Hello ^_^ This is day 15 of my 21 day writing challenge I’m taking a part in (I touched more on this in my first post day 1: depression). Not gonna lie, I fell off for a bit and didn’t write for a couple days but consistency is about getting back up even when I fail so here it continues.
This essay is pretty special to me <3 Been thinking pretty critically about fear and power recently.
I am in a transitionary period of my life right now. How to describe it: there's an internal push and pull that has manifested within my body that doesn't feel natural. Less creation and resolution in the wakes of chaos, more existential spirals and obsessive ruminations in response to the absurdities of life. Less Yin and Yang, More Sisyphus' Boulder. Submerged in metamorphosis and constant discomfort, it feels inherently wrong to operate by my body's natural response mechanisms (byproducts of trauma) but at the same time, it feels uneasy to consistently apply the lessons I've learned towards self betterment.
For most of my life thus far I've been operating within self imposed boundaries. We all set limitations upon what we think we can achieve with our lives and what we think we deserve. Those who grow up with nepotism in their family have a much lower threshold for financial success than someone without. Those who grow up in abusive households have a much higher threshold for healthy and fulfilling relationships with themselves than those who were not neglected. The list goes on. Most of these limitations are upheld by fear.
I was a pretty fearful kid growing up. Scaredy cat. I have a memory of being three years old crying, running away from the 4-foot-tall towering sunflowers my parents grew in our backyard. My dad was trying to get me to touch one of the petals, but I was so freaked out by the sunflower seeds that fibonacci spiraled through the middle of the flower that I refused. Later I found that I was simply trypophobic, but at the time 3-y-old Shravani felt feelings shame and embarrassment. Funny that despite inflicting shame around my fear, I did not find heart to face it.
Fear is an extremely strong emotion. It is the driver of human survival and controls our daily actions and reactions. All our internal emotional and physical safety mechanisms (such as depression and anxiety) flare in response to fear. There are plenty of fears: fear of failure, fear of abandonment, fear of rejection. But for me, I've noticed two fears that are the most frightening: fear of love and fear of power. I've tolerated tactless and fragmented love because at the time, it's what I felt I deserved. I've self sabotaged my ascent into power by fighting for people and circumstances that kept me tethered to a comfortable reality I've known. Internal dissonance arose when I tried letting go.
Letting go is not a foreign concept to me. I've let go of many people I've loved throughout my life. But, letting go of fear feels different. It means letting go of my selves. Self-Actualizing Power is detaching myself from my inner monologue and wholly trusting the universe. It's accepting my weaknesses as much as my strengths and understanding they're inverses of each other. It's embracing moments of loneliness. It's suckling on the bittersweetness.
A note to myself- You Are Safe and Powerful Beyond Measure. Every uncomfortable situation in my life has preceded a series of great joys and deep happiness. Our deep intuitions will never wrong us. Losing faith in yourself is losing hope and succumbing to apathy. Crossing the threshold of change means that everything is open for questioning. And with that questioning comes greater potential for fulfilling a purpose and making a change that actually matters.
-Shrav
If ya liked this check out limiting mindset <3
vibes~
“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. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world”