the monsters in your mind are eating your dreams before they can grow

why we should stop being our own opps and start being our biggest fans

originally published on substack 03 june 2025

So what’s the thing that you’ve always thought about doing or becoming but held back on because you fear some unknown “judge”? What’s the creative quest, personal evolution, or spiritual awakening that’s been calling to you from the depths of your soul? Those things you keep stamping down because of how you might look or what they might say?

We know that judge and jury quite well, don’t we? The evil villains in our head that try to dissuade us from all the big things we dream of out of worry of what those someone’s out there will say about us. Their sharp fanged, cruel-looking eyes, shapeshifting in our imagination into every monster, every bully that ever had a chance of seeping into our lives.

I’m sure most of us can conjure them quite easily, but what happens when you recognize that those evil monsters and judgmental spirits are living inside your own mind?

Now, before you come a swinging with arguments and “what about’s,” yes, I am very aware that there are trolls galore on the internet. I am aware that there are scores of folks who take out their own insecurities and personal disappointments on people brave enough to share themselves online for all to see. This is an unfortunate reality of public boldness. But are you that person yet? Are you the one who’s putting your dreams and vision out for everyone to see? If it’s not you, then the uncomfortable truth is you may be the one bullying yourself into smallness, subconsciously protecting yourself from the “out there’s” by sentencing your own self to the supposed safety of invisibility.

Let me be very clear, I speak on this because I know the feeling well. I have notebooks full of ideas that have been asking to be brought forth for damn near a decade. Things that have been swirling and growing, fading and advancing in my spirit that I have kept buried thanks to my worries of the very demons I have only been turning on myself.

‘What will they think?’ 
‘What will they say?’ 
“What if they think I’ve lost it?” 
“Is it too corny? Cringe? Uninteresting?” 
“Who am I to even have these ideas, share these thoughts, tell people what I think?”

Who am I to even dare to try.

That’s what I’ve been telling myself. Who am I to even dare to try.

Sounds pretty cruel when you lay it out like that, no? Sounds like someone who thinks they aren’t even allowed to believe in the universe of possibility within them. Sounds like something you’d never say to your most cherished friend.

Sounds like the work of the system eating me from the inside. Can you relate?

This is what we’re doing when we hide our light in service of some frightening unknown. Letting ourselves be devoured. Stealing not only from ourselves but from all those who are searching for what we are yearning to share. We are giving our souls away to the dream reaper before even letting those dreams free into the world.

And the funny thing is, when you finally begin, the reception is much more magnificent than our personal judge and jury tried to say. It’s all those who love you, support you, see you that come out and share how proud, how interested, how lovely it is to partake in the world you’re building. Folks that really love you will always rather see you shine than see you shrink. They’ll read your blog every week (hi friends!), they’ll watch your new YouTube videos, they’ll like every post you share, they’ll order your zine, your book, your bakery box. They’ll tell their friends, family, coworkers. They’ll uplift you because that’s what love does.

And if anyone in your circle starts to mimic that voice of opposition that held your dreams hidden against your soul’s will, please know THAT is not love and you deserve far better. But I promise, the more you step into a space of honoring and encouraging your dreams, the more you put that thing out there, the more you dedicate to yourself, the less power the opps have over you. The more action we take in the direction of our fullest self, the more we build an inner resolve that becomes harder and harder to shake.

It’s in action, dedication, and devotion to our truest selves that we become the glowing champion of our own destiny. Then when things get hard, sticky, slow, when voices start clamoring for attention, and the villains try and get us down we can transform into our own superhero, remember we’re actually our number one fan, and say “fuck yeah I’m gonna keep going because I’m bold, I’m a badass, and it’s way more fun to just GO FOR IT.”

So here’s to wishing you, and me, and all of us a lot more fun, a lot more bravery, and a lot more creative babies birthed into the world.