Are your actions driven by control and fear or inspiration and flow?

A big theme I’ve been working on recently is control and controlling. However I spin this I get to the same consensus: the underlying emotion behind control is fear. 

To better understand in what contexts this control (fear) shows up I’ve observed what drives the actions I take - fear or inspiration. And how these two feel in my body.

Control (fear) feels tense, nervous, shallow breaths, insecure.

Inspiration feels exciting, flowy, relaxed and confident. 

The same action can on one day be driven by control and another day be driven by inspiration, so feeling the difference isn’t straightforward and requires checking in with the body in the moment.

What I’ve also noticed is that the actions (at work, relationships & dating, lifestyle choices such as eating, exercise, attending events etc.) driven by control often have worse outcomes than actions driven by inspiration both in terms of how I feel and what actually happens after. 

Fear is a tricky one because to expand or change, we often need to take actions that are out of our comfort zone. These too can trigger fear. So it’s not fully black and white. There’s a subtle difference though between fear triggered by doing something expansive vs. controlling actions driven by fear. For the former, there’s no ego involved in the decision making - the action is simply driven by a deep knowing of ‘I have to do this‘. For the latter, the ego is involved and the action feels more icky, there’s less excitement and more forcing. The difference is subtle…

Let’s take some examples to show the difference:

Example work:

• Situation 1 (fear / control): offering to deliver a big presentation for a client because it’ll get you closer to that promotion, which you get to share on LinkedIn, which you think will get people to think about you in a certain way. 

• Situation 2 (inspiration): offering to deliver a big presentation for a client, although it’s out of your comfort zone and feels scary, because you know you’re ready for it and want to expand.

Example relationships: 

• Situation 1 (fear / control): texting a guy you’ve recently started dating because you want him to like you. 

• Situation 2 (inspiration): texting a guy you’ve recently started dating because you’re thinking of him. 

Example lifestyle:

• Situation 1 (fear / control): going to the gym although you’re super tired because you’re scared of gaining weight.

• Situation 2 (inspiration): going to the gym because you feel energised and inspired to move your body.

The energy of fear / control repells, feels icky & people can subconsciously feel it.

The energy of flow / inspiration is magnetic, feels GOOD & people can subconsciously feel it.

What also happens when we stop acting from a place of fear and control to living from a place of flow is that overall we become more magnetic. Life flows easier, there’s less grind, hustle and energy spent on forcing.

The first step in working with these energies is to become aware of what energy drives your behaviour by observing how your body feels in different situations and when taking different actions - how does fear feel? how does inspiration feel?

After this, it’s helpful to take a moment before making decisions to feel into how the body feels - which one of the emotions is present?

And finally, beginning to move away from decisions and actions driven by control and fear to ones that are driven by inspiration.

Lots of love, Pia