The Opposite Fear: Getting what you want

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What you really fear is the opposite of what you think you’re afraid of.

Huh?

If you’re afraid of being left, maybe you really fear being intimately loved.

If you’re afraid of being a failure, maybe you really fear being abundantly successful.

If you’re afraid of being sick, maybe you really fear being healthy and well.

It might seem backwards and doesn’t seem to make rational sense, but try it out…

I think I’m afraid ________, but maybe I really fear *insert the opposite here*.

For example: I think I’m afraid of being rejected for being fully myself, but maybe I really fear being accepted fully and unconditionally as who I am.

Missy Elliott that shit.

How does that feel? It feels uncomfortable and naggingly true, no? Just me?

I call this “The Opposite Fear.”

We fear the opposite of what we think because of what we make it mean. What does that opposite fear becoming real require of you or will make happen?

We’re often more afraid of getting what we want because we don’t believe we’re worthy of it. We have dark in us that makes us afraid of the light.

And so, like Jim Carrey said, “many of us choose our path out of fear, disguised as practicality.”

We don’t let ourselves have what we want, but more than that; we don’t let ourselves really want.

We keep our hunger a secret (because it’s sinful to be gluttonous), do what we “should” do (because we think “they” will judge us when really we’re judging ourselves), settle (because what we want isn’t possible — is it? — and we’re afraid of getting our hopes up only to be disappointed), and self-sabotage (because we’re conditioned to stay small and believe we’re unworthy).

“Dreams are nice to have, but not for really going after or actually having” is the message we learn as we grow up.

So we feel bad and guilty wanting more. We shame ourselves because we believe “the more I have, the less others can have”. We stay small because we don’t want them to feel uncomfortable and make them face all the ways they shrink themselves and settle. We protect other people from our feeling, power, pleasure, and truth — as though they can’t handle it, as though they don’t have their own. And we lie to ourselves and hold ourselves back.

Because if we get honest with our hunger, we have to get honest about what doesn’t fill us.

So instead we eat the recommended diet and try and find ourselves eating more and have consumed so much, but are never satiated.

What you want doesn’t have to be big. What you want doesn’t have to be small. It only has to be what you really want. Because that’s the only way you’ll feel full.

You don’t have to do it to prove anything or yourself to anyone.

If you let yourself be worthy of your wanting, just as you are, you are worthy of your having. They are inextricable.

I’ve always been obsessed with hearing what other people really want because I was looking for permission to feel my own hunger.

I thought I could feed others first and then I would feel full, but now I know it is only in my fullness first that I can feed others, and moreso, let others feed themselves.

We deny our hunger, and in doing so, we deny ourselves.

But when you declare your desires the whole world opens up to meet you.

Because this restriction of your hunger fights expansion, and expansion is a natural force of nature. The universe is ever-expanding and you are meant to ebb and flow as you expand too.

When you liberate and empower your hunger, you give others the awareness and permission to do the same. And that is how your whole world and the whole world comes alive.

You know, that good ol’ Marianne Williamson quote that everyone knows from the movie Coach Carter.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”