Am I afraid of success?

Isn't it funny how we can work so hard to make our lives better and then find ourselves unable to relax when things actually start going well?

We've got so much experience managing things when they go wrong. You'd think we'd be able to relax when the dust finally settles and we find ourselves on solid footing, but sometimes that's when we feel the least secure.

We can become so certain something's going to go wrong that we start experiencing the disappointment before anything's even happened.

We rob ourselves of the peace we've worked so hard to create, by our own hand, without anything actually being taken away from us.

I've been working through this in my own life lately.

Things are going well. Not prefect but WAY better than ever before and instead of enjoying that, I've caught myself scanning for all the ways it could go horribly wrong.

Fear of success. Imagine that.

Working your ass off to create a life you love and then being afraid to enjoy it.

We spend an incredible amount of time preparing for things to go wrong. Some of us have gotten really good at it. Professional even.

But how much time do we spend considering how well things could go, how great it could feel, what it might look like to actually embrace a higher level of peace, love, happiness, or success?

How much time do we spend preparing ourselves to actually receive the things we've been working toward?

For a lot of us, very little.

Somewhere along the way, we learned that getting our hopes up was dangerous.

If we don't believe we can have something, what's the point in considering it?

And if we do get it, but we're convinced it'll be taken away, what's the point in enjoying it?

So we settle into this strange state of preparatory disappointment, trying to protect ourselves from future pain by experiencing some of it in advance.

We end up suffering over something that hasn't even happened and may never happen at all.

Our brains are prediction machines. They draw on what's familiar.

When we've lived with dysfunction, familiar can feel safe, even when it isn't.

We can start rejecting healthy things in favor of what's familiar, confusing familiar with safe.

Sometimes that mistrust goes beyond our thoughts. We can start making choices that undermine the very things we've worked so hard to create.

Self-sabotage becomes a way of returning to what's familiar when we don't quite trust what's good.

But that's a whole other conversation for another day.

You can spend years working to create a healthier, happier life and then find yourself suspicious of the very things you've been working toward.

I've had an interesting experience with this recently.

For a while, I had this feeling that my old patterns of addiction and self-abandonment were lurking right behind me, like a giant grizzly bear breathing down my neck, just waiting for an opportunity to come charging back and destroy everything I'd worked so hard to build.

Eventually, I got so sick and tired of feeling intimidated by this thing that I decided to turn around and face it.

Good morning.

And as I wrapped my arms around this giant, terrifying bear, I realized it was actually just a little kid hiding inside a costume.

A younger version of me, still operating under the assumptions that my home life was dangerous and things could go horribly wrong at any moment. Still trying to protect me from circumstances that no longer existed.

And there I was, allowing this little kid in a bear costume to intimidate me into believing I couldn't trust myself or the life I'd created.

It was trying to keep me safe, but it was keeping me stressed, scared and stuck up in past fuck ups.

Not exactly helpful.

of the things I love about EFT is that it gives me a practical way to get curious about those patterns instead of continuing to organize my life around them.

I can recognize intellectually that my circumstances have changed, but that doesn't mean every emotional response has caught up.

EFT lets me bring conscious awareness to the beliefs underneath my reactions and work with them.

Where did I learn that things going well meant something bad was coming?

What am I actually afraid will happen?

Is that fear supported by the circumstances of my life today?

Am I still making assumptions about what I'm capable of based on a version of myself who existed years ago?

Just because I didn't have what it took back then doesn't mean I don't have what it takes now.

I've grown. I've learned things. I've developed skills, changed habits, made different choices.

But unless I take time to acknowledge and integrate those changes, I can keep operating under assumptions that no longer reflect reality.

And sometimes those assumptions influence my behavior in ways that recreate the very conditions I've worked so hard to change.

Sound familiar?

We have very little control over much of what happens in our external environment, but the more agency we develop over our internal environment, the more effectively we can participate in shaping our lives.

We don't always get to choose our first emotional reaction, but we can become more conscious of the thoughts and beliefs we're reinforcing.

We always have an option.

The more often we let fear decide, the more practiced it becomes.

Faith is also available.

And I'm not talking about pretending everything's going to work out perfectly. I'm talking about allowing ourselves to consider that things might actually go incredibly well, and then making decisions that support that possibility becoming reality.

Faith plus works.

Choosing to believe something better is possible, and then taking the actions necessary to participate in creating it.

That's how things get done.

For me, this means using EFT to explore the old programming that's still running, updating beliefs that no longer serve me, and giving my nervous system a chance to become familiar with peace.

I've had plenty of practice preparing for disappointment.

I'd like a bit more practice preparing for joy.

Maybe that's something worth practicing together.

Before you move on with your day, take a few minutes to explore your own relationship with things going well.

Notice what comes up as you answer.

If you feel fear, resistance, or discomfort, you've found something worth tapping on.

Start with the specific thought or belief that carries the strongest emotional kick. Notice where you feel it in your body, acknowledge what you're experiencing, and use EFT to work with that. I’ve got free resources on my website and social profiles to get you going if this is still new to you.

You don't have to force yourself to believe something different overnight.

You can start by getting curious about whether the beliefs you've been carrying are still true, and then give yourself the opportunity to choose again.

We can become familiar with things going well. We can learn to trust ourselves in the lives we're creating and stop allowing the anticipation of disappointment to steal the joy that's available to us right now.

Faith is one of the few things no one can take from you. You can only surrender it on your own terms.

That's what I'm tapping on these days.

-Sunny