RESISTANCE IS MY MIDDLE NAME

There are many risks that I have a hard time taking. They're mostly internal and involve making myself visible in some way - doing my work and sending it out in the world, going to a big party alone. There are others but they all raise up in me a resistance because I don't want to be evaluated - because I automatically assume I will be found wanting.
     I've waged many battles with my resistance and the default certainty of rejection. I've learned all about them, their psychogenesis, their repercussions. I know what resistance feels like in my body and I know to shake hands with the negative voices in my head and then act despite them.
     But it's one of the mysteries of my life that I can know the symptoms and what I should do to overcome them, and still not be able to do it. You don't want to go out? Well, that's the resistance - just work past it. Those voices in your head?  You know they're ephemeral, thoughts just passing through, with no importance other than what you give them.  Act despite them! Other people have the same fears and negativity but they act anyway. Why not you?  Get a grip!
     My resistance to change and taking a risk by walking fully into the world isn't a solid wall stopping me. It's amorphous, viscous, a thick swamp to slog my way though. Many times I make it, but sometimes I don't and, when I don't, I can feel the depression that is more powerful than my desire to act. And I can feel the depression deepening because one more time I have failed myself.
     There is hope. I can't think my way past my resistance but I can acknowledge that I'm powerless over it. I can stop fighting to figure things out. I can let myself see the truth, that resistance and negativity have no solid reality. They are only products of my insecure ego. I can focus on the moment and reach for that field beyond my ego where stillness silences my mind. Above all, I can let compassion come flooding in, hold myself gently, and feel love for all my struggles, for my very human desire to be better, to do better, to free myself from all the obstacles I put in my own way. And I can fully embrace the fact that I will have to make this struggle again and again. Each time I do, I will be a little stronger, more able to push past the things that block me. 
     I choose to believe that is the truth for me. I choose to believe my faith in that truth will make it so.