Invitation to Escape Our Mental Prisons

Fear is an emotion we have always labelled as bad, something to avoid, right?
What if, all this time, we have been looking at it from the wrong side?

Since the beginning of humankind, we have been afraid of things: the dark, heights, wild animals.
During the stone age, darkness was the biggest enemy because it hid what was inside.
Wild animals were another threat, a sign that humans had not yet established dominance over nature.
Fear of heights, however, managed to preserve its ground. How many of us are still afraid of taking a flight?

What it reveals is clear: we fear the things we cannot control.
Having control means having power, and for humans, power has always been worth killing over; not only animals, but also their very own kind.

But what does power mean to each one of us?
That question has itched my mind for a while now and I finally managed to come up with an answer.

Power means belonging, and that is why it differs for each of us.
It sounds simple, but let me phrase it this way: belonging is the thread we cling to. If that thread is fragile, it can snap at the first breeze. Wouldn’t that rip you from where you belonged? Would you still be able to hold on?

I believe the answer is, no.

We attach our sense of belonging to the places where we feel strongest. No one chooses to define themselves by what makes them feel powerless.
What if the fear of being powerless was the head architect behind the mental prisons we built for ourselves in the first place?

Even fear of missing out comes from the same place: our awareness of mortality, of time slipping away.

All my life, I have listened to my friends vent, and I realised that when it comes to fear of missing out, almost no one builds it around what they truly want.

Think about it, if you truly wanted something in the first place, would you ever decline? And yet, how often do we circle back, not because the thing itself matters, but because of what it represents. It is not just about the event, the trip, or the conversation. It is about the thought of others moving ahead while we stay behind.

When others experience what we have not, they talk and laugh about it, and sometimes they even show it off. In that moment, the balance shifts.
They hold the story, the memory, the proof of having been there. We do not.
They gain the upper hand, and what we are left with is not just absence, but a gnawing sense of powerlessness.

The fear of missing out is rarely about missing the thing itself. It is about the hierarchy that forms when others have what we lack. It is the subtle reminder that belonging can be fragile, and when we are excluded, even by chance, we feel the thread slip from our hands.

What hurts most is not the missed moment.
It is the loss of power, the sense that others get to define the narrative while we are left as silent witnesses.

Today, I shed light on an aspect I loved most about myself because I wondered whether that too had a shadow side: romanticising life. I prefer to look at things through the pink cloud above my head, it is my secret weapon and it creates entire worlds when this one feels like it has nothing new to offer.
Up until now, I did not realise that one of its core generators was fear too, maybe even its shadow side.

I never wanted to break free of my La La Land because, deep down, I always knew the reality of life would not satisfy. It granted escape I could leverage, allowing me to experience something others could not. That always gave me the upper hand, sparing me from feeling powerless even if I had nothing to thrive.

Yet there was a time when even my dreams could not bring me back to the wheel of my life.
When the biggest rupture of my life hit me, I was left only with grey clouds in my pink sky.

Imagine waking up every day with the question:
“Will I be able to walk properly today?”

When I pictured lifting my foot to step forward, I felt the sense of failure take hold of me. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, but fear kept stopping me before I even tried.

Those were the most unbearable products of what I once called my escape. In time, that escape became the place I needed to escape from. Storm was too strong and I had nothing to hold on.

That was when the two greatest enemies of my soul joined forces: the fear of failure and the fear of my illness taking over.
I had not realised it at the time, but now I understand why it cut so deeply.
Together they stripped away my power, where I was bound and where I belonged.

Now that things have cooled down, I wanted to shift perspective and ask myself:
What would have happened if I had not feared losing power anymore? If I had looked fear in the eye and accepted defeat? Would that not have allowed me to rest in being powerless, giving me the freedom of having nothing to prove in life?

I now realise that sometimes, letting go of the upper hand brings more ease, because life allows you to just simply be. From where I see it now, it feels like that is where the real power lies.

Ask yourself: how much of your fear is tied to the ground of remaining powerful?How much of it is the desperation to hold on to control?

We never dared to see the power we once believed was ours for what it truly was.
It was the force that fed our fears.

It is time to turn the wheel, to let go of the illusion, and to return our power gently to its rightful place within.

If we all allowed ourselves to rest in that powerless state, even for a single day, the world would no longer seem so terrifying.

Perhaps it would reveal itself as something softer, something that does not need conquering, but simply inhabiting.

Let’s see if it Makes Sense ?

If this struck you, let others break free from their prisons too.