Invitations, Intuition, And Fear
There’s a quiet skill we all have to learn: accepting invitations that actually bring us closer to where we’re meant to be.
Not every invitation feels good at first. Some arrive wrapped in discomfort, others in excitement, and many in confusion. The challenge isn’t avoiding discomfort altogether it’s learning to recognize whether that discomfort is guidance or fear.
Your gut rarely shouts. It doesn’t argue its case. It speaks softly, often after experience has already done the research for you. Fear, on the other hand, is loud. Fear dramatizes. Fear convinces you that if you don’t act right now, you’ll miss your only chance.
This is where discernment matters.
There is a difference between discomfort that signals growth and fear that protects an outdated identity. Growth-discomfort feels unfamiliar but grounded. Fear-based discomfort feels urgent, panicked, and future-obsessed. One expands you. The other keeps you looping.
When you choose to place yourself into new circles events, communities, collaborations discomfort is inevitable. That alone doesn’t make it wrong. In fact, sometimes that unease is your intuition nudging you toward something aligned. But fear is clever. It will borrow the language of intuition and disguise itself as logic, opportunity, or responsibility.
As an artist, I’ve had to learn this distinction the hard way.
I’ve been invited multiple times by the same company to participate in events that, on the surface, seemed like opportunities for exposure and growth. Fear told me I couldn’t afford to say no that missing out would somehow stall my progress. But my gut, quietly consistent, told a different story: I had already done this. Ten times. I had learned what there was to learn.
At that point, continuing wasn’t courage, it was habit fueled by fear of missing out.
Listening to my intuition meant admitting that not every door is meant to be walked through repeatedly. Some doors are lessons, not destinations. And staying too long in spaces that no longer challenge or respect your growth slowly drains the energy you need for what’s next.
Fear wants certainty. Intuition asks for honesty.
When I listened more closely, I realized my energy was better invested elsewhere, in spaces that align with both my art and my evolution as a person. That’s why I continue searching for new ways to connect: collaborating with businesses that already value art, hosting intentional events, and showing up in environments that support growth rather than simply promise exposure.
Camille B.
