Where Did I Put My Barbie Mask?

I can't remember the source but once I heard a statistic about people's greatest fear. It was years ago and I was probably sitting at my desk in the corner of my room with the mindless drone of the television somewhere behind me.


According to the survey people's number one fear is being found out as a fraud.
Without another word of explanation, I understood exactly. A bell rang within me.


You'd think the number one fear in our country would be death or physical suffering, the loss of a loved one, economic failure or if the commercials are to be believed that you be found drinking an uncool brand of beer or driving an inferior car. But the minute the news reporter or commentator said fraud, I knew.


It is not fraud as in embezzlement or scamming an insurance company. Nor mail fraud or bank fraud. But something perhaps more common and insidious.


Roughly, the definition of fraud is a deliberate deception of another to obtain something unjustly.

So if our greatest fear is that someone discover that we are a fraud then we must have a sense that we are frauds already. We must believe it our self. I think I find it amazing that people were willing to even admit this as a fear. But upon hearing the statistic, I knew it was me. That I feel like a fraud. On a very basic, functional level everything feels like an act. A front. That the real stuff is too raw and frightening to reveal. But that mostly we do not let ourselves think about it. That we have to behave in a certain manner to be allowed. To exist.


But that if we showed our true center, we would not be allowed.





One of the most startling quotes I've ever read is by Marianne Williamson:


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles", Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3])



Somehow these two are related within me. Connected. Even as they seem to stand in direct opposition of each other, I feel a fuzzy symbiotic relationship.

It's true; my greatest fear is to be discovered a fraud and that I am powerful beyond measure.

I have yet to work this out. Does this resonate with you at all? Or am I barking?