Lifting the Veil

Do you get stuck in fear?  Are you aware of the internal self-talk that incessantly goes on inside your head? How has fear affected your life?

Before I started learning about relationship-based practices I didn’t realize how much fear had played a role in my life.  I wasn’t consciously aware of the conversations going on inside my head. I was so absorbed in my thoughts I had conversations with myself.

What I have come to learn is, I am not my thoughts.  They are thoughts.  Just thoughts.  What’s more is many of the thoughts in there are not true.  Many of my thoughts had to do with the subtle societal messages I got as a kid.  I had the belief that I wasn’t “good enough.” I have since come to find out I am not alone in this belief. I think the vast majority of us think we are flawed in some way or somehow don’t measure up.

Most of our traditional discipline practices are grounded in fear.  These fear-based practices have left us feeling afraid to fail, fearing rejection and a belief that “I’m not good enough.”

Our brain is designed to pick up patterns and attach a story to make sense of our world and situations happening around us. The problem is that many of the stories we have in our head keep us stuck in fear.  The good news is we can change our thoughts.  We can change the stories.  It takes practice. 

Fear had me frozen for years. 

➞ Afraid to speak up.
➞ Afraid to have an opinion.
➞ Afraid of what people are thinking about me. 
➞ Afraid people wouldn’t like me.
➞ Afraid I wasn’t enough - thin ENOUGH, pretty ENOUGH, successful ENOUGH………. The list goes on and on. 

Shifting to relationship-based practices helped me to begin to understand myself. I started becoming aware of how critical my self-talk was. I started to become aware of how I thought about something affected the way I felt inside. I actually started to FEEL my emotions, honor them, lean into them, and manage them. I realized once I did that they would dissipate. I would return to my natural state of……. calm and happy.  Yes, I learned that our natural state is actually calm and happy.  MIND BLOWN. Who knew my natural state was calm and happy?  I had not been in this state much for a long time. But then I also learned that when you avoid feeling certain feelings you numb them all – happy and joy too. 

It has been a journey.  A journey of lifting the veil of fear and returning to love. 

Nearly every day fear rears its ugly head and now I have the tools to lift the veil of fear and honor and value myself. 

What are you fearful of?

Are you ready to lift the veil?