Aligned Action Isn’t the Absence of Fear

When the Next Step Feels Vulnerable

This month, I’ve been writing a lot about aligned action.

Not forced action.
Not pressure.
Not “push through no matter what.”

Aligned action.

The kind of action that comes after:
you pause, notice the thought loop, separate the facts from the story,
and calm the emotional charge enough for clarity to return.

And then life gave me an opportunity to practice exactly what I’ve been teaching.

I’ve been working on turning my Transform Your Life class into a self-paced online course.

For a while now, I’ve known this was probably the next aligned step for me. I’m retired. I don’t want to build a business that requires constant hustle or working full-time again. What I want is something sustainable:
a few classes a year,
a few coaching clients,
maybe some speaking engagements,
and online courses that allow people to learn at their own pace.

It makes sense. So why was I procrastinating? Not because I don’t believe in the material. Because being seen feels vulnerable sometimes.

Fear Rarely Announces Itself Clearly

The thoughts sounded familiar:
What if I’m not smart enough?
What if I look old on camera?
What if what I offer isn’t valuable enough?

That’s the thing about fear: it rarely announces itself clearly.

It doesn’t usually say,
“Hello, I am fear.”

Instead it shows up as:
delay,
overthinking,
waiting until you feel “more ready,”
or finding a hundred other things to do first.

But this month’s theme kept circling back to me: aligned action doesn’t mean fear disappears first. It means you recognize the fear…calm the emotional charge…
and take one honest step anyway.

Calming the Emotional Charge

And interestingly, several things happened that helped my nervous system settle enough for me to finally sit down, open Zoom, and record the first module.

One was a post I read about the psychological benefits of showing your face online. The idea stayed with me because it explained that humans are evolutionarily wired to read facial expressions. Seeing someone’s face increases empathy, builds trust, and creates a deeper sense of connection. In a digital world, visual visibility helps humanize our online presence. Something about that shifted my perspective. Maybe showing my face wasn’t about performance or perfection. Maybe it was simply about allowing myself to be seen as a real human being.

Another piece came from the Women’s Circle I’m part of. We had been talking about how difficult it can be to break through the fear of visibility. One woman in the group, who is also a coach, shared how vulnerable it felt for her to begin posting videos of herself talking online. But she kept doing it anyway.

Then she said something that stayed with me:

“At our age, people often see us as elders… wise women.”

Something softened in me when she said that.

Maybe I didn’t need to compete with younger voices. Maybe experience itself had value.

And then came the deepest insight of all.

The Wisdom of the Blackberry Bush

In another class I’m taking, we explored the concept of our “Guardians” — the protective part of ourselves that formed when we were young.

During a meditation, we met this protector and later created SoulCollage cards from the experience.

My Guardian was a blackberry bush.

That surprised me at first… until I remembered my childhood. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where blackberries grow wild. Every summer we picked gallons of them. The bushes were thorny and messy. They scratched our skin and stained our fingers and clothes purple.

But from those thorny bushes came beautiful things:
jam,
juice,
pies,
strudels.

Somewhere in my childhood mind, the blackberry bush became a symbol of protection.

Stay in line.
Be careful.
Don’t color outside the box.
Be the good girl.

And honestly, that protector served a purpose for a long time.

But sitting with that image now, I realized something: I don’t need the blackberry bush to protect me in the same way anymore. I don’t need to stay small to stay safe. But I can harvest the wisdom from all those thorny experiences life has brought me.

What Aligned Action Really Feels Like

That realization calmed something in me.

Not perfectly.
Not permanently.

But enough.

Enough for me to sit down, record Module 1, and see how it felt.

And honestly?

It felt very different than force. Not because all the fear disappeared. But because I stopped fighting myself long enough for my body to feel safe enough to move forward.

That, to me, is aligned action.

Not giant leaps.
Not perfect confidence.

Just one honest step taken from a clearer, calmer place.

And sometimes…that changes everything.

Thanks to Magnific (formerly Freepik) for the images.