Every fear I ever packed away in my “fear suitcase” is unpacked and springs out at me. Every critical voice has a turn, some whispering, some crying out, you know the ones, the “Who do you think you are, anyway?”  The “You aren’t smart enough, good enough, talented enough, you should quit now and cut your losses.”  And the most painful of all, “…and so you’re just going to go out there and humiliate yourself and show everybody how bad you are? They’ll laugh at you and you will end up embarrassed to tears.” voices.  They pretend to be my friend and protector, but they make me feel small and helpless against their “common sense” advise to play it safe so I don’t get hurt.

To come out of that safe place, that comfort zone, is a calling to be courageous for something I see in the distance that I want for myself. I want to take a step to make a change in my life.  I take the first step, I make a decision to become a life coach. The fear suitcase stays packed until I start my course and have to put myself out there for my fellow coaching students to see who I am.

The shadowy figures come out and take form, Killjoy is the ringleader. “You don’t have the instinct or insight to be a good coach.” “You talk too much and never listen.” “You look terrible today, everyone else looks way more professional than you.”

I listen to the voices, the way I have all my life. I doubt myself and my ability to see the course through to the end. But I do see it through. I don’t give up and I don’t believe in myself either.

My next level of training is Certification and it is so far out of my comfort zone it might be compared to living on another planet. Certification is a very rigorous training that is 6 months of study, coaching, and critiques by the coaching teachers.

Needless to say, I reach new heights with my Saboteur voices. The more I want to succeed, the more I want this for myself, the more I’m willing to put my heart out there to achieve it, the more the Saboteurs play their roles to create panic and fear.

A fear is created that is successful in sabotaging my work as a coach. I can’t focus, I can’t listen to what is being said. I can’t be in this moment, I’m in the past, where the fear is born. All I can hear are my own inner critics.

I work with my own life coach and we look at what I want, and why I want it. I want to share what I’ve learned through years of experience. I want to contribute. I want to be a coach that walks with my clients into the light of what is possible. First, I have to walk out of my own shadows. I have to find my own light of what is possible.

My coach knows what questions to ask me. I begin to see where the power the Saboteurs have is coming from. It’s coming from me and my willingness to live in the past, with past hurts in a story I create.

With the 6 hour closed book written exam and 2 hour oral exam looming before me, it isn’t enough to know the power source of the Saboteurs is my own doing. I need to know how to get rid of them. Newsflash: I can’t get rid of them, but I can be free of them.

With my coach, I create a new story, one that is about living in this precious moment in my life. A moment in this precious now doesn’t have fear anywhere in it, there is no room for fear to exist in the now. Being here in this moment, I create my story for my future. I hear the mantra: “If not now, then when?”

I take my tests, living each moment as it comes, feeling in my heart a warm current of peace and courage.

A few days later, I receive an e-mail that says I have passed my tests. I walk out of my own shadows into the light of what is possible.

My Saboteurs are safely packed away for now.