Stopping fear by slowing down is a powerful tool.
As someone who has spent much of her life operating at a high rate of speed, I have recently discovered the connection between speed and fear. Let me explain how I got there.
In addition to being a soul-level energy healer, psychic, medium, etc., I am passionate about horses. One of the greatest lessons horses can give us is to slow down. But even having owned horses again for 8 years, I didn’t realize the true impact of that until recently. I was trying some new training and body mechanics exercises with my 20-year-old chestnut Anglo-Arab Dancer. One of those was synchronized walking.
Synchronized walking is walking in step with the horse.
If you observe horses together, they often walk in sync with one another. As humans trying to connect with our horses, synchronized walking is a wonderful tool to mimic that behavior. But Dancer was walking a lot slower than my typical fast pace. And I was forced to slow down. And I found it uncomfortable.
That discomfort caused me to analyze the why behind it. What about slowing down brought resistance?
I finally figured it out. My life’s race track speed was driven by fear. I was afraid of being attacked, afraid of failing, afraid of being judged, and even afraid of not being loved. While I have my own personal story of where fear began in my life, the world at large itself is a profound motivator of fear.
We are constantly driven to do more, to be more, to be better, to be successful, to be in a relationship, to have family, to have money, to have a particular home or car or lifestyle, and once we have those things to do MORE of them.
While social media has many wonderful benefits, it can also be a portal for pressure. And don’t get me started on the negativity of the news. Then you have the idolization of celebrities and even kid’s movies and fairy tales that pressure us from the beginning of life to be afraid of not meeting some societal standard.
I finally hit a breaking point of fear in my life around the time I did the synchronized walking with Dancer, and I knew I had to make some changes. I left a bunch of Facebook groups whose members loved to judge, give unsolicited advice, and generally stir up drama. I then came across some pertinent information in my study of Human Design, a philosophy based on astrology, the I Ching, the Kabbalah, and chakras.
In your Human Design chart, there are 9 centers or chakras that can be defined or undefined based on the time and place you were born. The defined centers tend to be your greatest strength. The undefined or open centers have both challenges and gifts. The challenges are that you pick up other people’s thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc., in those centers, or they condition you. For instance, I have an open Head Center and an open Root Center. The open Head Center means that I tend to pick up other people’s “shoulds,” such as “you should be doing this, you should be doing that.” The open Root Center means I can be conditioned by other people’s stress. I actually have 7 total undefined centers out of the 9, but my Head and Root are completely open; they have no definition whatsoever.
As an empath and sensitive, as I’m sure you are, I’ve always protected myself from my clients’ energy. I don’t take it on; I disconnect from their energy once a client session is over. But as I realized as I read about my open Head and Root Center, I was still holding on to a lifetime of conditioning by society, my family, friends, romantic relationships, and even my kids. And all that conditioning was like a race car motor for me. I flew around the track of my life at a speed that would whip your hair.
So, I stopped.
I began to take time every day to decondition myself and clear myself from the “shoulds” and the stress of others. Initially, I took time every day to lay down in the dark, without phones or laptops or books or people or even music and began to ask that anything that was not mine be released. I flushed my body and aura with white light every day.
I began to notice if my mind was racing or fearful about something, and I diverted my thoughts to something positive, something I wanted for my life instead. I knew that the fear I felt wasn’t mine, and I made it leave. I trust my heart and my personal mind to lead me in the right direction. As I cleared those fears and conditioning, I naturally slowed down. I didn’t feel so driven to DO every waking moment.
It took time, and it didn’t happen overnight, but aside from the tremendous peace I now feel, the most exciting thing is how those thoughts about what I wanted instead are coming to fruition. The love I wanted, the life I wanted, the success I wanted, and the family and friends I wanted are all showing up in a big way. I didn’t focus on the “how” things would happen. Worrying about the “how” is fear-based. I just KNEW what I wanted WOULD happen and acted accordingly.
I didn’t hope. I didn’t fear. I knew.
My oldest son is 20 years old and on the autism spectrum. He walks a lot slower than I usually do. One day, instead of encouraging him to catch up to me, I slowed down to walk with him. I grabbed his hand, and I walked with him. He said, “You miss things if you walk too fast.”
And he couldn’t have been more right. Slow down, and you actually WON’T miss things.
In the horse community, we have a saying when training a horse, “Slow is fast.” If you try to rush a horse, you will get nowhere. But if you proceed at the pace he or she needs, you will see tremendous progress.
Try adopting that motto for yourself and see how it works for you. It doesn’t just work on horses.
Article by Julie Bradshaw
Julie Bradshaw is an empath, psychic medium, energy healer, and spiritual teacher based in Austin, Texas. With over 30 years of experience teaching, training, and coaching both people and horses, Julie combines her intuitive gifts, healing abilities, and passion for teaching to guide others on their journeys. Through her coaching and photography, she helps horses—and the people who love them—find peace and harmony.
Learn more about Julie’s work at
https://julie-bradshaw.com.
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