This is the post I was afraid to write. Which is exactly why I'm writing it.
Fear, for me, has never looked like a monster under the bed. It doesn't show up loudly. It shows up quietly, in the moment right before I'm about to go for something. It sounds like my own voice telling me to wait. To think about it more. To be more ready. To be more sure.
It looks like self-sabotage. Talking myself out of the things I actually want. The opportunities I let pass because some part of me decided, before I even tried, that I wasn't going to make it. That I wasn't going to be supported. That I was going to fail.
And the hardest part? The fear wasn't just about me. It was about my family, too. The weight of wanting to build something real, not just for myself, but for the people I love, and being terrified that I wasn't enough to do it.
"Fear didn't stop me from dreaming. It just convinced me, over and over, that the dream wasn't really mine to have."
On April 7th, I lost my mom.
Grief is a strange thing. It breaks you open in ways you don't expect. And in the middle of that breaking, something became very clear to me, the life I had been postponing, the version of myself I kept putting off until I felt more ready, more certain, more safe, that was the life my mom would have wanted for me. That was the life I deserved.
She didn't raise me to shrink. She didn't raise me to talk myself out of my own becoming. And I wasn't going to honor her memory by continuing to let fear make my decisions.
So I made a choice. Not to stop being afraid, I'm still afraid. But to do it scared. To show up even when it's hard. To try instead of talk myself out of it. To trust that what is for me will be for me, and what isn't, won't break me.
"I'm not healed. I'm healing. And I'm doing it out loud, one scared step at a time."
That's why I built xoeko. That's why I created the journals, the affirmations, the words, the lives, and the videos. I wish someone had spoken over me when fear was loudest. Because I know I'm not the only one who has talked themselves out of their own life. I know I'm not the only one who is carrying more than they show.
If that's you, this space is for you. You don't have to have it figured out. You don't have to be ready. You just have to be willing to try.
What is for you will be for you. I truly believe that.
And I'm not letting fear have the final word anymore.
Neither should you.
— with love, xoeko 🖤
If this resonated with you, my 7-day healing journal was made for this exact moment. You can find it here.
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