Ep.80 Fear Running Your Life: Realizing I'd Missed Years of My Daughter's Life

If you wake up every single day already bracing, already waiting for whatever's coming next, and when something good actually happens you catch yourself thinking that was just luck, not something you actually got to expect or trust, this episode is for you.

This week on FUCK Anxiety I'm talking about fear, and how it doesn't always show up as a panic attack or a racing heart. Sometimes fear running your life looks quieter than that. It looks like blinders. It looks like high functioning anxiety wearing a smile so nobody else can tell. It looks like the side door you keep looking for out of your own life.

I lived years of this. Waking up with dread, certain nothing was going to go right, and if it did, I just chalked it up to luck. I know exactly what it's like to live with the blinders of fear on, and I remember the exact moment they started to come off.

Let's get into it.

Listen to the full episode here

Apple PodcastsSpotify

Top Takeaways on Fear, Presence, and High-Functioning Anxiety

1. Fear isn't a feeling. It's an operating system.

Picture a horse wearing blinders, those little cups on the sides of its eyes. It can only see what's directly in front of it, so it moves forward and never gets distracted by anything on the sides. It doesn't see the sides, it doesn't see behind it, it doesn't see above or below. Out of the full 365 degree view of its life, blinders on, it's maybe only getting 20% of it.

That's fear. It narrows our focus down to one potential outcome, and usually it's the worst one.

I used to think that was just my personality. Type A. A worrier. Someone who just needs to control things. It wasn't a personality. Fear had become the actual operating system that was running my life.

Think of a Trojan horse. Once your computer gets infected, it takes over every part of the system, only scanning for what could go wrong, what it needs to prepare for, what it needs to control. That's what fear does once you let it in. It doesn't stay contained. It spreads, and it starts running scans on everything, and you just start operating differently without even realizing why.

So if we let fear run the show, are we actually living fully? Or are we just seeing 20% of our own life?

2. If good things feel like luck, that's fear talking, not gratitude.

I remember waking up every day, literally not believing that my day could be any different than yesterday. Waking up with, when is the next panic attack going to happen. Waking up with, who's going to be available for me that I can get in contact with. I woke up with dread. I was certain nothing was going to go right, and if it did, I just got lucky.

I was looking for distractions everywhere. Basically looking for the side door out of a haunted mansion that my own life had become.

Good things happening to you were never luck. You just never let yourself expect them, because fear had you bracing for the worst instead.

This is why affirmations sometimes don't work. I could say "I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for this house," and mean it as a sentence, not as a feeling. Energy and emotion are the frequency. If there's no energy behind the words, you're still in fear. You're just saying something in the same frequency as fear.

3. High functioning doesn't mean you're okay. It means you found a way to survive.

This isn't meant to be dramatic. This is truly what millions of women are living every single day while still showing up, still smiling, still performing, acting like they're fine. High functioning women. And high functioning doesn't mean it's good. We're high functioning because that's how we've figured out how to survive.

If this operating system got installed early, probably in childhood, and we adapted around it, once it's on, it feels normal. It feels like this is just how life is. So many women listening to this podcast don't even realize how small their world has become, because they've never actually seen the other 80%.

In the Four Agreements, there's a word for this: domesticated. We've become domesticated in fear. Waking up every day with dread instead of possibility, believing good things are lucky instead of something we're allowed to expect and trust. Our nervous system is on overdrive, and we don't know how to calm the fuck down.

4. "Is this all there is" is the question that changed everything.

There were real days I thought, is this all there is. Is this even worth living for. Not because I didn't have anything to be grateful for. I did. But the blinders wouldn't let me actually feel it.

Change doesn't usually start in inspiration. It starts in desperation for something different.

It's not necessarily being inspired. It's realizing what the fuck you don't want, and that there has to be something different, and that you want to be free of what's been showing up.

5. The morning I finally saw my daughter's face.

There was a morning I was meditating, probably four weeks into ever trying meditation. I was doing Joe Dispenza style meditations, really trying to rewire my subconscious. One Saturday morning, coming out of meditation, my family was in the kitchen making breakfast, and I walked out and my oldest looked at me and said, "Mommy."

I remember truly seeing her for the first time. Every freckle on her face, the twinkle in her eye, her cute little smile, so bright. And I remember thinking, it's kind of choking me up even thinking about it now, I was seeing her for the first time. And I thought, I've missed seven or eight years.

That's what the blinders had been costing me the entire time. Presence with the people I love most.

I've been reading a book called Endless Light, on Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and the author reframes God, not as a figure in the clouds passing judgment, but as an experience. To be in awe is to experience it. To be in overwhelming appreciation is to experience it. You can call it God, the divine, the universe, loving intelligence. It's not anything. It's an experience.

Your body can sense and experience fear, which could be a reality of hell. Or it can sense and experience that presence, that awe, which could be a reality of heaven. You get to choose what you want more of.

How to Start Taking the Blinders Off

Here's what I actually want you to sit with this week, straight from what I walk through in the episode.

Step 1: Ask yourself what percentage you're actually seeing

If you're honest with yourself, what percentage of your life do you feel like you're actually seeing right now, versus running on the blinders?

Step 2: Catch the "just luck" story

Next time something good happens, notice if some quiet part of you is waiting for the other shoe to drop instead of letting yourself actually trust it.

Step 3: Find one real memory of awe

Can you remember a moment, even a small one, where you felt real awe? What was actually happening in that moment? Let yourself feel it again instead of just describing it.

Step 4: Name what's actually driving you

What has fear cost you in terms of presence with the people you love most? What are you tired of experiencing, and what's going to drive you to change?

Step 5: Choose, right now, what you want more of

This isn't about never feeling fear again. It's about choosing, in the moments you get to choose, whether you want more of the reality of fear or more of the reality of awe, peace, and presence.

And one more loving truth. What drove my own change was my daughters. I could not let them grow up watching my life consumed by fear, worry, and control. Whatever's driving you doesn't have to look like mine. It just has to be real enough to move you.

Common Patterns to Watch For

• •Mistaking the blinders for your personality. "I'm just a planner" or "I'm just type A" is often fear running the show, not who you actually are.
• •Treating good things like luck instead of evidence. Waiting for the other shoe to drop keeps you bracing for the worst even when nothing is actually wrong.
• •Saying gratitude instead of feeling it. An affirmation with no energy behind it is still fear talking in a nicer voice.
• •Staying so zoomed into survival that presence disappears. You can be there for every birthday and bedtime and still not be there, because the operating system is too busy scanning for danger to let you actually see the people in front of you.

None of this is proof something is wrong with you. It's proof the blinders got installed a long time ago, and it's not too late to take them off.

Reflect on This

• If you're honest with yourself, what percentage of your life do you feel like you're actually seeing right now?
• Why do good things always feel like luck instead of something you're allowed to trust?
• Are you always bracing for the worst, even when nothing is technically wrong?
• What has fear cost you in terms of presence with the people you love most?

I would love to hear. Send me a DM and tell me what percentage you're actually at right now.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Endless Light, a book on Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, and the way it reframes God as an experience rather than a figure
• The Four Agreements, and the idea of being "domesticated" into old patterns
• Joe Dispenza style meditation, the practice Sari was doing the week the blinders started coming off
• Join me live: The Self-Love Chamber is October 3rd & 4th. An intimate room, capped at just 20 women, where we get hot seated into what's actually driving our change. What is fear costing you? Sign up for The Self-Love Chamber here. $47, only 20 spots.
• Your free tool: If the timing isn't right for the Chamber, start with the Free 5 Minute Nervous System Reset. Use it the next time fear tries to convince you something good is about to go wrong.
• If you're ready to go deeper and map out what taking the blinders off could actually look like for you, let's talk it through on a Freedom Roadmap Session. No pitch. No pressure. Just clarity.

Work With Me

If you're the woman who's already dreading tomorrow, who can't remember the last time something good felt fully yours instead of lucky, I see you. That's exactly the pattern we get to work with together.

In my 1:1 sessions we go on custom hypnotic journeys built around your exact situation, not a generic recording. We sit down with the operating system that's been running you, the one that learned early to brace for the worst so you'd feel safe, and we change your relationship to it. That's where the blinders actually come off.

If that lit something up in you, let's map it out together on a Freedom Roadmap Session. No pitch. No pressure. Just clarity.

And if this episode met you where you are, do me a favor. Follow the show, download it, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts so another woman who feels exactly like you do can find it.

Listen on Apple PodcastsListen on Spotify