I have been a prolific blackberry picker for the past ten years.  An unseen gift that Trinity has delivered year after year.  I invite many people to join me in the bushes, but none do.  There are a litany of reasons why the enthusiasm gives way to reasons why not.  The most common is the fear of snakes.  

Enthusiasm is often stifled by the reasoning born from unreasonable fear.

Now I have spent literally hundreds of hours in blackberry bushes over the last decade.  Getting up early and picking for a couple of hours before the day gets rolling.  The result?  Hundreds of jars of Megan’s blackberry jam, given to friends and sold to the community.  Dozens of blackberry cobblers.  Fresh blackberries in yogurt.  And delighted faces when a container of fresh blackberries are gifted.  

Unrestrained gratitude is the perfect offset to unreasonable fear.

Two years ago I was talking with someone who told me what I have never heard or known.  That a copperhead snake emits an odor that smells like a cucumber when they feel threatened and if you smell that while in the bushes, you know there is a copperhead nearby.  Fascinating!  

Avoidance often enforces the unreasonable fear that prevents us from achieving what we are capable of.

The marvelous brain can be the source of being misled.  The very next day after I was enlightened about the smell of cucumber, I was picking blackberries and suddenly smelled cucumber.  Delighted that I knew what this smell was, I carefully backed out of that area and picked elsewhere.  Leaving thousands of ripe and large blackberries to rot because the picker was ‘educated.’  I wasn’t.

‘Trust, but verify.’  President Ronald Reagan said these profound words.  In Myron Mullins simple man terms, do your own research.

I recall feeling very silly and frankly robbed of a perfect picking morning because I had succumbed to the irrational fear of a snake, that is much, much more afraid of and threatened by me that I am of it.  So, when I returned to the “safety” of our home from the dangers and wilds of our property, I did a simple Google search about copperheads and cucumbers.  What I quickly learned was this is an old wives tale and a copperhead will emit a musky smell from their tale that typically smells skunks, sour or strongly musty.  They stink!

Unreasonable fear is empowered by a brain that delivers physical, cognitive and avoidance responses.  Left unchecked, “avoiding the feared object provides temporary relief, but it reinforces the brain’s belief that the fear was justified, making the phobia stronger next time.”  (Very Well Mind)

I continue to become more acutely aware of the power of choice.  The freeing power of choosing ability over doubt.  The opportunity for an abundant life that choices based upon reason will deliver.  Too many of us are conditioned at a young age with comments like “don’t get hurt,” meant as loving caution but cognitively conditioning us to avoid risk and by default, reward.

My encouragement is this.  Don’t fear failure or risk.  Fear the conditioning that results in your choosing to succumb to unreasonable fear.  Choose a life of impact and contribution that rejects the notion of crippling doubt and walks into the acceptance that you are created for marvelous things because of the abilities that you have been gifted.  Your gifts are unique to you.  There is a world desperately awaiting you to overcome the life limiting, unreasonable fear that prevents you from delivering the life enhancing contributions your choices will release.

I have learned much more from failure than success.  Others have benefitted much more from my failures than my successes.  Failures are the great lessons that a life choosing risk frees.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  Thomas Edison