F.E.A.R vs. Trust: Letting Go and Receiving Your Real Potential

by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

Realness is received, not achieved.

There comes a point in nearly every human being’s life when they realise they are not who they think they are.:

That the version of themselves they’ve been clinging to and trying to make fit into the world their whole lives long – the one shaped by shame, fear, and external expectations – is not the REAL them; instead, it’s a mask, a distortion, a carefully curated illusion built from years of false beliefs, social conditioning and unreal self-hypnosis (usually as a reaction to unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ hidden in the Shadow Territory).

Once people start to become AWARE (which can happen for many reasons – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ but all leading to REALNESS is the end) – they start to see that the Void they’ve been living in isn’t the way things actually are and that – beyond illusion, stories, and insecurities – there is something REAL waiting to emerge.

This article is about the key to unlocking this emerging REALNESS and embodying it by becoming WHOLE again instead of FRAGMENTED:

Trust.

Trust in this sense isn’t just about believing in something external but about loosening the grip of fear and allowing what is already real to reveal itself.

It’s about stretching the trust muscle so that we stop identifying with an unreal self (ego) and start recognising and receiving our true potential (realness).

Really, we’re going to be talking about one of the most important things you can learn as you go through life:

REALNESS is received, not achieved.

The bottom line is that when we LET GO (really, the heart of learning to trust), we stop chasing after a version of ourselves that isn’t real and instead receive what has been there all along – our deeper knowing, our inner wisdom, our genuine self, and our REALNESS.

Doing this requires a terrifying and necessary step: free fall.

Keep reading to see why it’s totally worth taking that leap:

F.E.A.R is False Evidence Appearing Real

Fear is a powerful force but most of it is an illusion because it’s not warning of any, actual or tangible physical danger (which some instinctual fear does which is a good thing because it protects us and keeps us going) – instead, it’s just a projection of unreal beliefs, past wounds (shame, guilt, and/or trauma, usually), and our social conditioning and self-hypnosis. It’s the Ego’s attempt to protect itself from discomfort, uncertainty, and perceived failure.

Here’s the truth, though:

Fear does not keep you safe; it makes you shrink.

Unreal F.E.A.R of this kind is responsible for that ‘inner critic’ in your mind that whispers that you’re not ‘good enough’, that you need more certainty, proof, or control before you can give yourself permission to live your REAL life and express yourself in a REAL way.

Any time we buy into that voice, we reinforce and strengthen the unreal version of ourselves – the one that is driven by shame, held back by doubt, and send on wild goose chases and timewasting and empty journeys because of the need to ‘prove’ something.

Here’s the thing, though: we don’t have to play by those rules – in fact, we can CHOOSE to let go any time we like. All we have to do is give up our F.E.A.R and start seeing reality clearly again.

This might sound harsh – or even impossible – to those who are deeply identified with their fears, but the reality is simple:

Most F.E.A.R is not real in the way we think it is – it’s just False Evidence Appearing Real (and that we CHOOSE to believe in because we ‘think’ we need to keep the outdated identity of the Ego in place, even though it’s bringing friction, frustration, and misery into our lives).

Most of the time, the things we fear never actually happen, and when they do, we adapt far better than we expected.

(Look back at your life and tell me this last sentence isn’t the truth).

This is where we come back to TRUST because trust is the opposite of F.E.A.R (you can’t trust if you feel afraid and you can’t feel afraid if you truly trust):

Imagine if, instead of clinging to fear, your surrendered to trusting yourself and life instead? What if you could LET GO of the need to micromanage life – even in times when you don’t really know what you’re doing – and allowed something bigger and more REAL to emerge instead?

Trust is the Freefall Into Something Greater

People can spend their whole lives long searching for purpose, for direction, for a sense of certainty about where they are going but the irony is that clarity doesn’t come from overthinking and controlling—it comes from surrender and LETTING GO (it’s ‘ironic’ because there is no search and you don’t need to ‘do’ anything in a forceful way).

Call it ‘God’, the ‘Tao’, ‘Fate’, ‘Chaos’ or whatever you like – the labels are irrelevant.

What matters most is the experience of letting go; the experience of freefalling into the unknown and realising that you are held, guided, and more capable than you ever thought.

The only thing keeping you from feeling and living like this is your F.E.A.R.

At first, letting go is terrifying – the Ego resists because it feels like death (and, it is, to the Ego which is just the illusion of control and certainty in a reality with neither):

It will try to convince you that if you loosen your grip, everything will fall apart but once you take that step, once you trust and flow instead of hold on and force (to try and make life conform to whatever you’re holding onto), something incredible happens:

You don’t crash.
You don’t break.
You don’t ‘lose’ anything (because what’s real is always real and so you can’t lose anything real).

You expand.

This is where something AMAZING happens because you’ll start to see that in that expansion, something REAL (re)emerges – the YOU that has been buried beneath layers of fear and false narratives.

In other words, you start to see that your REALNESS was there all along.

It never went anywhere and was always waiting for this moment of reunion.

Realness is Received, Not Achieved

Most of the lost people in the world are ‘lost’ because they approach personal growth and finding ‘success’ in life as something to be achieved. They believe that if they just work harder, push more, and prove themselves enough, they will eventually become ‘worthy’ of the life they (think they) want.

Getting caught in this drive is almost always a product of unresolved shame and being shame-driven instead of shame-dissolving.

The beautiful truth is that realness isn’t something you achieve:

REALNESS is something you receive when you stop blocking it with ego and all of the unreal beliefs that keep you from it.

You don’t have to fight to become something ‘greater’ – you already are something greater. The problem is that fear, conditioning, and shame filter your perception and keep you from recognising it.

Trusting means removing the filter and allowing truth to come through so that you can find the solid foundation of your REALNESS and then take REAL ACTION (trust doesn’t mean inaction as action is always what makes the difference); it means stopping the endless striving and starting to listen – to yourself, to life, to reality as it actually is rather than how you think it should be.

When you can do this, you see that most struggle and unnecessary suffering is just a result of fighting to keep your illusions and false beliefs in place to uphold an identity that you’re not even happy with (or have any real need of, for that matter).

Practical Steps to Strengthen Trust and Let Go of Fear

It’s one thing to understand this conceptually, but the real shift happens when you live it – here are a few ways to integrate trust into your daily life and allow your real potential to emerge:

1. Catch the F.E.A.R Narrative and Question It

Whenever F.E.A.R shows up, pause and ask yourself:

Is this real or is this just my conditioning?
Am I responding to what’s actually happening or to an imagined worst-case scenario?
Who would I be if I didn’t believe this fear?
How is this F.E.A.R keeping me in a place that’s familiar but where I, ultimately, don’t wanna be?

F.E.A.R thrives on unquestioned assumptions – if you start challenging them, they begin to dissolve, and life starts to get REAL again.

2. Take Small Leaps of Faith

Trust isn’t about reckless action but about stretching your trust muscle in small, consistent ways over time:

Always tell the truth, even when you’d normally hold back.
Say yes to something before you feel ‘ready and start taking REAL ACTION.
Follow intuitive nudges even if your mind doubts it (these nudges come from your realness, not your beliefs)

Each small leap reinforces that you are capable, that life supports you, and that you don’t need absolute certainty to move forward. This eventually all compounds to give you EVIDENCE that your F.E.A.R is unreal but your REALNESS remains.

3. Let Go of the Need to Control the Outcome

When you take action, do it from a place of trust, not force (for the sake of avoiding fear or controlling things because of ego):

Focus on what you can control (your effort, attitude, and presence, etc.).
Release attachment to what you can’t control (how others respond, external results, etc.).
Remember: Do your best and let go of the rest.

The less you grasp, the more life can flow and you can keep growing REAL (going deeper into wholeness).

4. Practice Stillness and Presence

Real trust isn’t about your thoughts or any other kind of mental activity – it’s an embodied experience of being fully present in life whilst also moving through life into a deeper connection to life:

Meditate.
Spend time in nature.
Do breathwork.
Slow down and actually feel what is real in the present moment.

When you are deeply present, fear loses its grip and you train your NERVOUS SYSTEM to be able to handle life more effectively and without unnecessary THREATS being shown to you (in other words, you calm down and feel SAFE in life which allows you to TRUST even more) .

5. Serve Something Bigger Than Yourself

One of the best ways to transcend F.E.A.R is to stop making everything about you:

Find a way to help someone without expecting anything in return
Contribute in a way that aligns with your real values.
Create something meaningful, not for validation, but because it’s real.

When you serve, you expand beyond the Ego and align with something bigger and – in that REAL space – clarity naturally arises.

Final Thoughts: Step Into the Free Fall

Trust is not passive – it’s the most active surrender you will ever experience and a conscious decision to let go of F.E.A.R so that your real potential can emerge.

At first, it feels like free falling but then you start to realise that you were never really falling at all.

You were being caught by something greater that was waiting to be received.

Stay real out there,

Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.

It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.

This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).

Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.

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Real Always Works

Realness is received, not achieved.

F.E.A.R is False Evidence Appearing Real

Trust is the Freefall Into Something Greater

Realness is Received, Not Achieved

Practical Steps to Strengthen Trust and Let Go of Fear