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Contemplating our potential, those dreams we have, the ones we keep telling ourselves we will take steps towards - tomorrow... can bring in a sense of fear, that little twinge that starts to spiral into self doubt and negative self talk. For me that’s always the “Who do you think you are” judgement that I fear everyone will say.
Those doubts and negative beliefs drown out the voice from our soul [intuition] that is begging to be expressed, because it’s true purpose is to be realized. Ultimately we are here on a journey of self-actualization. We’re not meant to stay boxed-in or small, hiding our potential from the world and just let life keep moving around us, while we try to keep up.
Thinking about our own potential is scary. I do know this. I know it well. It means putting ourselves out there; potentially being critiqued and judged; making mistakes, even failing, which we have been taught to mean something negative or counterproductive to our goals and dreams. This is the source of the fear. That we aren’t enough, that we might fail and prove those doubts we had, right all along.
But there is no need for all of that. If you look a little closer, making mistakes and failing are integral parts of our learning process and our growth. Any external judgement we receive is, at closer look, one’s own inner judgement of oneself. It’s not even about “us”. As children everything in our world is about us and we believe it. As we move into adulthood, we carry that over and still, because of our conditioning, take in those judgements as truth, but they are not our truth, they are someone else’s truth about us. It’s important to recognize that because it is part of what we get caught up easily that holds us back. It keeps us in our fear. We cannot move forward in any sense of authenticity if we are constantly leaning into that fear; which is at its core, our fear that will meet our greatest potential.
It is so important to keep in mind that indeed our fear exists, but that it doesn’t have to stop there. We can be in our vulnerability and do it anyway - whatever “it” is. It is both liberating - freeing ourselves from our self-inflicted suffering - and honouring all that we came here to be; all that we already are, if we allow ourselves to be.
- note to my younger and 50 year old self.