Confronting Bigfoot

It was a cool spring evening and the shear curtains in my small, shared bedroom billowed as the pleasant, westerly breeze wafted through the house. But I couldn’t enjoy the early spring warmth, the smell of the setting sun and just-blooming lilacs. I was frozen, face-down and stiff in my bed with all the lights on. I was petrified, certain he was hovering outside that dark window watching me.  

I remember it like yesterday. My pre-teen self had just watched the latest In Search of… episode featuring Bigfoot, and Leonard Nimoy had convinced me that the big ape was alive and well, hiding in plain sight.

At that age I was enthralled by reading about the supernatural and other unexplained phenomena. UFOs, Loch Ness Monster, ghosts and spontaneous human combustion were common topics of my English essays and classroom-mandated speeches those years. I later loved letting Stephen King thrill and petrify me on purpose by reading every one of his horror novels.

But Bigfoot did not as much intrigue me as cause me to look over my shoulder and into the tree line when walking outdoors, especially during our annual summer fishing trips to forested northern Minnesota. I was sure he was hovering around just out of sight ready to…..I don’t know what. He was just scary to me, and I sensed it throughout my whole body and let it overcome me.

What was your biggest childhood fear? Monsters in your closet? Dracula hovering outside your window? Clowns in your sink drain? I’ll bet you can identify it right away.

We might think of childhood fears as silly, typical of naïve children, cute even. They certainly are when looked at through a 20-, 30- or 40-year buffer and with the understanding that old houses have natural creaks and groans, there is no such thing as ghosts, and even grown-ups like to pass time and make a living by fueling stories of mythical creatures and feeding otherwise rational adults’ irresistible tales of the incredible. But when I was 11, that fear was real. I felt it throughout my body. I was frozen with it.

Today my fears are certainly more rational, not so outrageous, and even plausible, NOTHING like Bigfoot.

·    My fear of being wrong. (That’s reasonable, right?)

·    My fear that my ideas will be rejected and deemed unworthy. (This is just self-preservation.)

·    My fear of other people’s judgment. (Who doesn’t want to be liked?)

·    My fear of uncertainty. (Everyone wants a little control, right?)

Most adult fears are simply our ego trying to protect itself from revisiting past hurts, pain and shame. That’s its job. The problem is that a lot of times it just gets in the way of creative living, living our passion and purpose, seeing opportunities in front of us.

It throws up the “red alert” signal when it remembers the time in 3rd grade you stood up in class certain you had the right answer to, “What’s the capitol of Iowa?” and you pronounce it wrong, and everyone snickers. (“Well, that was embarrassing, and I am NEVER going through that again. Note to self: never raise your hand again,” says the fragile ego. And so, your fear of being wrong is born.)

Do you get the idea?

We can validate these fears all day long, but, in the end, they are just fears. The ego is really good at this, and you have to give it credit for how it keeps you in your safe, comfy, never-gonna-be-hurt-again bubble. The problem for me is that I don’t want to live that way. I want to explore my passions and purpose. I want to live a full life, as I believe we all do deep down inside.

Go back and remember what it was like as a child truly terrified of that fear, that thing in the closet, the hairy man in the window. Can you picture the scene?

Imagine your current adult self sitting down beside your much younger self and saying, “I am you in the future. I can tell you with 100% certainty that this thing you are afraid of won’t happen, won’t get you and you won’t always be afraid of it.” How would you talk to your child self? How would you calm that child with the knowledge you have today? Let your inner child be comforted.

Now think about one of your current fears. What are you deeply afraid of? Not providing for your family? What your colleagues might think? That you might be wrong and have to start over? That your dream isn’t possible?

If you say, “I’m not afraid of anything,” great! But pause and think of something you want in your life and how some inner fear or resistance might be stopping you from achieving it, stepping out of your comfort zone, trying something new. What is that?

Think about the last time this fear presented itself to you. (It may be difficult to identify, if it’s been a part of you for a while, your modus operandi, and you’ve become accustomed to its presence enveloping you at all times.) Put yourself back in that moment. Feel that fear, that resistance to doing what you really want to do.

Now, think of a future you, a you that has accomplished what you want, has had successes, is free from mental chains of the ego. Imagine this self coming in and telling your current self,

“I am you in the future. I can tell you with 100% certainty that this thing you are afraid of won’t happen, won’t get you and you won’t always be afraid of it.”

Can you believe your future self? Will you?

I’d love to know.

P.S. Today, I have a “Believe” Bigfoot sticker on my car that reminds me that not all fears are real. I am simply curious about alleged sightings and the centuries-old tales of the big, hairy, human-like creature. If only my 11-year-old self could see me now.

P.S.S. Want support on how to face your Bigfoot? Check out my coaching services at www.tracyburger.com/workingtogether.