fear + the missing pieces

Dear friend,

Hello. I hope this letter finds you well.

I’ve been thinking about fear recently. When I was a kid, I spent so much time being afraid. I was terrified of other people’s feelings because I thought I was causing them. And therefore terrified of hurting the people around me the way I felt I had been hurt. I stayed small, afraid to be seen, afraid to be left behind. I made most of my decisions from that place of fear, letting it consume me, fill up my emotional tank until I was living in a world of terrifying fantasy where I thought everyone was going to leave me. My fear loved company, and the company it loved most was more fear.

Last year, I found myself back in that space. Feeling trapped in fear, in abandonment scenarios, convinced at times that I had nothing to offer and that I was completely taking advantage of the people in my life. I felt like running away to avoid hurting them. It was heavy.

But it also felt like an internal struggle, like I just couldn’t find those last few pieces that would allow me to see the whole puzzle and move forward. I’m realizing now that those pieces were being held tightly by my fear, and that’s why I could never find them.

The fear held the key, and I needed to lean in and listen. But I had always taken the fear as reality, not as a message, so it ended there. I bought into it hook, line, and sinker. I never looked further.

I’m trying to do things differently now. As fear speaks up, I perk up. It’s got something for me. A missing piece.

Like my fear of teaching, which has been speaking up a bit lately. Most of my teachers and all of the career tests I’ve taken in my life have suggested I should become a teacher. And for years I’d find myself on that teaching track, approaching the next step, when my fear would speak up and ground me to a halt. I was there in 2013. In 2014. And again in 2016. Life kept bringing me back to those moments. And I turned around and ran.

I’m starting to realize, though, that there has always been a second layer there, one that went deeper than the immediate fear of being seen and taking responsibility. It came from a feeling of - eh, this isn’t quite right for me. And I still feel good about my decision to not become a teacher in the traditional classroom. I feel I made the right choice. But the voice is speaking up again, so I’m perking up. I’m listening, and this is what I’m hearing:

“Teaching is scary!”

The loudest layer, and the first. I’m really being reminded that teaching would be a new step, a growth opportunity, which is exactly what I’m craving. But my mind finds that rather terrifying, and it equates being seen with being abandoned. I get that. I can trace that back. I can empathize with my own fear.

When I lean in a little closer, or when I don’t immediately run away, I also hear:

“I don’t want to be responsible for a stranger’s education. I don’t want to be part of a hierarchical relationship. I don’t want to adopt a homogenized curriculum and choose what the other ‘needs’ to learn and how. I don’t want to judge or grade or be the one who decides if this person is ‘smart enough’ to ‘make it’. I don’t even want to work that much.”

This is the deeper layer, the one that holds the missing pieces. It reminds me that I can redefine the word “teaching” to mean “sharing what fascinates me.” And it doesn’t need to take place in a classroom. This other layer of fear is nudging me to redefine and get clear as often as I need to. Words carry weight, and really - they can create whole worlds within us. I needed to shake up that world. Because I’m not here to live in one created by someone else.

🍃

My fear is here for a reason. It has something to say. It has one of my missing pieces. And if I walk with that fear into the scary places, everything changes.

So I’m going to take another step forward and share a little introduction to my first Human Design offering. They’re casual chats, just the two of us, where we’ll look at your Human Design chart and talk about the energy mechanics at play there (think: how you’re meant to make decisions, the archetype of your personality, how to engage with others with more ease, etc.). I’ll link the details below and will keep them there in the future, adjusting as they grow.

I’ll be sharing with you what fascinates me, bringing myself to a vulnerable space that I’ve always avoided in the past. The key is, I am not a teacher, but rather the experience is teaching me.

🍃

And before I go, I want to say that everything I share here is being contemplated through the lens of my own body and are my own personal experiences. I don’t ever want to share something as an “answer” for anyone else. These are ideas, experiences and reflections, not truths. ♡

Thank you for being with me here. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express how grateful I am.

Keep an eye out for my next letter, take care, and as always...

...if you need me, come find me - I’ve gone gnomin’.

katelyn