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(#9) Cougar Says: You Can Do It!
Note to Reader: This series will focus on how to encourage children to be more conscious and conscientious of the world around them, both the physical and the non-visible world of Spirit. These columns will initially focus on animal spirit guides found in the Children’s Spirit Animal Cards, which are intended to help children understand the guidance that spirit animals can provide.
#9 – Cougar Spirit – You Can Do It!
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”—Vincent Van Gogh
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you are right.”—Henry Ford
How many times have you faced some challenge in spite of your fear and succeeded? How many times has that fear stopped you from even attempting to accomplish a certain task or overcome obstacles to reach a particular goal? I’m sure we’ve all had our share of both of these, yet I’ve learned it’s not so much the fear that stops us but, to paraphrase President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it’s the fear of fear that prevents us from even trying.
Whenever you have an idea that stretches the limits of what you think you can do or who you think you are, more than likely it will arouse some deeply buried instinctual fear that is associated with the fear of survival. Your instinctual self is designed to keep you alive by alerting you to potentially life-threatening events, yet your instinct can be conditioned such that you perceive certain events to be life threatening even though in reality they’re not.
Those seemingly irrational fears are often rooted in unconscious memories of experiences where you were shamed, punished, abused, or simply had no encouragement from any significant figures in your life. Sometimes even the thought of doing certain things will activate your nervous system in an all too familiar way, making you feel anxious without having taken any action.
A good example is speaking in front of a group. In a survey done years ago people were asked what they most feared. The second thing that was most feared was death, while the first was public speaking. One conclusion is that most people would rather die than do any kind of public speaking! So even to consider doing something like this can make you break out in a cold sweat.
I know this is true from experience. I was painfully shy throughout my childhood and on into young adulthood (you can ask my older sister!). I was able to rely on my athletic abilities to achieve a modicum of confidence through high school and up to the time I finished college. Yet I knew I wanted to teach, driven by a compulsion that I now know is rooted in my soul’s destiny. I applied for a teaching position at a local community college after I received my Master of Arts in Psychology, thinking I’d be capable of teaching a course in introductory psychology. When I successfully passed the interview I was shocked when they asked me to teach assertiveness training!
Though absolutely terrified of doing so, I took action by reading as much as I could and taking an assertiveness training course over the summer. That fall I taught a sixteen week course that completely fit the adage that we teach what we need to learn. I’m sure the class was valuable for the students, yet even more so it helped me with my confidence in teaching and overcoming some of my shyness, as well as learning some valuable social skills. I went on to teach a number of other classes and workshops, joined a Toastmasters group, and with each experience I gained greater and greater confidence.
There was a book published a few years ago called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. I confess I didn’t read the book because the title said it all, obviously referring to how you must confront your fears and go through them. This is what I’ve done with teaching, writing, and other experiences, and based on these, I can attest that this is what it takes to build confidence. The brilliant ad campaign for Nike was “Just Do It!” Simple as that. You can do affirmations, which can help, but it’s vital that you also take action that allows you to confront your fears.
As parents, grandparents, and mentors, we can encourage our children to take these kinds of risks. One of the intentions in the Children’s Spirit Animal Cards is to provide such encouragement for a number of values that these spirit animals espouse. 
COUGAR spirit sums it up with the words of encouragement: “You Can Do It!” Similar to in the story of the Little Engine That Could, Cougar offers these words in the guidebook based on the card’s simple message:
There are times when you feel like no matter what you try to do you won’t be able to do it, whether it’s make something artistic, get better grades in school, or do something you have never done before. To learn and to grow you have to try new things, even if you don’t think you can do well. You have to s-t-r-e-t-c-h yourself and reach a little beyond what you think you can do. That’s sometimes the only way you can find out what you can do.
And it doesn’t matter whether or not you succeed. If not, you can at least say you tried. If you do succeed, you build more and more confidence in yourself. One of the keys is in your thinking. If you think, “Oh, I can never do this,” then you won’t even try. Or if you do try, you won’t put all your effort into it. Like The Little Engine that Could, just believe that you can do it and keep trying until you accomplish what you set out to do. When you tackle something that seems difficult or challenging, it will also help to ask for my help, and I will be there in spirit.
In addition, congruent with the idea of taking action, suggestions for children and for parents are offered things to do that can support this value and attitude:
For children:
* Whenever there’s something hard that you’re faced with, tell yourself over and over, “I can do this,” and perhaps even look at yourself in the mirror while saying it as if you’re talking to another person.
* Think of times in your life when you didn’t think you could do something but you found out you were able to do so. Write about it in your journal.
* Make a list of all the things you have accomplished in the past year and as you do, notice how you feel.
For parents:
* Gently but firmly encourage your child to do something he is afraid to do. Support them but don’t do it for them, and if they refuse, don’t force it but instead let it go.
* Model this whenever you find yourself faced with a daunting task and make sure your child witnesses you doing so or tell them about it.
* Remind your child of other times when they have conquered their fears by trying something new.
* Tell a story about a time you overcame a fear as a child and how you overcame it.
So Cougar spirit’s message is valuable for any of us, whether you’re an adult or a child. Next time you’re faced with a challenge, you have the option to heed Cougar’s words and also invite this valuable spirit guide to help you with your confidence. Thank you Cougar! Thank you God!
“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
