How to Release Fear from the Body: Name It, Then Let It Go

Fear is seductive. We love to flirt with it because it makes us feel something. Fear is comfortable. It gives us reasons to stay stuck. It feeds us perfect excuses to avoid our own greatness.

We have to release it, or we’ll harbor an enemy that holds us down indefinitely.

First, You Have to Name What Scares You

The first step in releasing fear from the body is identifying what you’re actually afraid of. Self-interrogation is essential for stepping into worth.

You might be afraid to end a relationship that doesn’t feel right. But what’s the underlying fear? What’s the root that bubbles up into the surface-level fears you see in your daily life?

Here’s what I discovered I was afraid of:

• Hurting other people’s feelings
• Not creating because I might fail, or not believing I can create something great
• People looking down on me if I can’t provide for myself
• Not being able to provide for myself at all
• Disappointing others
• Not knowing the answer
• Getting what I want but becoming something I hate
• Being misunderstood
• Not understanding someone or something
• Never achieving the greatness I feel inside me
• Not finding the love I’m searching for
• Saying something that makes someone hurt themselves
• Not being accepted as I am
• Making a mistake I can’t recover from
• The journey to what I want feeling like a drag until it arrives
• Being exposed as a fraud
• Someone thinking I’m stupid
• Someone else doing what I want to do better than I could
• The responsibility of power being too heavy
• Not expressing myself or my love fully
• Finding things I can’t be awesome at
• Settling for less than my expectation of greatness

Your Reality Shows Your Fears

What a list. Before making it, I didn’t realize I was carrying so much.

There’s a concept called out-picturing: the idea that your fears and beliefs manifest in the reality around you. You can learn about your current state of consciousness just by observing your current life.

If things frighten you, upset you, or aggravate you, that’s your consciousness showing itself. It’s a map of what’s tethering you to fear.

The Intention That Releases Fear

Here’s the good news: you don’t have to hold onto these things. You can release them through proper intention.

Here’s an intention that works:

I am now choosing to release myself from those fears that have kept me in limitation. I am now aware that I no longer need to create from fear in order to identify with who I thought I was. I am now free of those fears that have shaped my experience in ways I’m willing to let go of. I am choosing now to relinquish the need to engage with them. I am free. I am free. I am free.

Stepping Into Your Worth

This exercise was eye-opening for me. Powerful. Too often we let fear run our lives instead of claiming our own worth.

What are you afraid of? Can you find a way to release it and move forward into your own worthiness?