By Dina Aldabbagh

We’re all so afraid of fear. We make it mean such negative things — “I’m feeling fear, something bad is happening.” But the fear itself is not a bad thing, it’s a signal. The function of fear is to show you where you still have beliefs that aren’t aligned with the true you. It’s not — like many think — a warning. No, not a warning, but a signal. It’s not indicating to you that something bad is going to happen, although it feels that way — because you feel fear when you feel unsafe. Therefore, our bodies associate fear — i.e. feelings of unsafety — with imminent danger. But what if I told you that fear is actually indicating to you the belief you’re holding that is keeping you from living as your true self? Your most aligned, most free self. We don’t see these beliefs until we brush up against something in life that triggers it. But the key here is that fear is a sign that you are on the verge of newness. 

What if I told you that your fear is not telling you that you’re in danger, but instead are on the edge of your comfort zone? When we’re going through life in our comfort zone — fully knowing what to expect out of a day, a person, a relationship, a place, a job, a meal — we don’t feel any fear. That thing happens exactly as it always does, and you’re always safe afterwards, so you know for a fact you’ll be alright this time around as well. That’s the comfort zone — not necessarily right, nor aligned, just predictable. 

“Aligned” — what am I talking about? We all have a version of ourselves that we want to be — that’s the aligned you. If you’re still in touch with your desire, you envision this person or you feel a pull to being them. You see yourself being treated a certain way, looking a certain way, acting a certain way, being spoken about a certain way, having a certain job — all of these are indicative of what’s aligned with you. You want it because it’s currently aligned with you. Desires change and we align to different things, but the most aligned version of yourself is typically that version of yourself that you’ve always wanted to be. Some people have stopped even trying to imagine this person, because they’ve already decided it’s “out of reach” — even if just subconsciously — but we all have a most aligned version of ourselves.

This person feels free. Unfiltered. Natural. When you show up like this, it just feels…right. Think about that person in your life that’s touched your soul the most, that you always hold close to your heart — you probably loved this person because you loved who you could be with them. You loved them because who they were held the perfect space for you to show up as who you love being. An old friend came to visit me and my new friend told me, “You’re 100x more yourself when you’re with her.” I love this friend, and surely that’s because of who she is, but on a subconscious level, it’s probably more because of who I was able to be with her — and be fully met as that version of me. 

That’s your aligned self. All fear does is show you the ways you’re holding yourself back from being that. The comfort zone? Where nothing changes? Where everything goes to plan? The version of you there is simply not the most expansive, free version of you. If you have to have rigid boundaries around life in order to feel okay, that version of you is constricted. Our souls want expansion. They want to feel free to be open. Fear is trying to crack you wide open. Constricted? In this life? That’s not the version of you who you’re supposed to be. 

I know this because it feels so bad to feel constricted. It feels like anxiety. The catch-22 of constricting yourself to rigid boundaries is that you have to make everything in life fit into that box. But that’s not how life goes — it’s constant growth. Every age we are is an age we haven’t yet been. You’re constantly confronted with newness in this life. Thus, you’re meant to flow with the newness, not double down on enforcing your walls, because eventually the current from the outside will collapse even the strongest walls. Hopefully by that point, you haven’t built the walls so high that even you can’t get over them, and you collapse under the flow. Because believe this: the flow will come. It’s always coming. The only constant in life is change, and change is newness. That’s a very good thing…unless you’ve boxed yourself in. 

And if you’ve boxed yourself in, the only way to make sense of the “new” thing is to rewrite the truth of your aligned self — that called in that new thing — in a way that makes sense to your old self. That’s suppression. Eventually the pressure gets so high that you make yourself sick. We’re not meant to live with that kind of tension. And with every single thing that you suppress, you raise your internal pressure. You have to keep making everything fit within the shape you’ve decided your life is supposed to look like — and that just stretches your bandwidth to the very verge of snapping. Some things don’t fit, and you don’t know how to make sense of them. When those things come that we don’t know how to make sense of, that’s when we’re being cracked open to see a new perspective, and live under a new framework.

If you’ve already decided that you will not change in the way that life is asking you to, you’ll start seeing a lot go wrong in your life. Things that used to work for you and things that used to feel good just don’t anymore. Your modality of thinking is no longer producing the same results. That’s when you’re being confronted — will you adapt or stall out? 

Life keeps moving regardless — don’t stunt your development. How many people have you met that have the manner of thinking of a much younger version of themselves? That have just not changed? They stalled out. The fear of the unknown froze them, and they decided to stay the version of themselves that knows what to expect in their good old, reliable comfort zone. How unfortunate is it though that even that comfort zone changes and starts to feel like a prison? Be the person who meets every stage of life in the way it calls you to, not the one who denies where the current of their life is leading, and tries swimming against it. Just flow. You can have everything you want out of life, but you have to meet the moment. That’s the only way. 

So that fear you’re feeling? It’s only because you’re brushing up against something new. Not bad. Not dangerous. Just, new. And new is good. That doesn’t mean that every new thing to come into your life will work out exactly like you imagine, but that there will be a benefit from it regardless of what happens — in one way or another. That’s the beauty of new things. And if you want your life to change in any way, that only happens with something new. So that fear? It just means you’re touching something you haven’t before; it’s expansive.   

Imagine that you’re on your stable platform that we call the comfort zone — the known. You’re now brushing up against another platform that’s close enough to step onto; it’s a little bit higher. This step feels dangerous. You don’t know if the next step will be onto stable ground — this other platform has no proof of being secure. So as you’re on the edge of your platform, debating whether to step, you start feeling intense fear. “What if this doesn’t work out? What if I get hurt? What if when I leave my safe platform, I learn that it was the better choice, and I should have stayed?” The key here is that this fear is not a bad thing. It’s good, actually. It means growth — it’s one’s cautiousness of misstep into expansion. But you’re not stepping onto eggshells, you’re stepping onto a new platform.

Can I tell you? Stop beating yourself up for being afraid. Stop making it mean that you’re weak. It actually means you’re already getting bigger. Muscles contract before getting bigger — it’s called hypertrophy. Your interaction with the unknown is stretching you. So it’s normal to have hesitation before taking a risk. It’s normal to feel fear when you’re doing something new, because it’s vulnerable; you don’t know how it’s going to go. But trust that it is for your highest good. You always feel your dumbest when you’re learning something new — not reviewing information you already know. What a paradox that is. The comfort zone makes you feel big, but you’re actually small. The growth process makes you feel small, but you’re actually getting bigger. 

We feel fear to show us where we’re holding ourselves back from being fully aligned. Fear is a flashlight; it’s a direct beam onto what we need to see. “Hey! Look at me! This is the thing that’s keeping you in a dark room.” We have a flashlight in the room, and it’ll help us find the light switch to turn on the lights. It’s not a bad thing; it’s a tool. We’re meant to look at that scary thing and realize, “huh, that’s actually not a threat after all. I can look at it and still be safe; it can exist in the light” and then use the flashlight to find the light switch. Then we can live in light. 

Let’s say your soul is one that wants to be seen, but you have a fear of it as well. Life will keep handing you opportunity after opportunity that highlights that fear until you decide to push past it. Every time you meet that boundary and turn away, you’re not actually avoiding it. You’re like the TV symbol that endlessly bounces around the four walls of the TV screen — you’re going to keep brushing up against your limits until you overcome it. You will keep feeling that fear until you decide to face it. 

If you turn away every time you meet your edges — the perimeter of what feels safe for you — you’re not actually helping yourself, you’re confining yourself. You’re saying, “This is as big as I get. I’m not growing past this.” Here’s the trick, they’re not actually confines, they’re lines in the sand. You drew them. The wind can blow and the lines can be redrawn. You’re allowed to get bigger, and you’re safe to. The sand here is the same as the sand there, it’s just a different placement of the line. You may think your boundaries are protecting you, but they’re just limiting you. 

Working with this fear of being seen, when you work through what is scary about it — what you’re worried will happen if you allow yourself to openly be yourself — you can understand the root of it. Often, the fear of being seen is linked to an actual fear of being perceived in a negative way. Which only matters because you think that if people perceive you in a negative way, then that signifies that love and acceptance are in jeopardy. But if you can break down this fear of yours, you’ll realize something freeing: when you show up as a performative, inauthentic version of yourself, you don’t feel truly loved or accepted anyways. But when you show up as yourself fully, even if you’re rejected by some, you don’t care — because you’re loved and accepted by the people who truly make you feel seen. 

So that fear becomes void. You logic it out and you see, “Hold up, this fear is actually the thing standing in my way of me getting exactly what I want.” The fear just revealed your belief that was standing in the way — that being seen for who you are means receiving less love. This directly opposes the logical truth: that being seen for who you are constitutes getting the exact attention that makes you feel loved and seen. 

It makes sense to feel fear when you’re operating off of a belief system that has flawed logic. The way to get rid of that fear is not to stop doing the things that trigger it, but instead to understand what you’re really afraid of. 

You may think that fear signifies that you’re too weak or unequipped to step into that next level, but understand: fear is the normal emotion when you’re on the verge of expanding. By the time you feel fear, you’re already midstep. It actually means, “Hey! You’re aligned to this now. And this platform feels better to stand on. Take a step.” Any fear you feel is just that: expansion. You only feel the need to be careful because this is new and you want to move cautiously. The fact that you have fear means you’re expanding; you wouldn’t feel any fear or nervousness if you weren’t already in the place where you’re expanding.  

And expanding into what? The version of you that can maintain your exact desire. That’s why it can feel so risky.“What if I take this step and I learn that I can’t maintain my desire?” There’s finality there. You get an answer — and you risk it not being the one you want. 

But in reality? There’s only finality there if you make it mean that. This thing is never actually the “end of the line.” Life is abundant with new opportunities, and if you decide to leap and it doesn’t work out, you’ve just trained the muscle that can hold the weight of what’s coming in next. 

Don’t be afraid. The fear is showing you the way that you are holding yourself back, and that bad feeling you get in your body that you associate with your fear, it doesn’t actually mean anything bad is going to happen. It’s just what unsafety feels like, and new things can always feel unsafe, because anything can happen. And on a more positive note, if you feel the fear and step anyways, you’ll see that anything can happen. But anything can’t happen from your comfort zone — only more of the same. If you’re prepared to stall out, then stay where it feels safe. But if you find yourself looking around life and saying, “Surely, there’s more to life than this,” then take that step. The worst that can happen is that you learn you’re wrong and you go back to your comfort zone…where you were planning to be anyways.

And then the narrator said, “But you won’t ever go back to being the size you were before you took the step. You’ll never be the same. You’ll be bigger.” Everything you’ve ever wanted may be on this next platform, can you trust that you’ll be okay no matter how this step lands?