You're Not Afraid of Failure. You're Afraid of the Feeling.

I just got off a coaching call that expanded my understanding of human paralysis.

I was sitting with a brilliant client who has done the work. 

But, she recently made a five-figure investment in a world-class, high-ticket coaching program; a veritable Lamborghini of personal transformation. 

She had the keys. She had the map. She knew the destination. And she was welded to the floor of her garage, unable to even open the door, spending her days drowning in self-recrimination for “wasting” the money.

The program isn't the problem. It’s never the problem. In fact, it’s the best of the best. 

The programming is the problem. 

It forced me to sit in the profound question that defines my work: What is the invisible, unyielding force that holds a person captive when they’ve already paid the ransom for their own freedom? 

What is the non-conscious programming?

My search for that programming always begins in the machine itself. 

The biology. 

The human brain is a survival engine, not a happiness vehicle. Its prime directive is to predict and neutralize threats to conserve energy. When this client even thought about using her expensive program, making the calls, announcing her intentions, her brain didn’t predict logistical failure. It predicted a physiological catastrophe. 

It ran a diagnostic from her past and predicted the searing, hypertonic knot in her solar plexus, the blockage in her throat that made her want to vomit. Her brain, in its infinite and primal wisdom, registers that sensation as a direct threat to the organism. 

The calculation is instantaneous and brutal: that feeling is dangerous. It is metabolically expensive. It must be avoided at all costs.

And so it cuts the power. The motivation vanishes. The brilliant plan feels like an anchor. It’s a biological failsafe.

That failsafe, of course, has a source code. A biographical one. 

The memory she pulled up wasn’t a dramatic, cinematic event. It was something quiet and universal. It was a feeling from when she was five or six years old, a simple, desperate need to fit in. In that small, forgotten moment, a part of her was born; a protector. 

A guardian whose entire operating system is built on one line of code: We will never, ever feel that way again. This part of her isn't malicious. It is a profoundly loyal, deeply loving guardian running on software that is decades out of date. It will keep the Lamborghini in the garage forever, because getting into a traffic jam feels like dying.

This is why my process has to go deeper than strategy. It has to go to the source code, to the very words she uses to construct her cage. The word that kept surfacing was her hesitation.

I had to stop the session right there. Etymology is a scalpel. Hesitate. It comes from the Latin haesitare, meaning "to stick fast; to stammer."

It's not a mental choice. It’s a physical state of being. To hesitate is to be stuck fast. To stammer is to have the energy blocked from leaving the throat. The diagnosis was right there in the word itself.

So my process wasn't to give her a new strategy. It was to guide her back to the point where she was physically stuck. 

The first strategy here is always the same: Feel the Sensation. 

My only job was to hold the space for her to do what her entire system was designed to prevent: to feel the sensation without flinching. To put her full attention on that knot between her diaphragm and her throat and just… stay.

Her immediate reaction was the core of the entire issue, uttered in a moment of profound, unconscious honesty. "I don't want to feel this," she said. "After all this time, I shouldn't feel this way". I leaned in. “This is why it stays,” I told her. “Because you are unwilling to feel that.”

Then came the other word. The justification. Should.

That was the key. I seized on it. 

"Do you know where that word comes from?" I asked. I explained that "should" originates from an old word meaning "to owe a debt". The moment she says "I should," she is placing herself in a state of perpetual debt to an idealized version of herself that does not exist. She is creating suffering by battling her own reality. 

I saw the breakthrough land. It wasn't just an idea; it was the sound of a chain breaking. It was a true "aha" moment for her.

With that single gear unlocked, her body took over. 

I watched her simply sit with the feeling, and a lifetime of suppressed energy began to move. A cough. A flush of heat. The wave of nausea became so intense, so undeniable, that her body demanded a moment of release, and she had to step away. 

This was not an insight. This was an exorcism. Her body was physically expelling what her mind could no longer contain.

When she returned, the space was clear. The static was gone. 

I could finally say the simple truth to her: “You're not afraid of selling. You're afraid of the feeling that failure might bring.”

I explained to her that we are engineered for failure. That an oak tree drops 10,000 acorns to grow one single adult tree. That nature is wildly “unsuccessful” by our metrics. "If you're unwilling to fail," I said, "then you can't grow."

The final strategy I offered her was a way to integrate this new awareness: Re-parenting the Small Parts. I guided her to turn inward, to that five-year-old protector, and to thank it for its decades of loyal, ferocious service. 

And then, to gently tell it that she is no longer five. 

To promise it that she can handle this feeling now. And that she will never, ever abandon it to feel it alone again. That is the work of a Giant.

There is a unique alchemy that happens in a one-to-one coaching container. A level of focused attention and profound safety that allows for this kind of deep, surgical, life-altering work. It's an honor to hold that kind of space. 

And yet, I have witnessed this same tectonic shift happen inside my SG programs. 

The dynamic is different, but the principle is the same. When a group of people comes together with a shared intention to do the real work, they create a collective field of safety so powerful that the nervous system of everyone in that room feels permission to finally, finally tell the truth.

The foundational reframe that I am taking into my own life from witnessing her today is this: My work is not to teach, nor is it to provide better tools. 

My work is to hold a space that is safe enough for a person’s nervous system to finally be heard. The path forward is not paved with better information, but with a greater capacity for sensation. 

It’s about learning to sit in the fire of what is real.

This is my work right now. And, in service to you, this is the work we will do together, but first, some questions for you:

What sensation have you spent decades building strategies to never feel again?

How would your world change if you never needed to protect anyone from discomfort again; including yourself?

What part of you still believes that experiencing your avoided sensations will unravel you?

Follow my journey. Let’s get you unstuck. 

My clients, and participants in our SG programs say that I’m the best in the world at breaking the cycles that keep people stuck; patterns, stories, and lies that crush their potential. 

I don’t play small and I don’t let my people stay small. 

Through the 12 Journeys, I give them a straight path to step out of weakness, own their worth, and rise into the Giant God made them to be.

All of my tools, including the AI-driven source manuals and custom GPTs designed to help you do this work, are available for participants at my12journeys.com.

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