fear of perception: breaking the cycle of shrinking yourself

Insecurity and fear can't exist in the reality of who you were made to be, so why do we keep shrinking ourselves over what people might think? This episode breaks down the fear of perception with real, practical steps: mindset shifts, baby steps for showing up boldly, and emotional tools to make being seen feel safe again. Scripture-rooted. Overthinker-approved.

Transcript

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Hi y'all, we are back with another episode of What If It All Works Out, the Conversations for the Overthinker Turnovercomer. I am your host, Daviana, and welcome to what episode is this? We are on episode four of season two. If you are new here, welcome friends. It's good to have you. I'm glad that you have joined us. Feel free to stay a while. And if you're returning, I am happy to see you again. And today we're going to be talking about something that I believe a lot of us carry quietly, but we don't really name it out loud, at least for me. And that is going to be the fear of perception. Fear of perception to me is speaking in terms of fear of in how I'm seen, how I'm received, what people think when I speak up, show up, or just exist a little, I guess, louder than I'm used to. So I'm going to take you back to my weekend because that's kind of where this episode kind of really came from. So over the weekend, my church hosted a four-day convention. And on one of those days, a speaker got up and he gave, you know, his sermon that really did wake me up. He talked about and showed a visual of how small our world is compared to the millions of galaxies out there. And then how small those galaxies are compared to the entire universe. That doesn't include the part that we can't even see. What got me was realizing that we have a big God who holds all of that literally in his hand. Every galaxy, everything that is unseen, it is in his hands. And the beautiful thing about it is that this God calls us his own. I couldn't help but sit there taken aback. And I had two thoughts. The first one was the verse where the angels asked the Lord, Who and Who is man that you are mindful of them? Let me go find that verse really quick. Psalms 8.4 says, What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him? The second thought I had was how small of a spect that I actually am in the grand scheme of it all. And the second thought didn't make me feel small in a bad way, um, but it cracked something open because I asked myself, like, why do I carry so much fear and anxiety about what people think of me? Why do I tend to shrink myself over something so small in comparison to everything that actually does exist? I was created in the likeness of God, the king of the universe. And insecurity and fear simply cannot exist in that reality, not if I actually believe what I say. So if I'm saying that I'm the daughter of the Most High God, I can't have fear because he also said that he didn't give us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love and a sound mind, right? So to be real with y'all, I have battled with the fear of perception for a long, long time. I was thinking, like, if I did this, how will people perceive it? Would this bring the wrong kind of attention, the right kind of attention? Am I being too cringe? Will I be judged if I did that? What would they think? What would they say? Just overthinking everything, overthinking every move. I just been this shy introvert for as long as I can remember. And to be honest, I think it stems from some type of like childhood rejection and self-consciousness. Cause I didn't want to be seen at all. I shrink myself in rooms full of people who probably wasn't even thinking about me in the first place. But the revelation that's been breaking chains off of me is that fear does not exist if you don't give it thought. And I want to be clear that when I'm saying fear, I'm talking about manufactured fear. I'm not talking about the fear that shows up when danger is actually present and physical. I'm talking about the fear that we can't see the fear that just comes because of our thinking. What another person thinks of me has literally nothing to do with me. The best thing I can do for myself is really live authentically and boldly as I am. And if it's not harming anybody else, I should give myself permission to be free, right? Because living boldly and living bound by other people's opinions or living by respectability politics, that is not humility. I realize that. That is actually a disservice to myself and to the one who created me. We have one life, right? Why will we live it bound? Why will we live it afraid? Why will we live it worried? This doesn't just cost us comfort. It can cost us our own purpose because I cannot boldly walk out what God called me to do while I'm busy managing everyone else's opinion of how I'm doing it. It just doesn't make sense. So I went to the word and I found three scriptures that can anchor me as I overcome fear of perception. NLT says, Therefore, I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Another scripture is Joshua 1 and 9, which is my favorite scripture in the whole Bible. Joshua 1 and 9 says, It's a command from the Lord, and it says, Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage, do not be afraid, nor dismayed, for the Lord God is with you wherever you go. Genesis 126 says, Then God said, Let us make men in our image according to our likeliness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over everything creeping that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every little thing that moves on the earth. That verse literally tells us who we are and what our purpose is. And if I actually believe Genesis 126 that I was made in his likeliness, then insecurity was never supposed to be where I dwelled. So, friends, how do we overcome this? When I talk about this, I don't want to just leave us with feelings. I want everything to be practical. So I broke it down into three different sections, which is mindset, practical shift, and emotional shifts. So starting with the mindset shift, number one is understanding simply that if I want to go further, I have to stop caring what people think. Period. Number two is separate what is true from what you've made up. Because people will notice you. Yes, that's real. But you don't have to necessarily attach negativity or judgment to being noticed. That's the part that you're adding, right? Number three is that most people are really focused on themselves. And our actions really take up as much space in someone else's mind as our anxiety tells us they do. Like nobody's thinking about me, period. And number four is acknowledging being seen without attaching shame to it. So it's okay to admit that I feel anxious about being seen. I just need to be conscious of attaching judgment to that for putting myself out there anyway. So that's the mindset shift. Change your thinking about it. The practical shift, the first step is to simply take the baby step so they can look like speaking up in a small group. So for me, that is coming off mute during class and answering a few of the questions that our professor asks, or during meetings at work, I am inputting my thoughts about something or getting up at church to like share something. Um that can also look like going to a public place alone. You can act to sit in the middle of the restaurant instead of the corner. Um, number two is to set boundaries because ultimately you are in control of what you share and how you show up in those social settings. So paying attention to the environments that consistently make you feel judged and, you know, and protect your peace. So don't go where you're being judged. Be conscious of like where you go and how much you are vulnerable to protect yourself and protect your peace. The third one in the practical shift is going to be assessing your motivation. That looks like before taking a step, asking ourselves, are we doing this because it brings us fulfillment or because we're calculating how others can perceive it? Okay. So that's practical shift. Taking those steps into overcoming. Emotional shift looks like practicing some emotional regulation. So you can visualize yourself as the center of attention while relaxing your muscles and regulate your breathing. For me, I get very tense when I feel anxiety or fear of perception. Like my jaw is clenched, my muscles are tense. So I need to actually like put this in practice by just laying down and visualizing myself, being the center of attention and training my body to stay calm in those moments where I'm normally bracing for impact. The second one, an emotional shift, is processing the emotion instead of running from it and letting myself actually feel the embarrassment or the fear when it shows up and not bypassing it. And that's how you actually teach your nervous system that being seen is safe. I got that from, you know, just doing some research over practical ways to overcome fear of perception. And I think that'll be beneficial for all of us. And muscles definitely have to be exercised in order to grow. Um, because it's not physical, it's really mental. And at the end of the day, it really doesn't exist unless we keep feeding it. So to close, I say that I am taking back my power. I'm living boldly and courageously as the daughter of the king that I am, and I want that for all of us. This universe is way too big, it's way too vast, it's too unseen, and too far beyond our comprehension for us to strink ourselves over what one small speck of another person thinks about me. We're powerful, we have God within us, so we're not that small, but we just it just really doesn't matter at the end of the day. Because, like the Bible says, life is but a vapor. We are here for a minute, and then next we're gone. So the best thing to do is live as boldly exactly who God calls you to be, and don't let the fear perception be the thing that talks you out of your one life. So before I go, we're gonna leave with adjournal prompt. And that question is where in your life have you been shrinking yourself because of how you think you'll be perceived, and what would it look like to take one baby step forward to being seen this week? And that's it. It's gonna be short and sweet for this episode, y'all. I hope this was beneficial to the overthinker that has a fear of perception. We are all working this out together because it will work out. If you know someone that can resonate with this episode, please share it with them. But also don't forget to like, don't forget to subscribe, and all the things that'll help us grow here. And that's it. That's all. I'll see you guys next week. You don't get my face this week, but you will get my face next week. I am just a busy, busy bee these days, y'all. But we're gonna still work with what we got. I love you all, and that's it for this episode of What If It All Works Out. I'll catch you in our next talk.