It’s easy for me to skip over the synchronicities that lead me to pick the topic of my blog post each week but over the last few days, I faced and realized a couple of fears of mine while hearing a lot of the fears from my clients. Sometimes it’s something as small as the fear of a post facial breakout or it can be as serious as feeling like you can’t look in the mirror without shame. Fear, to me, is simply false evidence appearing real however regardless of the times that I say this and the advice I give to others on how to overcome fear - I still face some major fears that can honestly paralyze me. So what can we do when we still have fears we know we have to face?

The last weekend of September I was lucky enough to be asked to take part in a pop-up event for WMN Space in NYC for Skin Food Talk. During the day we were able to share knowledge and get to know the east coast community of so many incredible, diverse women. I can personally say that I learned a lot from each speaker and each individual conversation I was able to have. During one of the workshops with Paula Malis, founder of WMN Space, we were led through how to live an intentional life. One of the steps included writing down an act of self-care for myself and the very first thing that came to my mind was “take a day off”. There are many reasons why I work every day of the week and it all stems from a survivalist instinct. It’s taken a minute to really discover why I have been living with this feeling for so long but daily meditations and writing has helped me uncover that there are several root causes. They include how one of my greatest fears is homelessness, which I have never been faced with but I am terrified of it. Another is that I will be perceived as lazy if I don’t keep going, which comes from comments I have received over the years that trigger me deeply. I also never finished college and have discussed how I used to think this would hold me back instead of driving me forward. I also know that often times if I just sit down with myself, for myself, I might finally face some of the issues that I suppress. Over the weekend I gifted myself a day off which led to some breakthroughs and helped me face some major fears.

It’s one thing to grant myself an hour a day to do a meditation, a workout or even just escape on social media or reality tv. It’s a completely another thing to know that as a human, I will always be evolving and layers need to shed in order for growth to occur. I faced a huge fear of rejection from someone close to me and after I did it, I experienced something I wasn’t expecting - I started breaking apart. Having the freedom of time allowed me to finally feel what I needed to instead of having to put my emotions on hold in order to be of service to someone else. It’s as if all the grounding work I have done in my life went to shit and I was back at square one. I felt like I failed by allowing this to swallow me the way it had until I realized that part of the breakdown was that I actually surprised myself with my bravery. I took the chance and regardless of the outcome, I knew I had to rip the band-aid. So here I am, open wound and all, feeling for the first time in a while what it’s like to feel rejection which was just a crippling thought a few days ago. It’s not so bad and I’m learning from myself and what I need to do in order to learn from this lesson the universe is presenting me.

Some of the biggest fears that my clients have include facing some major health uncertainty. One, in particular, is the decision to go off of a medication that is no longer serving them like birth control, antibiotics or prescription meds for the skin. This decision can be hard to rip the band-aid off but it's the first step towards the other side, unfortunately. What I need to remind myself and what I remind others is that what scares us is usually what we need to do the most. That is part of the intuitive practice as you are being called to evolve. The more I'm afraid of something, the more I know I have to do it. So instead of letting the fear stall your growth or potential, you can let it guide you. The outcome is never as bad as we make it out to be in our heads (remember it's only false evidence appearing real). So try to keep yourself grounded with self-care practices to remind yourself that you are human and allowed to have a transitional process. This will only lead to a better version of you for allowing yourself to feel something fully. Just know that you have my support and the more authentic you are with yourself in what you need, the more your community of support will rise up for you. Lean on the ones you love and trust that the discomfort is just a shift.

Thanks again for reading and I hope you have a beautiful day. Until next week, xo - Hayley

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