23 days: fear and resistance

Wide awake at 2.07am this morning, heart pounding. Thinking:

I can't do this. It's too much, too overwhelming, too little time, and I don't have the capacity.

Recited the Migritude script to myself, which usually helps to get me back to sleep. Today, it didn't. At 3.55am, I gave in and got up. Worked until 5am, when I was yawning. Went back to sleep until 6am.

A small army of quotes on fear and challenge, jotted on scraps of paper, amassed over the past two years, marches along the outer frame of my loft bed. Samples:

Whatever you are planning, you can't project fear or failure. Whatever you project is what you will achieve.
Wangari Maathai

Nothing scares me, because I'm not worried about failure. You never know until you try. So if you don't try, you've failed.
Maria Sharapova

It's good to do things that scare the shit out of you. I don't want to do anything that doesn't petrify me, even if it's not well-received.
Sandra Bullock

Courage comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions.
Aung San Suu Kyi

And Wangari Maathai again:

If you don't face a challenge, then nothing really is happening in your life.