Anna Nomas

@Matthi Small victories are huge when you’re suffering. zoom in and take each moment at a time. celebrate every moment that you move through the fear, even for literally one second, then next time two seconds… and so on. Let yourself be proud of these moments of growth and be open to self love despite suffering

@Spiritual Warrior I like that you specified part of your visualization is being able to imagine yourself doing it well, turning some focus inward, versus focusing only on the external circumstances. That's a helpful way to gain some clarity

I'm struggling to tell the difference between my higher intuition and unnecessary fear. I often feel fearful and anxious before doing things, especially social things. Sometimes I pay attention to those feelings because they're my intuition telling me that the situation is not right. Other times, my intuition tells me that the experience is worth pursuing despite of anxiety, and that I need to move through the fear to grow. Sometimes I can't tell which is the case. How do you know when anxiety/fear is showing you a "red flag" that a situation is not suited for you, versus when it's just holding you back from your potential?

I've experienced two extreme ends of the spectrum. For first few decades of life, emotionally suppressed to the max. Rarely listened to my emotions and feelings and was often unaware of them. I lived determined to always use my logical mind. Meanwhile, I was hypersensitive to other people's emotions and gifted at handling them because of my ability to shut down my own. Great for business, terrible for inner peace. When I started doing personal development, I went the other way with it, and began to feel power and freedom to express my emotions and feelings. It felt like my "emotional circuit board" turned on - and I caught up on feeling decades worth of stuff. This was an intense, liberating and terrifying phase, because to @StarStruck's point, yes I did feel weak in a lot of ways, mainly because this emotional flood compromised my ability to be pragmatic and action-oriented. Terrible for business, great for self-love. Now I'm in the process of balancing both skills 1) the ability to compartmentalize emotions in order to take the best action, and 2) the gift of allowing yourself permission to listen to how you feel and let that educate your choices in life when needed. The result (so far) - The more in touch with my emotions and feelings I become, the more reality aligns with my needs and desires. But this isn't just a result of feeling things. For me, it's from balancing stoicism and logic with sensitivity and self-compassion. Love this topic. Super important.

Most of my experiences have been with psilocybin. One of the first lessons I learned for pre-trip mindset: 1) Acknowledge your expectations Expectations like: "I bet THIS is the trip that will solve my anxiety or trauma once and for all." "my last trip ended with me feeling wonderful; I bet this time will be great, too." "my last trip was so challenging. I bet this time will be horrible, too." For my first several trips, I would set a great intention (to "let go" for instance), but then enter the experience totally unaware of (or ignoring) all of these other preconceived expectations and attachments. Now, I'm HONEST with myself about any expectations and feelings, and remind myself of the reality that it's impossible to completely predict and control the course of a trip. Underneath those expectations was of course, fear. Eventually, I got hip to the fact that forming expectations was my attempt at resolving the fear of entering the unknown and trying to gain control of it. I always acknowledge these feelings by admitting: "I'm pretty scared to enter the unknown during this trip, but I'm also proud of myself for having the courage. I trust myself and intend to do my best to surrender and face whatever comes." My main point is - the more honest my inner dialogue is before going into a trip - the more bonded I feel with myself during the experience, and I feel stronger to handle the challenges. It may sound basic, but it was profound to embody this for the first time - instead of suppressing my inner thoughts and feelings, fully giving myself permission and compassion to feel whatever I felt, think whatever I thought. This made me feel ready and willing to fear go. (( Many years )) of working with Psilocybin has helped me trust myself again. The journey continues. <3 One of my favorite lessons learned for during a trip: 1) Sing