Fear to Possibility: Letting Go of Limits

Jo Green
Jun 22
2 min read

Last time I wrote about busy-ness — and how often, it’s a life built from fear. Fear of stopping. Fear of being judged. Fear of what might surface if we slowed down. And how it is possible to live differently.

Since then, more conversations have unfolded — with clients, friends, even over a coffee and a tea in the kitchen with my husband. And there’s something I keep hearing:

“I know what I don’t want. But I’ve got no idea what I do want.”

Sound familiar?

When we only know what we don’t want, we tend to stay stuck in that space — because that’s where our attention lives. Our subconscious mind doesn’t process “don’t” the way we think it does. It just hears the content.

So “I don’t want to feel this stuck” becomes… stuckness.

“I don’t want to be so stressed” becomes… stress.

It’s frustrating. And it’s human.

I was chatting to my husband about this the other day (with his permission to share this, of course). He’s done an Ironman. An Ironman. That’s pretty unbelievable to me — all those hours of swimming, cycling, running.

I said to him, “If you can do that, surely anything’s possible?”

He paused, then said something that stuck with me:

“But with the Ironman, I knew what to do. I had to get good at three things. The path was clear. Looking inwards and figuring out what I actually want… that feels a million miles away.”

And I think a lot of people feel that.

We’ve been taught, even lovingly conditioned, to think within the lines. To be realistic. To know our limits. It came from care — from parents, teachers, society — all wanting to keep us safe, avoid disappointment.

But now? For many of us, this is what feels disappointing: a life that doesn’t quite fit. A sense that something’s missing, even if everything looks “fine” on the outside.

There’s a quote I stumbled across the other day — you might have seen it too:

“People be like ‘that’s not realistic’ as if the entire universe is not a living miracle beyond our wildest imagination.”

So maybe, just for a moment, we can put the rules down. Let go of what’s “realistic.” Step outside of the lines we were taught to stay inside.

Just imagine.

Imagine what your life might look like if there were no limits.

If you didn’t have to get it perfect.

If the only thing guiding you was how you want to feel.

And maybe that’s the key — we don’t need to know all the answers just yet.

Maybe the place to begin is with feeling.

⸻

A little invitation to explore…

Take a few minutes, a journal, a walk, a quiet moment.