A few weeks ago, I was listening to a podcast about spirituality and manifesting. Dheandra Nicolette, the host, was talking about her fear of success, and this was something I deeply related to. I have often reflected on my own fear of success and why I would be afraid of something that, for the most part, I really want.

The fear of success generally comes down to two things:

1. The fear of change
2. The fear of being unworthy

I'm going to get into number two, which for me is arguably the bigger and more daunting fear, in my next post. Today, I'm diving into why the fear of success is really the fear of change. And what is the fear of change? It's really the fear of the unknown. When you achieve success that is beyond what you know now, your life will change in ways you can't yet fathom.

One reason we fear success and its changes is because success is a creative force. It creates abundance, wealth, clients, support, and maybe even fame. Creation and creativity are beautiful things. They are the essence of the Universe in which we live. The Universe itself is constantly creating itself anew. It creates new worlds, new dimensions, entire new galaxies, all the time. To be in a state of creativty and creation is to be in harmony with the Universe which we are a part of.

However, because we live in a dualistic Universe, when something is created something else must be destroyed. And this is the part that can make us break out in a nervous sweat. What is destroyed is often an old version of our own Self. A Self that lived in a state of lack and limitation. A Self that only shone a fraction as brightly as it could. A Self that perhaps was not happy and knew it wasn't living to its full potential, but none the less, a Self we are intimately familiar with.

We know this Self, and even if we're not exactly happy in this state of being, we know what to expect and how to navigate everything that comes with it. 

There are no surprises, which might sound good, but that's only because we are conditioned to expect bad surprises and not good ones. We are told over and over again what terrible, awful things can happen in this world, and our brains are in a constant state of preparation for literal doom. We are rarely reminded of how often good surprises happen, and therefore, because we don't expect them, we only associate the unexpected and change with pain and suffering.

​In truth, change often leads to brilliant and beautiful new avenues we never dreamed we'd walk upon. But because we believe they aren't possible, we never open up to them, which confirms, there's nothing good beyond where we are now! We get stuck in a feedback loop of fear and hopelessness, which affirms, this world is bad bad bad. However, I'm sure if you really sit with it, you will see in your own life that positive surprises and positive changes happen as often, if not more, than the bad ones.

But the bad ones do happen, right? They sure do. Sometimes change is a kick in the gut, and it really does feel awful when it's happening. The solution to this isn't to root in and determine ALL change is bad. Letting one outcome determine all possibilities for the rest of your life will leave you feeling shutdown. Embracing change - including wild, unfathomable success - doesn't involve shutting down, but rather, learning how to navigate the unwanted and to shift our focus back onto what we do want. This is essentially the process of learning to have faith in yourself and the tools you have for well-being. For me, this means leaning on my meditation practice, reminding myself of my accomplishments, and knowing when to ask for help and support.

Let's get back to the core fear of change we often have with success - the fear of our own Self changing.

Knowing we must let go of one version of ourself and open up to one we don't yet know can be overwhelming. If I allow the Self I am now to dissolve, what will rise up in its place? What if it's a terrible version of me!? What if it's greedy and cruel and ends up bitter and alone? Do these thoughts sound familiar? This again is a reflection of how we are conditioned to expect the worst outcomes at all times. In reality, do you really think success would destroy all your morals and integrity? Based on the path you've been on, do you think you would lose all sense of compassion and empathy for others? Or would success only enhance your love for others and allow you to give back in ways you never dreamed? This positive outcome is generally not our brains default, and retraining our brains in this way is how we navigate this fear.

Again, it also comes back to having faith in your Self. Knowing you will still be you, just expanded and brighter, when successful, is essential here. If you doubt yourself and your ability to stay steady through change, then yes, change and success seem terrifying! Finding ways to trust yourself are key to moving past this fear. 

But maybe it's not the fear of YOU changing that holds you back. Maybe it's how the world around you will change. Your friend circle may change. Where you live. What hobbies you like. You may find yourself living a life so different than the one you have now, it's as if it's in an alternate reality. And yet it's not - it's you, here, having evolved and grown.

Changing friends, locations, and lifestyle all trigger our brain in the same way we've talked about. Our brain goes into a state of self-protection and starts telling you all the WORST things that will happen. You'll only have friends that care about your money! You'll live in a big house and the property taxes will destroy you! You'll hate your new life and wish you'd never been successful at all!

This, like everything else we've discussed, requires a refocusing of our perspective. If you're successful, and you're a wonderful, loving, kind person, then doesn't it stand to reason there will be other wonderful, kind, loving people on the path you're on? Is is really possible you will be the ONLY successful person who cares about kindness and compassion? I mean truly, in a world of BILLIONS of people, how is it possible you will be the ONLY person who achieves great things while also being a good friend? Surely there will be thousands of friendly, amazing people you meet along the way that light you up even further. Right? Right!

We could go on for awhile about all the other fear of change that comes with success - such as moving, changing habits, changing your lifestyle, and so on. But I would like to end here and allow you to reflect on those for yourself. In what ways have you held onto a distorted perspective of why you should be afraid of success?

The answer that might be coming to you right now is, Okay, I can learn to see the good in change. But what if I'm not actually good enough? What if I'm not worthy of shining so bright people need sunglasses just to be near me? I hear you! This fear, which is often called "Imposter Syndrome" is a BIG one. Everyone deals with it in some way. We're going to get into it in the next post, so stay tuned!

And for now, I've made this meditation to help you with navigating change. I hope you like it! If you know someone who could benefit from this blog post or meditation, please share!

​​This is part 2 or 3 on the fear of success. You can go back to part 1, the fear of the unknown, by clicking here.

​Today, I'm sharing a discussion I recorded on Self-Worth and Self-Love for my podcast. 

The discussion is followed with a 15 minute meditation. This guided meditation will help you to rewire your brain for positive self-esteem. 

In this episode, I discuss:
• A quote from the book "Happy Days" by Gabby Bernstein
• How all people struggle with negative self-talk, even the uber successful
• What my own negative self-talk sounds like and how I developed it
• How we project our negative self-talk out into the world around us
• How to reframe our negative thoughts and beliefs
• Why our brains default to the negative and inner criticism
• What change entails and how to begin it 
​​

For more soulful conversations, guided meditations, and visualizations, find me on your favorite podcast app using the button below!

Thank you so much for joining me for this powerful conversation and meditation! ​Your support makes a difference!

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Find me on Instagram: @meditate_with_melissa

This mini meditation break was created for days when you have less time, less energy, or just need a quick moment to pause and take a deep breath. I will be creating more mini meditations like this along with my regular meditations. My regular meditations are around 10 minutes long, with some being a few minutes longer or shorter.

I will no longer be posting these meditations to this blog, so if you'd like to follow my meditations please subscribe to my podcast! You can find me on iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud and more. Click the button below to learn more! You can also follow my meditations through my new Instagram page @meditate_with_melissa or on Twitter @CalmWithMelissa.

If you enjoy this meditation, please share it with someone who could benefit! These mini-meditations are great to share with friends who are new to meditation. Thank you so much!

This is a meditation you can play every day to help you to feel calm, centered, and grounded. It's deeply soothing and relaxing. Some of the things you can use it for is to restore your energy mid-day, to reduce anxiety, to return to yourself if you feel you're taking on other people's energy, to feel loved and supported, and to find relief from depression.

If you enjoy this meditation, please share it with someone else who could benefit! And if you'd like to hear more meditations, you can find me on your favorite podcast app by clicking the button below.

When it comes to working with the Law of Attraction, you hear a lot of talk about energy. You hear about your vibration, the vibration of wealth, the vibration of success, the vibration of lack, and so on. You become intimately aware that everything is energy, and you want your energy to line up with the energy of your desire.

But what exactly does this mean, and why is it so important?

Think of everything in this Universe, including you, as a tuning fork. When a tuning fork is struck, invisible vibrations roll off of it as waves. These waves travel for quite a ways, sending their vibrations through anything and everything that is nearby.

If another tuning fork is nearby that has the same pitch (or very close), that tuning fork will begin to vibrate. It will become activated by the original tuning fork's vibrations rolling through it as waves. This is known as sympathetic resonance, and it's true of string instruments as well as tuning forks.

Sympathetic resonance or sympathetic vibration is a harmonic phenomenon wherein a passive string or vibratory body responds to external vibrations to which it has a harmonic likeness - Wikipedia

Now, let's say that each one of your thoughts is like a powerful tuning fork. You think a thought, which activates it, and its specific frequency of waves go out into the Universe. And because thoughts are not physical matter, but rather quantum forms of energy, they are not limited by time or distance. They can and will travel to the farthest corners of all dimensions.

As your thoughts travel out from you, they come into contact with other energetic bodies. When they reach an energy body that is a harmonic match, they activate that energy body. It begins to vibrate, and its energy activates something within you, because you are a vibrational match to it. This, in essence, is how we get stuck in loops of pattern or experiences.

If you continually experience something you don't like, such as money problems, it is because you are stuck in a vibrational feedback loop.

Let's look at this through a specific example. You've started your own business, and you're struggling to attract clients. You begin to think thoughts such as "there's just not enough," "I am in so much debt", and "this isn't working, why isn't it working?"

These thoughts travel out through the cosmos as quantum energy waves, and everything that is a harmonic match to these thoughts is activated. These vibrational matches begin vibrating and flowing back to you, and they show up in your world as physical manifestations. A matching vibrational manifestation could be something such as your rent suddenly being raised, clients not paying their bills, clients cancelling at the last minute, an unexpected expense, and so on.

So long as you continue to send out vibrations on this same pitch, you will activate experiences that lead to further thoughts of lack, doubt, and fear. The only way to see new, better, and more positive experiences flowing in is to change your vibration from within.

Your experiences will not change from something outside of you. For example, you will not get a sudden in flow of cash, feel excited, raise your vibration, and begin attracting new experiences. You are the master tuning fork, and everything is responding to your inner vibration. The only way to stop the negative feedback loop is to change YOUR vibration, activate new energies in the quantum field, and then focus on the new things flowing in that uplift you, thus creating a positive feedback loop.

Once you change your vibration, you will no longer activate the low frequencies that send negative experiences your way. You will instead send out vibrations on a new pitch, which will activate new experiences, such as new clients, bills getting paid, unexpected gifts, and so on. What you activate from this new vibration will be a total surprise.

Keep in mind that the Universe is unlimited in its scope. You can't even imagine all the gifts and blessings that will be activated and flowed back to you from your new vibration!​

As you change your vibration, or the frequency you are sending out, it will be as if you are tuning a guitar. It will take some adjusting to get to your new harmonic resonance. For this reason, you don't want to try one thing and then declare it doesn't work. Rather, you want to see this as a process of fine tuning that you play with, continuously adjusting your thoughts and actions based on the feedback you are getting.

For help and guidance with this, I've put together a powerful manifesting and Law of Attraction course. It will help you to shift, adjust, and raise your frequency using high vibration guided meditations and journal prompts. This course will raise your frequency one step at a time, leading you into mastery over your energy and the Law of Attraction. To learn more about this, click the button below!

When I first came across the idea that a fear of success could be slowing my progress, I was intrigued but not all that invested. How could I be afraid of something I wanted? What I didn't realize was that a fear of success encapsulates a lot of other very big, and very real fears.

I'm going to dive deeper into this in the next blog post, which is going to take us through part 2 of this fear. In part 2, we're going to get into how a fear of change is one of the main contributing factors to a fear of success. For today's part, the main discussion is done on the audio for the meditation.

Discussing the topic we're going to be meditating on is something new I'm adding to my podcast. I'll be occassionally doing a short talk before some meditations, around 5 minutes, to lay a foundation for the meditation that will follow. If you're ready to learn about the fear of success, and how a big part of it is actually the fear of the unknown, click play below!

The discussion is 4 minutes, and the meditation about 10. I hope you enjoy this new interactive format. I'll try and do more discussions combined with meditation in the future! If you have any topics you'd like me to cover, leave a comment below or shoot me a message on my Instagram page (@meditate_with_melissa).

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to meditate with me! If you know someone who could benefit from this meditation, please share.