I have a tattoo of a flying dollar bill on my ankle. Not because I’m money hungry but because I paid a non refundable $100 for a mystery tattoo.
At the time, drawing a random tattoo from a gum ball machine seemed like a fun idea until I’d been an hour into the tattoo session and realised I’d now have a fully coloured dollar bill tattooed on my ankle for the rest of my life.
This soon developed into me becoming an avid wearer of ankle socks that covered the tattoo. I’d become so self conscious about my tattoo that small habits began to form to hide my insecurities.
Aside from my new collection of ankle socks the main fear based action I’d do would be when I crossed my legs in a way that would hide the tattoo if I was at the beach or some place else where my bare ankle was exposed.
The only reason why I’m writing this story is because I just noticed one of those habits creep back in while laying in bed. I’d unconsciously crossed my feet together in the same way I used to hide my tattoo before quickly uncrossing them to break the pattern.
Now, the way I was able to become comfortable enough in my skin to even share this previous insecurity with you is because I consciously had to rewrite those micro actions that had been coming from a place of fear.
How I broke out of this insecurity in particular among many more was through mindfulness. Every time I’d become aware that I’d been unconsciously crossing my feet, I’d actively switch them over to expose the tattoo.
Even if I was by myself I made sure to break the pattern. It was more about becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable opposed to running away from the deep rooted fear.
Mindfulness hadn’t helped me escape this fear but accept it. I could see It for what it was. Fear.
It’s almost impossible to not want to break these fear based patterns once your exposed to the irrational nature of fear at times.
Mindfulness is like shining a light in this dark cavern you used to be afraid of only to realise there’s actually no monsters in there.
The first step to breaking unconscious patterns comes from awareness. So the next time you spot yourself being fearful of talking to someone, or hiding something about yourself. Expose it. Shine a light in that cave and see that it’s not that scary down there.
Note: There’s a caveat to this. Fear is there for a reason and not every fear should be overcome.