Fear Can Come Along for the Ride
I've spent a LOT of my life afraid of the future.
Not dreaming about the future.
Not planning for it.
I'm talking about the other kind.
The what-if-something-goes-wrong kind.
The kind that has me trying to figure out every possible outcome before it happens.
The kind that says:
If I worry about it enough, maybe I'll be prepared.
If I stay vigilant, maybe I can prevent something bad from happening.
If I can somehow know the plot before the plot happens, I'll be safe.
And for the past 6 months, I've been swinging between feeling wildly excited about what I'm building... and yet this fear continues to creep in: What if this takes too long and I can't make it work financially?
It's exhausting.
Because my fear of the future doesn't just live in my thoughts.
When that fear takes over, I feel it everywhere.
Tension in my jaw.
Heaviness in my shoulders.
Racing thoughts that keep me stuck in a mental loop.
And as I've been thinking about what I want to release under this week's Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Pisces, this is it.
I am ready to release my fear of the future.
Or maybe more accurately, I'm ready to release the grip it has on me.
But here's where it gets interesting.
I don't think the answer is telling that fearful part of me to f-off.
She didn't appear out of nowhere.
There were times in my life when being hyperaware of what might happen next helped me feel safer (and kept me safer).
That fear had a job.
It wanted me prepared.
It wanted me vigilant.
It wanted to know the plot before the plot happened so nothing could catch me off guard.
That fear helped keep me safe.
So rather than judging it, ignoring it, or pretending one Full Moon ceremony is going to make it disappear forever...
I will acknowledge it.
Thank it.
And tell that part of myself:
You don't have to carry all this worry and fear anymore.
I know you're trying to protect me. I know this helped us once.
And I love you for that.
But you don't have to run the show anymore.
Will fear about the future NEVER come up again after Thursday?
Please.
That's not how I believe healing and releasing work — especially when we're talking about patterns and protective adaptations we've carried for years or even decades.
We don't spend 20, 30, 40+ years practicing a way of surviving and expect one moment of awareness — or one Full Moon ceremony — to magically erase it.
Healing is layered.
Releasing can be layered too.
Sometimes we meet the same thing again, but we meet it with new awareness.
A little more compassion.
A little more choice.
A little less attachment.
And maybe that's something you're experiencing too.
Maybe there's something you KNOW isn't serving you anymore...
but you keep returning to it because it's familiar.
You stay.
Tolerate.
Swallow.
Avoid.
You shrink.
Acquiesce.
Obsess.
You run the same damn program because it's the program you've always known.
And sometimes we say, “I'm ready to let this go”... while another part of us is quietly saying: "Absolutely not!"
Because sometimes the pattern isn't sticking around because we WANT it.
It's sticking around because some part of us still believes we NEED it.
Even when it's painful, familiar can feel safer than the unknown.
That's why one of the questions I'm sitting with this Full Moon is:
How is holding onto this actually helping me?
What does continuing to carry it give me?
And what is it costing me?
Because Friday’s Pisces Lunar Eclipse carries some BIG completion energy.
And I'm not interested in using that energy to pretend something never happened — I'm interested in asking whether I still need to carry it forward.
It's illuminating what we're ready to see.
The patterns.
The fears.
The old stories.
The resentments.
The identities.
The ways of coping that may have once protected us but aren't serving who we are today.
Not so we can shame ourselves for having them.
So we can finally bring them into the light and decide:
Do I want to keep carrying this?
That's the work we'll step into together Thursday during our Full Moon Ceremony + JourneyDance.
And this combination is one of my absolute favorite practices.
Because ceremony gives us space to get curious.
To journal.
To illuminate.
To forgive.
To excavate what's underneath the thing underneath the thing.
To see what we're actually ready to put down.
And then JourneyDance lets the BODY into the conversation.
Because sometimes your body already knows what your mind is still trying to figure out.
We can analyze something.
Journal about it.
Understand where it came from.
Turn it over in our minds 500 different ways.
And still be holding it in our bodies.
So we don't only write about the release.
We dance it.
We breathe into it.
We shake it.
We move it.
We give our bodies an opportunity to put some of that sh*t DOWN.
Because sometimes understanding something isn't the same as releasing it.
And when we put down even a little of what we've been carrying?
We create capacity.
For joy.
Possibility.
Creativity.
Deeper self-trust.
For the dreams we're trying to bring to life.
For whatever wants to come next.
Because it's hard to reach for what you want when so much of your energy is being spent bracing for what you fear.
I'm not expecting to walk away Thursday night magically incapable of worrying about the future.
I'm choosing something much more powerful:
When that old program starts running again, I want to recognize it.
I want to be able to meet that part of myself with compassion and say:
My sweet girl, I know why you're scared.
I know you're trying to protect me.
But we don't need to know the plot before it happens.
Fear can come along for the ride. It just doesn't get to drive anymore.
We can plan for the future.
We can dream about the future.
We can build toward the future.
We just don't have to fear the future.
That's what I'm bringing to the dance floor Thursday.
What are you ready to put down?
And what might become possible if you weren't carrying it anymore?
— Danielle
P.S. This Thursday also marks my 300th JourneyDance® class, and that feels like something worth celebrating!
To say thank you for being part of this community — and to welcome anyone who's been thinking about joining — we're making this New Moon Solar Eclipse JourneyDance® & Ceremony FREE.
If you've been waiting for a sign... maybe this is it…
Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Pisces JourneyDance® + Ceremony
Thursday, August 27
7-8:45pm ET • Online via Zoom • $30
If you can’t make it live, you’ll receive the replay and playlist.
Membership is $35/month and includes this class and all upcoming classes.
If cost is the only thing stopping you, use code SISTER50 for 50% off or apply for a gifted membership. No questions asked. We take care of each other here.
This reflection was originally shared with our email community.
If this event has passed, the invitation is still here — we'd love to welcome you to an upcoming class or event.
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