I just thought to myself, “I should follow the Pollyanna Plan’s example and write one blog post every day for an entire year.” Then I had this flash where I imagined not being able to finish it because I’d died… So it scares me of course that this is the first reaction. The reaction of death. Man, it scares me.

But now, writing that first line of this post onto my wordpress document and thinking about it for a minute… now I’ve just thought to myself, “where did that original thought – that positive thought – come from in the first place? Where did that idea to live for a year spring up from?” And I’ve never really asked that question before. But, thinking about it now, it feels like there are two parts of me, except the only part I’ve been noticing and taking seriously is the one offering flashes of fear.

Weird confession: Whenever I see a knife in someone’s hand, I have a flash of them stabbing me. And whenever I have a knife in my hand, and someone passes by, I get this flash of myself stabbing them. That’s mostly why I’m a little scared of knives. It’s the same things for guns. I get these flashes of people shooting me. Weird.

My point is, these are the flashes that get my attention. The ones based on fear.

But there are other flashes, and I am realizing right now as I write this post that they need to be nurtured more. I have flashes where I can see myself teaching my own child a ‘life lesson’. I have flashes of living in a cottage in Balaton. I have flashes (dreams) that my book becomes a bestseller.

Just a moment ago, I had a flash to write 365 blog posts in a row, across one whole year. That suggests that some part of me – a strong part of me, since it comes to my mind FIRST – feels the capability of living at least 365 days more.

Each day I live with the fear flashes. They tell me I am going to die too soon. They make me afraid that I’ll be leaving my husband and family far too early. Part of me has been afraid to admit this in the blog, because what if this is me knowing what will actually happen? What if this is me knowing my fate, and not yet accepting it?

But then, if one part of me has that fear, another part of me does in fact have hope – otherwise I’d never be capable of dreaming.

So now I have this challenge, and it is to nurture the ideas that comes first, my ability to hope and to imagine. I want to feed that part of my mind, and help it learn to follow through. Fear will get me nowhere, hope can take me anywhere.

And I’ve literally just realized that that hopeful side of me exists. Like, right here as I wrote down the experience to simply get it out of my head… and it’s turned into this realization. There are many parts of me, not only the part who is afraid all of the time. I want to learn about Catherine Who Hopes. She has some good ideas. I reckon she should be introduced to Catherine Who Acts. And we don’t need to invite that other fearful Catherine along to the party.

Anyhow, this is what I’m thinking about, and I think it makes sense. Why haven’t I noticed my positive side before when it comes to life, and when it comes to cancer? Well, because I was scared of all this fear that has been running through me. But at least I am noticing it now. At least I realize it is there. That is power in itself. And it’s also a really good starting point for change.

P.S. I will not be writing 365 posts, because I think it’s better to just not. This isn’t about fear, this is about me not wanting to blog that much! Better to be focusing on that bestseller goal 😉