The Maps We Inherit: From Fear to Wonder

Why do some beliefs stay with us long after we’ve outgrown them?

In this deeply personal episode of Untamed Voices, I explore the invisible stories we inherit as children—the ones that quietly shape how we see ourselves, our relationships, our spirituality, and the world around us.

Beginning with childhood superstitions that once felt completely real, we journey into the ways our minds and nervous systems create meaning in an effort to feel safe. Along the way, I share a recent experience that reminded me how healing isn’t about never feeling fear again—it’s about learning to meet ourselves with curiosity instead of certainty.

This conversation is an invitation to gently question the maps you’ve been following, to notice where your attention has been resting, and to consider what becomes possible when you choose trust over hypervigilance and wonder over fear.

If you’ve ever wondered why certain patterns seem to follow you, or sensed that there’s a gentler way to move through life, I hope this episode feels like a quiet place to begin.

Take a deep breath, settle in, and let’s walk this path together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Hello everybody. So I'm gonna tell you something that for most of my life I would have been embarrassed to admit. There was a time when I couldn't let telephone poll come between me and the person I was walking with. If we were walking down the sidewalk and a poll appeared in front of us, I would instinctively move to the other side or maybe even ask them to. It this wasn't because I was trying to be difficult. It was actually something I learned as a child. Because I picked up that, or I had been convinced that if something came between us physically, eventually it would come between us emotionally as well. So I, you know, I had some other circumstances like this where, you know, I would have a soccer jersey that I became afraid to wear. And it's not that I didn't like it, it's that I somehow became convinced that every time I wore it, my favorite team would lose. I knew I wasn't really controlling the outcome of a soccer match from my living room, or did I? I mean, logically I knew that, right? But there was always that tiny little whisper of, what if? What if it wasn't a coincidence? What if somehow I was really responsible? You know, it's funny because when I was a kid and where I grew up, when you cross your fingers, it means you are you are, you know, rooting for the team. You're you're wishing them well, you're you're not jinxing them, right? If you don't cross your fingers, then they might be jinxed, right? So crossing fingers actually meant that you're protecting them or that you're helping them. But, you know, recently I was crossing my fingers watching a soccer match, and my daughter said, she was like, Why are you crossing your fingers? If you cross your fingers, that means that you know they're gonna lose. And I was like, What? So it was so funny. Like her perspective was completely different than mine on crossing fingers. Anyway, interesting, right? So when I kind of look back on those moments now, I kind of smile and I don't think that they're silly. Honestly, every once in a while, I still like every time that a poll, you know, I walk by a pole and and you know, my kids are on the other side or something like that. I I still have that feeling of, oh no, there's a pole coming between us. But then I trust, I choose to trust and I still walk forward, right? They really they really weren't silly, you know. But I did understand that, well, it might sound silly, but I did understand that the little girl that believed them was not irrational. You know, she was really trying to make sense of a world that didn't make sense a lot of the time. And I think that's why I latched onto these things. And I think that's something that we forget about children. Children are extraordinary meaning makers. You give a child two events that happen close together, and they'll often connect them with an invisible thread. For example, mom and dad fought after I got in trouble. Maybe I caused it. The dog died after I wished he would leave me alone. Maybe my thoughts are dangerous. I wore this shirt and my team lost. Maybe I shouldn't wear it anymore. The pull came between us. Maybe it will separate our friendship. Children don't do this because they're foolish. They do it because the human mind longs for order, especially when life feels super unpredictable, especially when safety feels uncertain. So we begin collecting these little stories, stories about why things happen, stories about who we are and what keep us safe. And over time, those stories really become maps. So the interesting thing about maps is that we rarely question them when we're using them. We just simply assume that they're accurate. So think about your GPS. You just follow it, right? Most of the time. I mean, maybe once in a while you'll look at the route or whatever. But I mean, there have been times that my GPS has led me astray, and I've been like, what is going on here? I thought you were supposed to be accurate, right? We simply trust that they'll lead us where we need to go. Until one day, maybe we realize that we've been walking in circles. So I've been thinking about this a lot lately because something unexpected happened to me. A few days ago, I went in for what I thought was going to be like a regular routine hearing evaluation. Part of the test required me to sit inside of one of those tiny little soundproof booths. If you've ever been inside of one, it's so strange. I am not a fan. The walls are thick, the room is small, everything is incredibly quiet. They put these things in your ears, you know, that feel very uncomfortable. It's unnaturally quiet, right? No, you know, bugs making their little noises or whatever. So I walked inside expecting nothing more than a hearing test. And mind you, this is my second one. I I've done this before. But as I was sitting there, there was a moment where my body actually panicked. And it caught me completely off guard. And I remember sitting there thinking, what is happening? So I asked to stop the test for a few minutes because my nervous system just wasn't ready to continue. And eventually, you know, I finished the evaluation and I went home. So from the outside, everything felt fine, but something inside of me was not. I didn't really realize this 100% until a couple days later. So this experience stayed with me. And it it's not that I became afraid of like these booths or whatever, right? But my body had reacted before my mind understood why. And every time that my body does that, it's unnerving, especially because it used to happen all the time. So I was so used to it. It was, you know, an everyday occurrence for me all the time. And as I, you know, healed more, as I as my body settled more, these things happen a lot less frequently. But when they do now, because they're so separate, you know, like they it's because I have more time in between, it can feel really unnerving, right? So as both a therapist and someone who spent many years doing my own healing work, I have learned something that continues to humble me. Our bodies don't always react to what is happening. Sometimes they react to what re- some like what something reminds them of, right? Like a sound, a smell, a silence, a room, a look on someone's face, a feeling of being trapped. So the body doesn't always distinguish between then and now until we gently help it remember that today is different. And you know, you know this, and I've talked about this in many, many podcasts. But a few days later, so I was reflecting on the experience with someone I trust who works with energy. And during our conversation, she shared two images that had come to her. She described what looked like a wrap around me with spikes pointing inward instead of outward. She also described seeing a woman placing judgment on me for loving people. Now, here's where I want to pause. Whether you understand experiences like that spiritually, whether you understand them symbolically, whether you believe in energy work, or whether your worldview is completely different. That's not what this episode is about. Because those images weren't what changed me necessarily. They were helpful, but they invited me to ask a different question. Instead of asking, is that literally true? I found myself asking, why did this touch something inside of me? That question changed everything. Because instead of searching for certainty, I became curious with myself. And curiosity has a very different energy than fear. As I sat with it, I realized something. The images themselves weren't what mattered. What mattered was that they re what necessarily they reflected back to me. So somewhere deep inside, there was this part of me that believed that my job was to constantly protect myself, to stay alert, stay vigilant, right? We all have these parts. And to make sure that I wasn't missing something. And suddenly I realized that this wasn't new. It was simply an older story wearing newer clothing. When I was little, that story sounded like this pray one more time. Not because I wanted to spend more time in prayer, but because I wanted certainty. I wanted to know that I was safe. I wanted to know that I had done enough. That I had said it correctly. You know, I said it enough times so I wouldn't go to hell, right? That nothing bad could happen because I had checked every single spiritual box. Looking back now, my heart breaks for that little girl because she wasn't searching for perfection. She was searching for rest and it just never came. It's like it was never enough. I remember repeating over and over, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Lord, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Lord, thank you, Jesus, over and over and over again. Because that's what my mom said that I had to do, right? And if if God didn't feel that I was grateful enough, then he wasn't going to help me, right? So I repeated it over and over just to make sure that God really got the point that I was so, so grateful. You know. So I think that this is true for many of us, not necessarily in the same way as it was for me, you know, but the searching for rest, peace. I think a lot of times we're searching for answers, but underneath, you know, we're looking for somewhere to finally just breathe, right? Let it out. We want to know we're okay. We want to know that the people that we love are okay. We want to know that if we just do the right things, life won't hurt so much. The older I've become, the more I realize that fear is incredibly creative. It almost never introduces itself by saying, hello, I'm fear. Nice to meet you, right? Instead, it borrows the language of wisdom. And you guys know this is true when I say it, right? It says, I'm just helping you prepare. I'm just making sure you're safe. I'm just helping you stay spiritually aware. I'm just trying to protect you. And because protection sounds loving, we don't really question it. We simply keep listening until one day we realize we have built an entire life around avoiding what might happen instead of fully living what is. And I guess that realization has changed the way I see almost everything. I kept asking myself this one question. What if the greatest shift in my spirituality isn't about learning more? What if it's about changing where I place my attention? So that question has followed me everywhere into my work, into my relationships, into my dreams, into the quiet moments when I'm washing dishes or driving home after a long day. Because honestly, I can spend an awful lot of energy studying what I don't want. I can become fascinated by danger, by warning signs, by hidden meanings, by trying to predict what might happen next. And before I know it, fear has quietly become the center of my attention. And it doesn't mean that it's because it wasn't there in the first place and because I want it there, right? It's because it convinced me that paying attention to it was the same thing as being safe. Here's the problem, though. Whatever we continually study begins shaping the way we see the world. If you've ever decided you wanted to buy a certain kind of car, right, suddenly you notice that car everywhere. It's not because all of a sudden everybody started buying the same car that you did, but it's because your attention changed. You know, like my kids, when when I named them, or when my husband and I named them, you know, it the names were unique. And then all of a sudden there's like other kids with those names. I was like, wait, that wasn't as unique as I thought it was. It's just that now my attention shifted, right? If you've ever become worried about your health, you become, you begin noticing every sensation in your body, right? So you begin noticing every ache, every flutter, every change again. Not because your body suddenly transformed overnight, but because your attention did. So I wonder if spirituality can be like that too. If I spend my days asking, where is the darkness? Eventually darkness begins to feel like the most important thing in the room. But if I spend my days asking, where's the love? Where is beauty? Where is truth? Where is compassion? I begin noticing those things with greater clarity too. And this isn't because the darkness disappeared. It's because it's no longer the axis around which my life revolves. So that realization has been incredibly freeing. Because somewhere along the way, I think I confuse this awareness with hypervigilance. Those aren't the same thing. Awareness is open, curious, grounded. Hypervigilance is exhausting. It scans, it anticipates, it rehearses. And I am so familiar with this. You know, it assumes danger until proven otherwise. So as a trauma therapist, I've seen this so many times, not because people are weak, they are not. It's because their nervous systems learned that staying alert increased the chances of surviving. It's just such a remarkable thing, the human system and what it does. It adapts, it remembers, it protects. There is so, so, so much wisdom in that. So the strategies that help us survive one season of life aren't always the ones that help us flourish in the next. There comes a time when the nervous system asks, may we learn a new way now? And I wonder if our spirituality asks the same thing. It's not that can you believe more, but can you trust more? Oh, that word trust, right? So hard. Trust. I've been sitting with that for a few weeks. Not the trust that life will always go the way that I want because it won't. And it's not that I'll ever experience, I'll never experience loss because I definitely will. And it's not that I'll understand every mystery of this universe. I will not. And neither do I want to. I feel like that's really big, right? My brain probably can't grasp all of that. But the trust that I can meet whatever life places before me, that there is a profound difference between those two ways of living. One says, protect yourself from every possible storm. The other one says, become someone who knows how to stand in the rain. So I think for much of my life I wanted certainty. I wanted to know that if I prayed enough, loved enough, learned enough, healed enough, nothing could touch me. But that's not really life, is it? Every one of us will experience grief, heartbreak, disappointment, fear, loss. There is zero amount of perfection that exempts us from being human. And you know, oddly enough, I find that pretty comforting. Because it means my worth isn't measured by how successfully I avoid pain, right? It's measured by how honestly I meet it. So one of the most profound shifts I've experienced recently came when I stopped asking, How do I become impossible to hurt? Right? How do I build that armor and nothing ever comes in, right? And I started asking, how do I become deeply rooted? So those questions create an entirely different life, right? Very, very different from each other. One of them builds walls, the other one grows roots. Roots don't stop storms. They simply allow a tree to remain itself while the storm passes. So that image has really stayed with me in my heart, in my mind. And not because I want to become unshakable. I mean, that would be nice, but I doubt that's ever going to happen, right? The trees move, they bend, branches break, leaves fall. So being rooted doesn't mean never moving. It just means knowing where your life comes from. And that's where my understanding of spirituality has been quietly changing. Sometimes not so quietly, sometimes it's pretty much in my face. I no longer want to build my spiritual life around fear. I don't want it to be about getting it wrong or unseen forces or punishment or fear of fear itself. Because I've started to notice something that every time fear becomes the center, love moves out to the edges. I refuse to live that way anymore. I don't want to. So it doesn't mean that I dismiss experiences that I don't understand. And it doesn't mean that I'll never be afraid, because fear does serve a purpose in certain situations. There is so much mystery in this world. There are experiences people have that cannot be neatly explained. Dreams that change us, moments of profound intuition, encounters that just leave us so speechless. I don't feel the need to reduce everything into one explanation. I've become comfortable saying, I don't know. And strangely, I don't know has become one of the most peaceful places I have ever lived. Because I don't know leaves room for wonder. Fear hates wonder. Fear or one certainty, right? Wonder simply whispers. Let's stay curious, right? That shift may be one of the greatest gifts healing has given me. It's not that there are more answers. There's more spaciousness, more humility, more openness. And maybe that's what light has always been inviting me into. Not certainty, but presence. So there was another realization that quietly found me as all of this was taking place, right? For years I thought healing meant getting rid of every difficult feeling, every trigger, every fearful thought, every reaction. I imagined that one day I would arrive at this place where nothing unsettled me anymore. Where every wound would be stitched together so perfectly that nothing could ever reopen it. Sounds wonderful, right? How boring. But healing hasn't looked like that at all. Healing has looked much more like recognizing myself sooner. It has looked like noticing when an old story begins speaking and then gently asking, whose voice is this, right? Is this coming from my deepest knowing or from an old map? So that has changed everything because old maps have a way of convincing us that they are reality. They don't announce themselves by saying, This is an un this is an outdated belief from 30 years ago, right? It would be nice if they did. Right. But they really just say this is the truth. And if we never stop to question them, we spend years navigating our lives according to roads that no longer exist. And they feel pretty solid sometimes, right? They're very deceiving. I've noticed that this is not only in myself, but in you know, the people I have the privilege of sitting with every day. Someone says, I'm too much. And I wonder, who first handed them that map? Someone says, if I let people down, they'll leave. Again, who drew that map? Another says, I have to earn love. I have to stay useful. I have to fix everything and everyone. I have to make everyone comfortable. These aren't just thoughts, they're maps. And most of us didn't draw them. We inherited them. Sometimes from families, you know, our own families, from religion, from culture, from trauma. Sometimes from a single moment that our younger self didn't know how to interpret. So I've become less interested in asking, is this belief right or wrong? And much more interested in asking, where does this map lead? Does it lead me toward freedom, toward compassion, toward deeper connection? Does it lead me toward peace? Or does it always bring me back to fear? Because if it always leads me back to fear, maybe it's time to unfold a different map. That doesn't mean I reject the old one with anger. In fact, I feel a surprising tenderness toward it. Because here's the deal: every map I've carried was trying to help me. Even the ones that no longer serve me. So the little girl who repeated her prayers was not foolish. She was trying to feel safe. The little girl who stepped around telephone poles was not controlling. She was trying to protect love. The little girl who hesitated to wear her soccer jersey wasn't magical in the way she imagined. She was just trying to believe that she had some control in a world that often felt uncertain. Those stories were not born out of stupidity. They were born out of longing, longing for safety, longing for certainty, longing for connection. And when I see them that way, something, you know, just softens inside me, I guess. Because I no longer need to fight the parts of me that believe those things. I can just thank them. Thank you for trying to keep me safe. Thank you for doing the best you could with what you knew. Thank you for loving me in the only way you knew how. And then I can gently let them retire. So there's something incredibly freeing about realizing you don't have to declare war on your old beliefs. You don't have to shame yourself for ever having held them. You just recognize that they belonged to a previous version of you. Just as children eventually outgrow shoes that once fit perfectly, we can outgrow beliefs. And it's not that they were bad in the first place. It's because we've grown. One of the things I love most about being human is that we are allowed to evolve. We're allowed to look back at who we were with compassion instead of criticism. We're allowed to say, that belief helped me survive, and also I don't need it anymore. That's very different from pretending it never existed. I think sometimes we imagine growth as a dramatic moment, some sort of awakening, a breakthrough, a single conversation that changes everything. Sometimes those moments happen, but more often, growth looks like quietly choosing a different thought again and again and again and being consistent with it. It looks like catching yourself when fear begins writing the story. It looks like pausing before you believe the first explanation your mind offers. It looks like replacing certainty with curiosity. I've started asking myself one question whenever I notice fear trying to take the pen. Is this interpretation making my world smaller or larger? Because fear almost always narrows the world. It closes possibilities, it rushes toward conclusions. Love does something entirely different. Love expands, it creates space, it waits, it listens, it doesn't demand immediate answers. It trusts that understanding often unfolds with time. And maybe that's what I've been learning to do all along. Not necessarily learning how to become fearless, but how to become spacious enough that fear no longer has to make every decision for me. So there's a quiet confidence that begins to grow when you realize this. It's not the confidence of someone who believes nothing difficult will happen ever, right? But it's the confidence of someone who knows they can return to themselves again and again, right? Those roots and really establish themselves with those roots, no matter what arises, then perhaps. That is what safety has been trying to teach me all along. Not that the world would never feel uncertain, not that I would one day understand every single mystery, not that I would ever again encounter experiences I couldn't explain. But that my deepest sense of safety was never meant to come from controlling the unknown. It was meant to come from remembering myself. So there's a subtle but profound difference between those two ways of living. One asks, How do I stop anything difficult from ever finding me? And the other one asks, How do I remain connected to myself when life inevitably becomes difficult? Big difference, right? Only one of those questions can actually be answered. So I've realized something else too. For so much of my life, I imagined light as something outside of me, something I had to search for, something I had to earn. Something I hoped would arrive if I prayed enough, healed enough, or became enough. Now I just experienced it differently. I experienced light as something remembered, not created, not achieved, not, but just remembered. Like the sun behind the clouds. The clouds don't manufacture the sun. They simply obscure it for a while. The sun never stopped shining. Maybe we're more like that than we realize. Maybe fear is not the opposite of light. Maybe it's simply one of the clouds that temporarily convinces us we've lost sight of what has never actually left. So before we end today, I'd like to invite you into a few moments of stillness. And this isn't just to fix anything or force anything, or even to have a profound experience. It's just to help you remember. So if you're somewhere, you can safely close your eyes. You're welcome to do that. If you're driving, you know, just please be careful. You can just listen to this, but don't necessarily, you know, tune in too much to where you're not safe, right? Or just wait, pause this and come back to it when you're in a space that you can listen to it in a more relaxed way. So I should just take one slow breath. Because every intentional breath is a way of telling your body we're here. So maybe just take another breath. Feel the weight of your body wherever you're resting. Notice that in this moment, there is nothing to solve. Nothing to figure out. Nothing to defend against. Just this breath. Imagine now that your attention gets it gently settles into the center of your chest. And it's not that your light has to be there, but it's because it's a beautiful place to begin listening. Don't try to see anything or make anything happen. Just become curious. If your inner light had a quality, what would it feel like? Would it feel warm? Steady, playful, ancient, gentle. There's no right answer here. Just simply notice what arises. Now imagine that with every inhale, you are remembering a little more of yourself. You're not becoming someone new, you're just remembering. With every exhale, allow yourself to release one story that no longer needs to define you. Maybe it's a story that you must stay hyper-vigilant to be safe. Maybe it's the story that you have to earn peace. Maybe it's the story that fear is the only thing keeping you alive. You don't have to force it to leave. Just loosen your grip. Imagine placing that old story on the ground beside you. And thank it. It has worked so hard. It has spent years trying to protect you. It deserves gratitude. But it does not have to carry you anymore. So bring your attention back to the quiet light within. And just notice something. It's not asking you to become brighter. It's not asking you to prove yourself. It is not asking or demanding perfection. It's simply present, steady, rooted, patient. It's like a lighthouse standing along the shore. Storms may come, fog may roll in, waves may crash against the rocks. But the light does not panic. It doesn't chase the storm. It does not argue with the fog. It simply continues to shine. Perhaps your own spirit is more like that than you've ever allowed yourself to believe. It's not fragile, not constantly in danger of disappearing. It's steady and quiet. Faithful to its own nature. And another. As you prepare to return to your day, I'd like to leave you with one final question. Not a question to answer today, but a question to carry with you. What if your attention is the most sacred gift you possess? What if your attention is the most sacred gift you possess? Where you place it, what you nourish, what you return to gradually becomes the landscape of your inner world. So maybe this week, instead of asking, what should I fear? You might gently ask, what do I want to grow? More compassion, more curiosity, more trust, more presence, more joy. Because wherever your attention goes, your life quietly begins to follow. Thank you for walking beside me today. Thank you for allowing me to share not conclusions but questions. Not certainty, but wonder. And perhaps that is where wisdom has been waiting all along. May you become curious about the stories you've inherited. May you thank the ones that helped you survive. May you lovingly release the ones that no longer fit. And when the world feels loud or uncertain or full of questions, may you remember to pause, to breathe, and to come home, not to certainty, but to the quiet, steady light that has been within you all along. Because maybe, just maybe, you've never been searching for the light. You've just been learning to recognize it. Thank you all, and I will see you next time.