From Fear to Freedom and Three Keys to Unshakable Self-Worth
- Brainz Magazine
- 30 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Written by Justin Edgar, Coach
Justin Edgar is a life and breathwork coach and creator of The Art of Creative Flow, blending entrepreneurship, education, and mindful somatic practice to help individuals, leaders, and teams move beyond struggle and burnout to reconnect with clarity, vitality, and purpose.
In a world often dominated by fear and doubt, true self-worth can feel elusive. This article explores how to break free from the grip of fear by embracing three key qualities: faith, courage, and vulnerability, that form the foundation for unshakable esteem. Discover how these interconnected traits can empower you to trust yourself, take action, and live authentically, even in the face of uncertainty.
The root of esteem in a fear-filled world
Two fears lie at the root of nearly every other fear we carry.
The first is the fear that we are not enough. The second is the fear of not having enough.
These twin forces: shame and scarcity are the hidden architects of so many of our internal narratives: the second-guessing, the self-censorship, the hesitation to step into the unknown. They form the unconscious scaffolding of low esteem, pulling us downward, away from our inherent worth.
But what if esteem, true esteem, is not something you are born with or without? What if it’s not a trait, but a skill? Not a label, but a practice?
In a world that too often confuses confidence with arrogance and vulnerability with weakness, we are being called back to a deeper definition of esteem, one that is grounded in resonant self-love.
At the heart of this kind of esteem lies a trinity: Faith. Courage. Vulnerability. Three qualities that do not exist in isolation, but form a living ecosystem of inner power.
This article is an invitation to remember and to re-cultivate your birthright, to believe in yourself, to act in alignment with your heart, and to stay open to life, even when it hurts.
Faith: The keystone of self-belief
Faith is not blind optimism. It is not wishful thinking or pretending the odds are in your favour when they are not.
Faith, in its truest form, is a deeply embodied belief in possibility, the felt knowing that something is worth pursuing, that you are worth showing up for, and that the road ahead, however uncertain, is worth walking.
If esteem is a house, faith is the foundation stone. Without it, nothing else stands. You might have talent, opportunity, even desire, but without faith, you will not act. For if you do not believe in your worth or in the potential for something to come alive, why would you ever take the first step?
Faith is the keystone upon which both courage and vulnerability rest.
Vulnerability without faith collapses into hopelessness.
Courage without faith becomes reckless or hollow.
Faith steadies the hand and opens the heart.
Gratitude: The seedbed of faith
Gratitude is not just a pleasant feeling, it is a neurological and emotional reorientation. When you name and notice what is good, true, and beautiful in your life, your brain begins to store evidence that the world is not hostile, that you are not entirely at the mercy of scarcity, and that life is worth engaging with.
Neuroscience shows that gratitude activates the brain’s reward circuitry and boosts dopamine and serotonin, neurochemicals essential for motivation, learning, and emotional regulation. Gratitude shifts the lens through which you view possibility, and possibility is the lifeblood of faith.
Practices to cultivate faith
1. Gratitude journaling with specificity
List three things each day you are grateful for, but go beyond generic answers. Name details: the exact tone of a friend’s laugh, the smell of rain on concrete, the warmth of your morning coffee. Specificity deepens impact.
2. Evidence review
Recall moments in your life where you did rise, learn, adapt, or create against the odds. Write them down. Remind yourself: I have done hard things before; I can do them again.
3. Possibility visualization
Spend five minutes each morning picturing the feeling state of what you’re moving toward, not just the outcome, but the emotional resonance of living it.
Faith is not something you wait to feel before you begin. It is something you build by beginning.
Courage: The motion of the soul
If faith is the belief that something is possible, courage is the decision to meet it.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is fear, felt fully, with the body still moving forward. It is the willingness to act in service of something that matters more than your comfort, reputation, or certainty.
The word itself comes from the Latin cor, meaning “heart.” Courage is heart-led motion, your deepest values taking shape in the world through your choices and actions. And like the heart, it pulses: contracting in reflection, expanding in action, sustaining the rhythm of a life well-lived.
If faith is the seed, then courage is the germination. Without faith, courage is reckless bravado. Without courage, faith remains a beautiful idea that never leaves the page.
Every courageous act, however small, reinforces faith. You step forward once, and the mind learns: This is possible. The cycle builds, a feedback loop of belief and action that reshapes your self-concept and capacity.
The myth of the fearless
We often admire the seemingly fearless, the people who leap without hesitation. But fearlessness is rarely the source of courage. More often, courage is the ability to hold fear in one hand and purpose in the other, and to keep walking anyway.
Fear is not an enemy, it’s a signpost. It tells you that something of value is at stake. Courage doesn’t silence fear; it reframes it as fuel.
Practices to cultivate courage
1. Micro-bravery
Choose one small act each day that nudges you outside your comfort zone—a difficult conversation, a new creative risk, a moment of honest self-expression. Consistency builds resilience.
2. “Act as if” rehearsal
Before a challenging situation, embody the posture, tone, and breathing of your most courageous self. The body leads the mind.
3. Reframe the narrative
When fear arises, ask: What is this pointing me toward? Rather than avoiding, lean toward the signal.
Courage is not a single, monumental leap. It is the repeated willingness to step forward when stepping back would be easier.
And every time you do, you prove to yourself that you are more than your fear.
Vulnerability: The receptivity of the mind
If faith is the belief in possibility and courage is the act of meeting it, vulnerability is the space that allows both to breathe.
Vulnerability is not fragility. It is not spilling your soul indiscriminately or seeking pity. True vulnerability is a deliberate openness, an unarmoured stance toward life that says: “I am willing to be seen as I am”.
It is the receptivity of the mind, the softening that allows new perspectives to enter and new connections to form. Without vulnerability, courage becomes aggression, and faith becomes rigid dogma. Vulnerability keeps both alive, adaptive, and human.
Why vulnerability is misunderstood
In a culture that rewards control, certainty, and polished presentation, vulnerability can feel counterintuitive, even dangerous. We learn to hide the parts of ourselves that might be judged, rejected, or misunderstood. But this self-protection comes at a cost: disconnection.
Vulnerability is not weakness, it is the precondition for connection, creativity, and growth. You cannot truly love without risking loss. You cannot truly learn without admitting you do not yet know. You cannot fully create without opening yourself to critique.
And in a relational world, this receptivity is not optional; it is essential. All creation occurs through relationship: between people, between ideas, between the inner and outer worlds. This is Einstein’s relativity in human form: the understanding that nothing exists in isolation, and our lives are defined by the quality of our connections. Vulnerability opens the channel for those connections to form, deepening coherence between hearts and minds.
When we risk being seen as we are, we make it possible for life, and those within it, to meet us in ways that transform us.
The courage to be seen
Vulnerability is courage in a different form. It is the courage to stay open in the face of uncertainty, to feel deeply without collapsing, to reveal your truth without knowing how it will land.
It is also the bridge between inner and outer life. Vulnerability allows your internal experiences, hopes, fears, values to meet the world authentically. And it invites others to do the same, creating a shared field of trust.
But vulnerability is not only about what you offer; it is about what you are willing to receive. When courage plants the stake in the ground and declares, “This is what I desire from life”, vulnerability becomes the channel through which life can answer back. It is the willingness to let goodness find you, to trust that the universe is not indifferent, but benevolent, that it seeks to meet you in your openness with gifts you could not have scripted.
In this way, vulnerability is an act of profound faith: a readiness to be surprised by just how much life can give when you make space to receive it.
Practices to cultivate vulnerability
1. Mindful self-inquiry
Pause and ask: What am I feeling right now? What am I afraid will happen if I share this? Simply naming the answer is a practice in openness.
2. Truth-telling in safe spaces
Share one unpolished thought or feeling with someone you trust. Let the conversation be imperfect.
3. Somatic grounding
When emotions rise, feel your feet on the ground, your breath in your belly. The body’s stability allows the heart to remain open.
Vulnerability does not guarantee you will not be hurt, but it does ensure you will be alive. It is the raw, honest ground from which faith grows and courage moves.
And together, they form a living system.
The trinity in motion: A living system
Faith, courage, and vulnerability are not three separate virtues you cultivate in neat, parallel rows. They are an ecosystem, interdependent, self-reinforcing, and alive. Think of them interplaying along the following lines:
Vulnerability reveals what truly matters to you. Faith believes that moving toward it is possible. Courage takes the step.
The moment you step forward, vulnerability reopens now to feedback, to learning, to receiving. This feeds faith, which strengthens courage, which deepens vulnerability. The cycle is not linear but spirals upward, expanding your capacity to engage with life from a place of worth and trust.
Imagine planting a seed.
Vulnerability is the seed itself: small, unguarded, full of hidden potential.
Faith is the sunlight, nourishing it with warmth and possibility.
Courage is the act of pushing through the soil toward the light.
Alone, none can sustain growth. Together, they form the rhythm of becoming.
And here’s the truth that shifts everything: this cycle doesn’t erase fear, nothing in life does. But it changes its power over you.
Esteem, in the form of a deep and abiding faith in your own worthiness, does not promise a life without the fear of not being enough or not having enough. Instead, it frees you from fear’s capacity to diminish you. Fear may still appear at the edges of your decisions and dreams, but it no longer dictates the terms. You meet it with openness, belief, and forward motion. Over time, fear becomes less a master emotion and more a messenger, a signal that you are nearing something meaningful, something worth your courage and attention.
Closing: A return to worth
At the most foundational level, your worth was never in question.
It was there before you took your first breath, before you achieved or failed, before you learned the rules of a world that sometimes forgets the truth of what it means to be human.
Esteem is not given from the outside, it is cultivated from within. It grows in the soil of gratitude, fed by the sunlight of faith, strengthened by the motion of courage, and kept alive by the openness of vulnerability.
When these three qualities move together, fear may still knock at your door, but it will no longer live in your house. At Creative Purpose, we have a mantra for living:
Presume that you can. Do what you will. With whomever you may. Always in the name of love.
For what is esteem if not the resonant feeling of self-love. And life is not waiting for you to be ready, it’s waiting for you to "be here now". To live each moment fully in the knowledge that it’s worth your while because you are worthy of the moment itself.
Read more from Justin Edgar
Justin Edgar, Coach
Justin Edgar is a life and breathwork coach, speaker, and creator of The Art of Creative Flow, a transformational program helping individuals, leaders, and teams move beyond burnout and reconnect with purpose, creativity, and resilience. With a unique background spanning financial markets, Montessori education, wellness entrepreneurship, and somatic practice, Justin brings rare depth and insight to his coaching. His work empowers clients to harness clarity, intuition, and creative flow as tools for personal and professional breakthroughs.
