Living a life beyond fears is a powerful and transformative journey that involves both self-reflection and intentional action.

It is critical to identify and acknowledge the specific fears that hold you back.  Explore the origins of your fears and understand how they may be rooted in past experiences or limiting beliefs. Embrace the reality of your fears without judgment. Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means acknowledging your feelings without letting them control you. Challenge and reframe negative thoughts that contribute to your fears. Develop and repeat positive statements that counteract your fears.

Take small, incremental steps to confront your fears rather than trying to overcome them all at once.  Enlist the help of friends, family, or a therapist to provide encouragement and guidance as you face your fears. Instead of viewing failures as roadblocks, see them as opportunities for growth and learning.

Remember that overcoming fear is an ongoing process, and it’s okay to seek professional help if needed. A therapist or counselor can offer guidance and support as you work towards living a life beyond fear.

Cindy Moore is a unique blogger and has a unique take on life. She focuses on living life beyond fears, limitations, and her comfort zone and embraces a sense of wonderment and adventure. She recently started a healing journey. She changed her diet and has become healthy. Cindy shares some amazing experiences and her path to living a fulfilled life.

Cindy, help me understand what it means when you say you are a woman on a journey and living life beyond fears?

I spent most of my life living in fear, playing it safe, and staying well within my comfort zone. Two deaths, close together, helped me to realize that I no longer wanted to spend another moment of my life living in fear and playing it safe. My journey began as an inner one with facing my fears. My decision to move beyond my comfort zone launched a year of trying a new experience every day. My blogging journey began simultaneously as a way to chronicle those new experiences.

You talk a lot about enchantment, surrender, and inspiration. Break it down for me?

After moving beyond my comfort zone, by trying new experiences, my whole life opened up. I recognized that life is meant to be experienced as a magical or enchanted journey and that the Divine offers help and guidance for that journey. I see life differently than I used to and I see signs and wonders everywhere that delight me and encourage me to keep going. Every day I have ongoing conversations with the Divine that lead me to new people, opportunities, and yes, experiences. Surrender involves letting go of the familiar and allowing myself to be carried, in the “Flow of Life”, to those new people, opportunities, and experiences. It involves trust and builds a sense of adventure. I know I’ve moved out of the flow of life when I feel resistance to an opportunity or experience.

Please explain what it means to live beyond fears, limitations, and comfort zone?

Living Beyond, for me, means to move past those fears, limitations, and comfort zones by trusting that the journey meant for me is for my greatest and highest good and also for the good of others in my life. Fear shuts me down and stops me from moving forward. Living Beyond opens me up to possibilities and expands my thinking and perspective so that I can see life in a bigger way. As fresh opportunities arrive, I say “yes”, which moves me beyond my comfort zone as I try new things. Limitations are old ways of thinking and doing things. Going Beyond means I’m willing to open to new ways of thinking and doing things. Comfort zones keep us safe and also keep us from trying something that feels scary or uncomfortable. I believe in living beyond fears.

Give me some examples of embracing a sense of wonderment and adventure?

Embracing wonderment and adventure means living with a higher awareness of all that is going on in my life and seeing the connectedness of all things. Two years ago, I played a game that I created, in which I wrote 30 different activities on slips of paper and dropped them into a jar. Each day I drew out an activity and did it. What I quickly realized was that the activities, drawn at random, perfectly matched the amount of time I had each day or, amazingly, the weather. I only had two rainy day activities in the jar. I drew both of them on the only two rainy days I had during the month. What are the odds of that? That’s wonderment and that’s trust. It’s also the Divine at work in my life. When I asked the Divine, in amazement, “Do you want to play with me?”, the answer I received back was “Do you want to play with ME?” My answer was YES and my life hasn’t been the same since.

What is the main reason for your blog and what are you trying to achieve?

The purpose of Cindy Goes Beyond is to help readers realize that life can be lived at the edges…of comfort zones, limitations and fears. We can live BIG lives and experience joy, wonderment, and enchantment if we develop higher awareness. I share posts around nature, gardening, travel, and the inner journey…all with the intention of helping others to see what an enchanted life looks like.

Talk to me about some challenges you have been through and how you dealt with it and are thriving?

I grew up very fearful of many things. However, my primary fear was to live as the person I was created to be. I am an intuitive and yet I feared my abilities and tried to separate that “weird” part of me from my “normal” self. That didn’t work. It only shut down my creative side. Moving past my fears and accepting myself exactly as I am opened the door to my creative side again. And I moved beyond my fears by facing them and sitting with them and exploring my intuitive side. As I learned more about who I am and what I can do, the fears subsided.

Give yourself some advice when you were 16, 26, and 36?

Age 16: Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. Spend your teen years getting to know yourself. And don’t be so concerned about what other people think. Be you, without hiding, without pretending to be someone else, just so people will feel comfortable around you. You are afraid because you don’t understand who you are.

Age 26: Enjoy these years with your young family. Encourage your son and daughters to be fully who they are, by showing them who you are. They will follow your example. Continue to invest in yourself by doing the things that bring you joy.

Age 36: This is your time to shine, as a woman. Banish any lingering fears and self-doubts and pursue the life you want. Know fully what your purpose in life is and don’t let anything get in your way as you live from that place of intentional being.

What does women’s empowerment mean to you?

Empowerment for women starts with complete acceptance of who we are. It’s an inner journey that manifests as an outer journey. We must learn to parent ourselves, if we had bad parents, and love ourselves deeply and fully if our spouses/lovers have not done that for us. We cannot look to others to do these things for us. We set ourselves free, and the people in our lives free, when we do not need acceptance and love to come from outside ourselves. Once we are free, we can help to free others to live extraordinary lives.

Give my female audience three pieces of advice?

Accept yourself completely. The journey to self-love begins with self-acceptance. Love yourself fully by embracing who you are and then really live from that space. Be you…and find the things that you enjoy doing. That is your passion.

Pursue your passion. Share your passion with others as you journey and you will make a difference in the lives of others.

How important are food, faith, finance, and family to you? How do you find a balance and prioritize among them?

They are all connected. The food we eat provides the building blocks for our bodies. The foods we choose can nourish and heal…or they can slowly poison us to death by fostering disease. I embraced a plant-based lifestyle three years ago, to heal my body of various ailments. There is no turning back for me. I am healthier than I have ever been and living life beyond fears has helped.

A second blog, Journey With Healthy Me was born from that decision to take charge of my health and help others do the same. I’ve discovered that as I healed, my desire increased to help others heal, and then even further out, I developed a deep desire to heal the planet as well. Faith is extremely important to me. I believe God, or the Divine, guides me daily. I listen through prayer and meditation but I also receive through songs, random conversations, signs, and intuition. Finances, or money, comes as we connect with who we are and do that which we are created to do. My family is my legacy. My children and grandchildren learn by my example and through our conversations. It is important for me to live a joy-filled, enchanted life so that they have “permission” to do the same.

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Resilience is how well people deal with and bounce back from the challenges of life. Resilience is the process of adjusting positively as you face challenges, tragedy, adversity, threats, and major sources of stress like job loss, divorce, financial issues, health problems, workplace discrimination, or the current COVID crisis. Resilience is not only about bouncing back, but also about learning and growing from the experience. The challenges are difficult and painful, but one needs to be aware of what they can control. Resilience helps you walk through the challenging times in your life and empowers you.

Resilience does not mean you will not face challenges in your life. The truth is that some of the most resilient people have faced and gone through the most challenging things a person can face. Resilience can be learned and involves developing actions, behaviors, and thoughts that help you bounce back from traumatic events in your life.

The Three  Aspects of Resilience

Susan Kobasa, a leading psychologist, talks about the three aspects of resilience. The first is the challenge. When you are facing difficulties in your life, you have to see it as a challenge and not as an event that will paralyze you. The difficulty has to be viewed as an opportunity to learn and grow, and not negatively. The second is that you have to be committed to your goals, values, ethos, friendships, relationships, and beliefs, and find a reason to get up in the morning. The third part is to focus on what you can control. When you focus on what you can control and let go, you feel confident and empowered. If you focus on what you cannot control, it will make you feel powerless.

Where is My GPS?

Life on planet Earth does not come with a GPS. However, the challenges and the traumatic events of life on Earth can impact us negatively. These events bring up a variety of feelings, emotions, thoughts, and uncertainty. Debbie has been battling cancer for six months. Last week I got a text that someone I have known my whole life committed suicide. I have been asked a lot about how I manage to stay resilient. Here are my eleven secrets to staying resilient. I have included quotes from strong women who have been resilient in their lives.

Find a purpose and a deeper meaning

Grief and resilience live together – Michelle Obama, Becoming

One of my best friends committed suicide two years after high school. In the last few years, I have lost one of my closest friends from university and another from the business world. Last week, someone from my youth group committed suicide. As we come across a tragedy or a crisis in our personal lives we have to find a sense of purpose. I started a blog, got more involved in volunteering, more introspective, and started aligning all my activities with my goals and values.

As Debbie fights cancer, I am learning to become more compassionate, understanding, kind, and gentle.

Be Positive about your capabilities

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it – Maya Angelo

When Debbie was diagnosed with cancer, my daughter was handling it the best. She was just confident. I learned from her that we have to be confident about our capabilities on how to handle this event in our family. I had to focus on what we call a SWOT analysis in the business world. However, I had to focus on my strengths and keep the positive tape in my brain going.

Friendships are important

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, never settle for the path of least resistance – Lee Ann Womack, I Hope You Dance

I would not have made it through the present crisis without close friends. I continue to stay connected with friends and cousins to share my feelings about what I am going through. This support does wonders for our emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, and psychological health.

It is important to also connect with people who are understanding, gentle, compassionate, empathetic, and who validate what you are going through. I have spoken to many people whose spouses have gone through cancer. It helps what you are feeling is natural. Sometimes there is a natural tendency to isolate ourselves. It is important to connect with people.

The only constant in life is change

Resilience isn’t a single skill. It’s a variety of skills and coping mechanisms. To bounce back from bumps in the road as well as failures, you should focus on emphasizing the positive – Jean Chatzky

When I was doing my MBA and as we studied about companies that survived and those that perished the only difference was the survivors adapted to change. We have to constantly adapt to our surroundings. Stick to your values and core concepts but we have to adapt. Those that are flexible and embrace the changes thrive in the long run. I had to adapt my lifestyle and my attitude about being a spouse of a cancer patient.

Be Confident 

Like tiny seeds with potent power to push through tough ground and become mighty trees, we hold innate reserves of unimaginable strength. We are resilient – Catherine DeVrye, The Gift of Nature

When we are going through challenging times, it is tough to be confident in the tunnel. However, you have to cling to hope and focus on staying positive. Positive thinking does not mean you ignore the problem or the challenges you are facing. It means that the stumbling blocks are temporary and we need to focus on our capabilities to handle the challenge. I am confident that after chemo and radiation Debbie will make it through the end of November.

Self-care

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow – Mary Anne Radmacher

Taking care of yourself is the most important thing you can do for yourself. You need to eat healthy food, get sleep, rest, build new skills, and even seek counseling.

Focus on solutions, not problems

The world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it – Helen Keller

No matter what we are going through, focus on solutions. Do not ask why me but what now. There are times when there is no solution. However, you have to try to take baby steps to make your situation less stressful.

Join a group

She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails – Elizabeth Edwards

I have spoken to many men whose spouses have gone through cancer. When you talk to other people who have gone through similar circumstances it helps you. Join a group of people who are going through similar issues. Talk about it and get together. It will do miracles for you. It is good to talk and get things out. If you keep it inside, you end with a lot of psycho-somatic issues. 

Practice mindfulness

Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life – J.K. Rowling

Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. I personally find breathing very helpful.

Focus on one goal

The human capacity for burden is like bamboo- far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance – Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

As Debbie goes through cancer, we just take it one day at a time. There is a tendency to focus on the end and how it will all look once chemo and radiation are done.

Ask for help

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good – Elizabeth Edwards

I am bad at asking for help. My wife is even worse. However, I was challenged to ask for help. As I asked for help, I have a meal train for us and people driving Debbie for her chemo and other appointments.

The key takeaway from this post is that whenever you are going through a challenging time, in order to be resilient:

Do not listen to the news, it is all negative, look to other sources for empowerment and inspiration

It is ok to cry and express what you are going through

Go for a walk and connect with nature

Focus on your strengths and be confident

Have a real, deep and vulnerable conversation with a close friend or family member

Talk to someone who has gone through or going through similar challenges like you

Pray, meditate and connect with a higher power

Write what you are going through and feeling

Practice kindness towards others and to yourself

Music inspires and empowers you, listen to it

Breathe deeply

Take it one day and one hour at a time. Focus on the present.

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