By facing your fears you can transform into your highest potential and become the version of yourself that you were meant to be!

This tree was on a recent hike and we felt that it was a good representation of facing our fears and overcoming challenges for personal growth.

Imagine what it took for this tree to leave the safety of being a seed, and yet it has met the challenge of everything in its path including splitting the rock. It took vulnerability, and facing its fears to allow itself to emerge into the light, despite the challenges it faced along the journey.

This tree is very similar to us as individuals when we are faced with difficult situations or relations. As humans, we also have the option in difficult situations to blame others that we feel are responsible for our hardships. We can also avoid or deny challenges, or we can face our fears and look at these challenges as an opportunity for growth and transformation.

Difficult challenges in life will always be there whether we try to avoid facing our fears, or try to deny them.

Personal growth is not an easy journey and can be quite painful at times. It is oftentimes way too easy to avoid facing our fears, but ultimately in order for us to grow we have to face our fears, and allow ourselves to move through them.

This takes a great degree of courage and strength, as we never know what’s going to happen. It is very understandable and normal to avoid facing our fears and avoid being vulnerable. We simply may not know that transformation is possible, since we do not recognize the higher potential parts of ourselves yet.

Growth and transformation also challenges our self-esteem and belief systems as we may not even believe that we have the potential to become something greater than we are now.

Deciding to face our fears and start the journey to self-discovery is only the beginning. Once we open up and try hard enough drop our outside shell, we will start feeling the struggle internally.

It is in this space that it is easy to retreat back into our comfort zones, since we perceived there was no danger for us before. Our Path is unknown, nothing is guaranteed and there may be many hazards along the way. We can choose not to face our fears and avoid starting the journey of personal growth, but in choosing the “safer route”…ultimately we are only short changing ourselves.

In facing our fears we can learn that they only have the power we give them.

The seed could have also sat there and decided not to sprout, stay in its “comfort zone”, not face it’s fears and venture into the unknown. As soon as this seed sprouted and left the comfort of its shell, it too became vulnerable, had to survive in the darkness of the soil, and push through the obstacles of the rocks and stones.  This was required to eventually reach its fullest potential and transform into the tree it was destined to become. As individuals, we will never become what we are capable of becoming without taking that initial risk, being vulnerable, facing our fears, and have the courage to head into new and often times dark territory to truly transform.