Moving Toward Love or Away from Fear
This is a big one. Pace yourself. If you need to pause and come back to this topic on a different day, do so. Take care of yourself.
Fear is a powerful force. It's not all bad. It has helped us survive. It often gets a bad rap. It often gives us signals, but we need to put these signals into CONTEXT and come back to our own agency.
What has helped us survive in the past is often NOT what we need to expand, grow, love, feel alive, be present and dream of the future.
Our fears are always valid. Systems of oppressions can make life really hard and well, scary.
However, sometimes are fears aren’t based in reality. Before we know we know it, we have built a life running away from our fears than chasing our dreams.
It’s not our fault. Things like ancestral trauma, systemic guilt, racial capitalism and pleasure oppression make running away from fears the norm!
Naming what we are afraid of, empathizing with it, reality checking in, noticing how we are constricting ourselves, and then DECIDING how we want to move forward … that is what gives us the agency to live out our biggest, fiercest vision for a different reality.
Here is something that my partner learned from Moshe Daniel Block:
"You are either moving towards love or away from fear."
Moshe isn't someone I support or whose work I know personally – but this phrase REALLY resonated with me. I can't stop thinking about it. It feels really potent to keep my fears in check and make sure I don't make out-of-context, fear-based decisions.
For example, one reason of many that I got the fire under my ass to begin this business and become an entrepreneur was that I hated my lack of freedom while working for others. I used to work in a chemistry lab pipetting urine (ahhh) and hated having such a constricted schedule. I wanted to be able to have my days be varied and to decide not to work on a certain day if my body woke up exhausted or needing something different.
This fear helped me get out of there! That's so valid. Let's pay attention to these fears and use them.
But a bigger motivating force for me was doing something that made me feel ALIVE.
What really got me out of there was moving towards love – not away from fear.
If I had kept listening to fear and making fear-based decisions, I would never be offering my mini-course - see below - (fear everyone would see me as a money-hungry capitalist); or I would never post on Instagram (fearing I will say the wrong thing and hurt people and/or be ridiculed and lose belonging, connection, meaning, and so on); or I would never start a community membership (fear it will be too much responsibility and I won't get it perfect).
These fears keep me constricted, stuck, and in a constant fight or flight response. These fear-based decisions very often, but not always, do not serve collective liberation.
Want journal (and action) prompts to reflect on how you are listening to fear and what feels alive to you in your business?
I have a free mini-course for you.
A free 7-part, self-paced, mini-course to holistic & pleasure based business for feminists who want more abundance without sacrificing their values or wellbeing