We all have fear. I’m not talking about fear of death. We have that in order to ensure our survival – to do our good work here on this Earth.
I’m talking about our daily living. I coach many women around this topic because it’s hard to recognize the signs that you are slipping into fear-based living. Fear is a slippery energy.
Do you know if you lean in with trust and surrender, or do you lean in with fear?
Here are 3 Signs you could be slipping into fear-based living:
1 – CONTROL
If you like to control your environment and your relationships you may want to look at why you are doing that. If you are operating from a place of fear, you may want to control your surroundings to feel safe or to project that others need to be. Being in control offers more predictability to your mind, and less variability and vulnerability. This could be perceived as strength and efficiency, yet is it really? This leads me to the second topic.
2- TRUST
I have found that when you don’t trust others, you slip into more control. You may not trust because of past fears of being hurt or let down, so its easier for you to control your environment. I know for me, when someone breaks my trust, its hard to forgive and hard to imagine that person will ever be trustworthy. Yet it is my job to forgive and open the doorway to trust once again. In the meantime, that may look like being in more control and not allowing others to have another shot.
Trust also means trusting yourself and your own decisions as well. If in the past you made decisions that didn’t work out, you may internally judge yourself and not trust you can make a better decision next time or that the outcome could be different. This is living in a limited perception. This doesn’t allow you to fail, or grow, or find a new opportunity. It’s staying in the past fear.
3 – PRESENCE
If you are suffering you are not living in the present. Fear doesn’t live in the present moment.
Here is a great quote one of my clients forwarded to me that I love from Eckhart Tolle:
“All negativity is caused by the accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress and worry – all forms of fear – are cause by too much future and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”
Now that you see some examples of how it may show up, can you lean into observing your desires to be in control or remain in the past?
A little bit of fear is healthy, don’t get me wrong. This will help to not always repeat our past. We can use our fear to help us to create and uphold strong healthy boundaries and it also teaches us discernment.
The best way to move the dial into more trust and vulnerability is to continually ask yourself, “Am I acting from a place of love or from a place of fear?”.
P.S. If you need any support with conquering fears in your life, please feel free to reach out for support. Here’s what Margaret had to say after she went through the “Unleash the Priestess Within” 12-week program to work on her fear/control.
My biggest takeaway in this program with you is that I can make choices out of strength versus operating in fear. I realized through this program and the healing work that I was unable to name and acknowledge what wasn’t working in a few areas of my life. I was not linking my current inactions with the fear and old belief systems that stemmed from my childhood. For me the healing work, journaling, mantras and guided visualizations like the womb healing and chord cutting helped me to release stuck emotions, shift my awareness and move me beyond these realizations to take actions based on courage and awareness. I describe this as actionable therapy. This has been a very healing journey for me that will continue to create more changes in my life. Thank you! ~Margaret
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash