The Day I Met My Fear (And Everything Changed)

Part 3 of 3: The Resistance Series

I had less than $500 to my name.

And I was staring at a $17,000 investment.

Not for a car. Not for a vacation.

For a mentor. A community. A container that would teach me how to actually build a business in the digital world—not the one I'd learned in Czech Republic, but the one here in the US where everything felt louder, faster, more.

My hand was hovering over the "submit payment" button.

And I was drowning.

Not in doubt. In Fear.

The kind of Fear that makes your chest tight. That makes you refresh your bank account seven times like the number might magically change. That whispers "Who do you think you are?" on repeat until you can't tell which thoughts are yours and which ones are just... old programming.

I'd been talking to my emotions for a while by then. Journaling. Having little dialogues. Asking Fear what it needed.

But this time was different.

This time, Fear wasn't just loud.

It was consuming me.

When The Voice Gets Too Loud

Here's what nobody tells you about Fear:

When it gets loud enough, you can't distinguish between your thoughts and its thoughts anymore.

Everything becomes Fear.

What if this fails? What if you waste the money? What if you're not good enough? What if everyone was right about you?

And I kept trying to logic my way through it. To have a rational conversation with this very irrational part of me.

But you can't reason with something that's living IN your body.

So I tried something different.

I asked myself: Where does Fear actually live in my body right now?

My chest. Tight. Heavy. Like a stone sitting on my sternum.

And then I did the thing that changed everything:

I invited it out.

Not to get rid of it. Not to overcome it.

To actually SEE it.

Meet Fear

I closed my eyes and asked: If this Fear stepped outside my body and took physical form, what would it look like?

And there it was.

This large, purple, furry creature. Vibrant purple—the kind you can't ignore. With three big clawed nails on each hand. A round face. Eyes that looked scared but also... worried.

It wasn't a monster, exactly.

It was just... big. And scared. And trying really hard to keep me safe by keeping me stuck.

The moment I could SEE it—not as me, not as a character flaw, but as this separate thing with its own agenda—everything shifted.

The tightness in my chest eased.

My breath deepened.

The mental fog cleared.

And for the first time in weeks, I could hear my OWN voice again.

Not Fear's voice. Mine.

The Relief Was Instant

I'm not going to romanticize this.

It wasn't some mystical breakthrough where angels sang and everything made sense.

It was physiological relief.

My nervous system went from threat response to: Oh. I can see this now. I'm not consumed by it anymore.

And from that place—that tiny bit of distance between me and the Fear—I could actually have a conversation with it.

"Hey Fear, what are you trying to protect me from?"

Failure. Humiliation. Proving everyone right who said you weren't cut out for this.

"Okay. I hear you. And what if I do it anyway?"

And here's the wild part:

Fear didn't disappear.

But it also didn't have the same grip anymore.

Because I wasn't trying to silence it or bulldoze through it.

I was just... including it. Acknowledging it. And then choosing differently anyway.

I hit submit on that payment.

And everything changed.

It's Not Just Fear

Here's what I learned:

This practice—personifying emotions, bringing them outside your body, creating that psychological distance—it's not just for Fear.

It works for ALL of it.

Resistance. Anger. Grief. Trust. Joy.

Any emotion that feels too big to hold, too consuming to navigate, too loud to hear past.

You can bring it to life. Give it form. Have a conversation with it.

And suddenly, you're not at war with yourself anymore.

You're in relationship with all your parts.

Which is why my business is called The Interconnected Self.

Because we don't have to dismember these parts of ourselves. Abandon them. Dismiss them.

We get to hold them as true while staying in our sovereignty.

We get to be the ones making the decisions—not our Fear, not our Resistance, not our conditioning.

Us.

The Work Never Stops (And That's Okay)

Fast forward to now.

I've worked with UN Ambassadors. Taken stages internationally. Built a thriving membership community.

And you know what?

Resistance still shows up.

Recently, I made a decision to shift how the Visibility Sandbox operates.

My clients deserved more implementation time. More space to actually DO the work instead of just learning more things. Less training, more integration.

That part was clear.

But here's what I didn't want to say out loud:

I also needed it.

My husband and I are opening ourselves to expanding our family. To welcoming children. And the idea of doing weekly training calls while navigating that journey? It didn't feel aligned.

So the shift served both of us—my clients AND me.

But Resistance showed up anyway.

Your needs are an inconvenience. What about the people who wanted the old format? What if they think you're abandoning them? What if your personal desires make you a bad leader?

You see what happened there?

Resistance was trying to make me choose between their needs and mine.

Like both couldn't be true. Like wanting something for myself AND my clients was somehow selfish.

That old pattern of making my needs smaller so others could stay comfortable.

And I caught it.

I saw it.

I brought my Resistance to life, asked it what it was protecting, thanked it for trying to keep me from being "too difficult"—

And I made the shift anyway.

This Is The Work

I'm sharing this because I need you to know:

I'm not on the other side of this.

I'm not standing on some pedestal telling you I figured it all out and now Resistance never shows up for me.

That would be bullshit.

The work doesn't stop.

Resistance will keep showing up in new disguises. In bigger decisions. In moments where what you want and what you've been conditioned to want are at odds.

But here's what changes:

You get faster at seeing it.

You recognize the patterns. The old voices. The systems trying to pull you back.

And you can choose differently.

Not because you're "healed" or "fixed" or "beyond" Resistance.

But because you're in relationship with it now.

You can see it clearly.

You can thank it for trying to protect you.

And you can gently, firmly, choose what's actually aligned—even when it scares you. Even when it feels like an inconvenience. Even when the old rules say you shouldn't.

Time to Play

If any of this resonated—if you've been fighting with your Resistance, trying to push through it, wondering why it won't just leave you alone—

I want you to try something:

Bring it to life!

Give it form. Color. Personality. Voice.

Create that psychological distance so you can finally hear what it's actually trying to tell you.

And then decide what YOU want to do with that information.

Not what you should do. What you WANT to do.

Because this is your life.

Your medicine.

Your movement.

And Resistance? It's just information.

It's not the enemy. It's not a character flaw.

It's a part of you.

And you get to choose whether to keep following its rules or install a whole new way of being.

If you're ready to go deeper—to see what disguises your Resistance wears, to understand what patterns it's enforcing, to build a sustainable relationship with this part of you—

Join us inside the Visibility Sandbox.

This is where we do the work together. Where you're not figuring this out alone in your office at midnight wondering if you're doing it wrong.

Where you have a community of women who GET IT. Who are in the arena with you. Who understand that visibility starts with safety and that this work is about liberation, not performance.

Already a member?

Check out the exclusive deeper dive resources and invitations waiting for you inside the Sandbox

See you in the revolution,

Des 💃🏽

P.S. - Resistance will try to tell you this isn't the right time. That you should wait until you're more ready, more healed, more whatever. That voice? That's exactly what we're here to work with. Come anyway.