Facing Fear and Habits: The Loop That Keeps You Trapped (RIJ #11)

There’s something mysterious about being human. We can recognize the damage, feel the weight of regret, even make heartfelt promises to stop, to change, to finally do things differently, and still find ourselves doing it again.

Pause with me for a moment.

Why do certain fears, anxieties, or painful patterns never seem to go away? There’s a reason, but it’s not always obvious.

Together, let’s do the inner digging and bring it the light.

Why Negative Beliefs Feel So Real (But Aren’t)

Beliefs are reality generators. They don’t just influence what you see, they filter everything to fit their narrative.

Positive beliefs are generous: they let you change. Negative beliefs? Not so much. They act like viruses. They lie.

They’ll whisper:

You’re not good enough.

You don’t deserve this.

If you try, you’ll fail.

You’ll be alone.

It’s dangerous to change.

And because belief creates experience, these lies feel real. That’s how they trap you. But here’s the secret:

The greater the fear, the closer you are to a turning point: freedom or the cycle repeating.

Why? Because fear is the final defense mechanism of the dying belief. It knows it’s losing power.

Fear plays every trick in the book to survive. But remember this, what you focus on in fear tends to multiply.

The way to freedom isn’t through fear. It’s through release, and the courage to begin with a new blueprint.

The Truth About Habits and Patterns

You don’t keep a habit because you’re weak. You keep it because, on some level, you believe it’s serving you.

A habit is invisible while you’re in it. Only when you truly see it, when you become fully aware of it, do you begin to exit the cycle. Not slowly. Instantly.

Once you become aware of the pattern, you don’t have it anymore. That’s the paradox: Awareness is the cure.

But if the pattern keeps coming back? That means you’re not done yet. There’s a core belief still buried deep.

It’s that belief, not the behavior, that keeps recreating the experience. So how do you stop it?

Well, you keep digging. You investigate. You ask, over and over again, what must I believe to be true in order to keep choosing this behavior?

For example, with emotional eating, could it be that food, deep down, I perceive it as my source of comfort?

With people-pleasing, could it be that deep down I believe that if I say no, I’ll disappoint someone and they won’t value me?

How about in compulsive spending? Could it be that I have a deep fear of missing out?

I hope you can see the pattern and where I’m going with this. Keep asking the questions until the root belief reveals itself.

Then question that belief until it falls apart. Meditation is the best practice to uncover the truth.

The Skeleton Key: It’s Just a Belief

Every negative belief is rooted in a lie, the lie that this is the only truth. But truth doesn’t cause fear.

Truth doesn’t shame you or paralyze you. Truth liberates. So when you feel fear, it’s a signal. You’re not seeing the truth. You’re believing a lie.

For nearly ten years, I held on too tightly to my daughter, Zaya. I wasn’t just protecting her from danger, I was shielding her from life.

What I thought was love was really fear, disguised as care. And that fear had become a habit.

Every time her friends called, I found a reason to say no. “She’s resting.” “We’re busy.”

But deep down, I was just afraid, afraid of what I couldn’t control, afraid of something happening without me there to stop it.

It wasn’t until one evening, after yet another no, that everything shifted. My husband and I talked, really talked.

And for the first time, I saw the truth. My fear was holding her back, and it was holding me back too.

That awareness hit like a jolt, and I snapped out of it. I said yes.

Yes to her freedom.

Yes to breaking my pattern.

Yes to trusting what we’ve poured into her.

Overprotectiveness felt safe, but it was a lie. Don’t let a lie quietly steal your happiness.

The Loop That Keeps You Trapped

When negative beliefs take over, they become destructive and create a pain loop that keeps you trapped.

Here’s how it all happens:

First, you feel fear about the habit you’ve been stuck in.

Second, you start to believe something bad will happen if you keep going.

Third, somehow you stay where you are, even though it hurts.

Fourth, you feel guilty and judge yourself for staying stuck.

Fifth, that judgment reinforces the negative belief: “See? I am a failure.”

It’s a self-feeding loop. The only way out is to stop invalidating your fear. Stop judging it. And start questioning it instead.

One of the most common areas where people tend to stay stuck is with money. That loop has a strong grip on so many lives.

Often, people suppress their excitement or creative impulses because they believe it will cost money they don’t have.

But that’s a harmful belief to keep reinforcing. Limitations aren’t real, they’re just beliefs we’ve accepted.

Here’s a helpful reframe: Abundance is the ability to do what you need to do, when you need to do it.

Sometimes that includes money. But more often than not, it looks like:

A conversation

A connection

A free opportunity

When you only allow abundance to come through money, you close the door to all the other forms it’s trying to reach you through.

So the next time you say, “I can’t because I don’t have the money,” try asking yourself:

What if money isn’t required for this next step, or how can I afford it? Questions like these interrupt the loop and open up new paths.

They invite fresh possibilities and create space for change to begin.

The Wounded Child Within

So often, the fears that hold us back and guide our habits come from places beyond our own beginnings.

They were passed down, absorbed, or silently agreed to in moments when we were just trying to feel safe.

But the truth is, safety isn’t the same as freedom. And survival isn’t the same as living. That loop you’ve been caught in?

It was built on old beliefs, like:

I have to stay small to be loved.

If I try, I’ll fail.

Joy will cost me.

I’m not ready. I’m not enough.

But those beliefs only have power if you keep agreeing with them. So I invite you to ask yourself, gently, without judgment:

What is fear still protecting in me? And is that protection even necessary anymore?

Because the moment you become aware of the pattern, the power to break it starts to build.

And when you shift from fear to knowing, from habit to truth, the loop begins to dissolve.

You don’t need to keep living like healing is somewhere far away. It begins when you see yourself clearly, lovingly, as already whole.

You don’t need to earn joy. You don’t need to hustle for worth. You just need to stop feeding the belief that says you’re not already free.

Fear will throw every trick at you to keep surviving, but freedom begins the moment you say, “This pattern is no longer mine.”

Let the fear go.

Let the habit go.

Let the old story rest.

And walk forward, not as someone broken, but as someone awakening. This is your turning point.

The Hidden Script: Why We Know Better But Don’t Do Better (RIJ #2)

If this spoke to you, please share it. There is someone out there struggling with a belief rooted in fear, a belief that was never truly theirs. Let’s remind them they can choose again.