Could you tell me a time you felt fear?

Fear is a very necessary emotion. It´s natural, primitive and it keeps us safe when there is something potentially threatening and damaging around. However, this is where it gets really tricky, as we grow up and acquire self-limiting beliefs we begin to deem as threatening very different situations than having to run for your life because you are being chased by a lion. 

At some point when growing up, I started believing that I had to meet people’s expectations for them to love me: my parents, friends, partner, the list goes on. I was so scared (still am sometimes) to let people down. I let their voice become my voice to a point where even now, sometimes it’s quite difficult to differentiate between my voice and theirs; between what they think I should do with my life and what I actually want. 

The thing is that this fear is not the kind of fear that makes you run and actually saves your life. This fear makes you freeze, it paralyses you and gets your further and further apart from who you truly are. It makes you play small and dim your light to make others comfortable. It wasn´t easy to come to terms with this emotion, especially when it still appears and haunts me every now and then. It made me chase the wrong career and for a long time I felt stuck and really unhappy. Being unhappy wasn’t enough because the fear kept me frozen in the same situation. Luckily, I reached a point where I got fed up of my own bullshit and stories and decided to change the game. I took the leap; I left my midwifery job to train as a yoga teacher and pursue the passion of helping people in a different way. 

It was really scary, I felt (still do sometimes) that I was letting so many people down and that they didn’t agree with my decision, but, we must learn at some point that, we don’t come to this world to make everyone happy, we come to this world to make ourselves happy. To live in our own terms, to embrace all of our emotions. To embrace that this complex but beautiful human experience.

May this little story be a reminder that on the other side of fear there is trust. There will be days where you feel scared to show up as yourself but please, trust that this life happens for you and not to you. May this story remind you that sometimes you just have to spread the wings and trust that the wind will carry you.