Do I Dislike it? Or Am I Just Scared?

Or is there more on the horizon?

A simple sunset or a signal of a new tomorrow? Ah, the hope of a horizon line.

Last week I wrote about intuition and how following what lights you up can lead you where you really want to go. I also mentioned how confusing it can be when something initially energizes you and then fades – when you suddenly find yourself in between inspiration. I’ve been thinking more about this, particularly about why that initial energy fades. Why would our intuition give us the green light, that clear signal to go forth and try something new, just to pull the plug midway through?

In my previous post, I give the example of baking. I ask you, the reader, to imagine you have an affinity for baking. You like it, you’re good at it, and eventually everyone around you encourages you to turn it into a business. In doing so, or even just in thinking about it, you realize you don’t actually like it after all.

There’s one factor I think plays a part in scenarios like this: fear.

Part of understanding your intuition, I’m learning, is differentiating it from fear.

Both intuition and fear are primal, we feel them in our gut. The tricky part is identifying them, especially when it comes to making an important decision. Intuition is a gut-knowing, while fear feels more like a gut punch, and in my experience, they tend to come hand in hand. I saw a clip recently of Mel Robbins speaking on this topic. She mentions how knowing something in our gut – feeling that quiet nudge we can’t ignore – often initiates a fear response. This is due to the fact that it’s pushing us in a new, vulnerable direction, and change, point blank, is scary. This, she says, is where we tend to mistake our fear as an indication of a wrong direction.

There’s something I started last year that frequently requires me to get out of my comfort zone on a weekly basis. In fact, it thrusts me into the spotlight. It involves public speaking and performing, two things that are inherently terrifying. I’ve been doing it for about six months now and have been wrestling nearly the whole time about whether or not I like it.

It’s all the more confusing because I know I am good at it. Each week, I show up, I perform well, and I find myself doing it again the next week. But each time I do it, I am nervous. I’m six months in, but I’m not necessarily used to it. I’m not used to being watched, and even though it’s getting incrementally easier as time goes on, there’s always voice in the back of my mind asking all sorts of terrifying questions: What if I mess up? What if something goes wrong? What if I embarrass myself? (One time – the first time, actually – I puked just as an attendee, so that visceral fear is a permanent resident living rent-free in my brain.) There are knots in my stomach, but it’s always fine. I consistently manage to compartmentalize, put on my proverbial professional hat and literal microphone, and go. The show must go on, as they say, and it’s something I’ve managed to internalize.

But all the while, I am exhausted. Finding and practicing new material is always a hurdle – a chore, even – and performing is always a shock to my nervous system.

Do I actually dislike it?

Or is this a fear response and I am just scared?

Like I theorized in my previous post, Mel says the way to tell the difference is to drop into your body and pay attention to the feeling of the decision. When you’re aligned (i.e. if the opportunity is right for you), things will feel exciting and full of possibility, you will feel expansive, even if it’s scary. When you’re not, you will feel constrained, like you’re shrinking.

I believe this practice to be true, though I wonder if there’s a middle ground, a less polarized spectrum. Maybe the energy depletion I’m facing is because I this opportunity is wrong for me, or maybe it’s because not everything about it is aligned right now. Maybe I’m in denial and all of it is off, or maybe I’m sensing there’s more to come. Maybe that’s why the water has been so muddy, why I haven’t quit just yet.

But that begs another question:

Am I ignoring my intuition if I’m focusing on hope?

For lack of a better phrase, I hope not.

(You can see where the “overthinker” part comes in to this Substack.)

Ultimately, I think there’s something to be said about the initial draw of an opportunity or decision. If there’s even a little aspect of it that lights you up, I believe you’re heading in the right direction. To me, that’s a positive signal, a golden thread to follow as it weaves your future together. Maybe the light starts to fade when things become less aligned over time, but maybe that just means you shouldn’t get too comfortable because more goodness is on the horizon.