become powerful assets and a reminder of who you are. The tests you overcome with such skills will be a testament to your dedication and hard work.

Remembering not to let successes get to you, remembering to keep striving for better and better incrementally and relentlessly for the long marathon of life, keeping yourself accountable and in check, you become a very powerful version of yourself. Forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards. The delicate teetering of your attempts to balance yourself constantly. We are only human, but we are powerful humans. This is where Williamson's quote resonates. We realise we are not inadequate. We are powerful, what will happen if such power is left unchecked, uncontested? What if you do not delicately attempt to balance yourself? What if all the successes of being the best version of you gets to your head? My attendance at Jordan Peterson's Sydney seminar taught me that even the most powerful people who dedicated everything to their craft, can lose sight of themselves if they don't have the right feedback.

Deep down, there is a monster inside. You may feel it at times when you feel uncontrollable rage. Have you had times where you have reacted shamefully and impulsively that you questioned, "wow, that was not me." We are only human. Yes, we try to control our minds. But we cannot control everything, even the most disciplined of minds will demonstrate cracks. Old age, pains, experiences, all of this will erode the toughest of minds and I do not mean this in a nihilistic way. Accepting that yes we are powerful, accepting that we must feed the good and the bad wolf inside of us, is a powerful liberator and a catalyst to further creating the best version of yourself. Do not aim for perfection, aim for excellence.

Believe in something beyond yourself. Pray, be humble, love others. Feel a strong sense of duty. Dive and make mistakes. Learn from them. Live life to the fullest, my friends!