The Fear That Follows Joy

Sleeping in on Sunday morning, I woke up with the spring sun already high, lying next to my own personal shadow daddy. We don’t get mornings like this very often, but lucky for us, our girls have a nanny and nunnu who love slumber parties at their own place as much as we love Twilight trivia nights and adult-only adventures.

In these moments when we’re not interrupted by someone asking if mosquitoes laugh or not, or to walk them to the bathroom because our hallway has monsters, we talk about our relationship.

In my very humble opinion, shy of 13 years with this man — I couldn’t imagine anyone more perfect for me.

But with that, then came fear.

Maybe it was the hangover talking, or maybe it was the fated bond in Quicksilver still fresh in my head, and with happiness came fear (or as Saeris Fane finds out in a casual conversation with Te Léna — tragedy).

I’ve noticed this pattern of fear in my own life before, including with how we grew the studios.

In 2017, I opened with one studio — and was, in fact, profitable right away (apparently rare in the small business world, as we’re constantly told it’ll take at least five years to earn any wage from the fruits of your labour — but we had very little overheads and no bank loans).

With that “five-year rule” stuck in my head, but for some reason still being magically profitable, you know what I did instead of just sitting back and letting it compound while focusing in on what is working?

I opened another studio — every year — for the next five years.

I loved opening studios. It came easily to me, so why not, right?

Here’s why: even though we may have been profitable right away, we were nowhere near profitable enough to sustain the overheads of multiple brick-and-mortar locations. Because guess what — those bills compound too.

Somewhere deep in my brain, I thought having a small business was meant to be hard. That you’re meant to struggle, to sleep on the floor you lay yourself, to work 80-hour weeks to “earn” your title.

I watched my immigrant parents do the same. Everything was hard, and being busy was a badge of honour — one they wore proudly and answered with every time someone asked you what you have been up to.

What a load of poop.

I get that success takes time — but the idea that struggle was the only honourable path poisoned my mind and pushed me toward self-sabotage in a very roundabout way.

I was constantly congratulated for my determination and “growth,” and with my love language being words of affirmation (so lameeeee, but it is what it is), that only added fuel to the fire to keep expanding.

My late father had no idea what “gypsy bullshit” (his words, not mine) I was teaching, but he adored bragging about how many studios I owned to whoever would listen.

I learned a lot in those first few years, and I don’t regret them. But now I’m starting to scratch the surface of the pattern.

I crave change. I thrive in chaos. I expected it to be hard. And I’ve believed I’m only of value if I work until I drop from exhaustion (or if I am talking from past relationship experience, fight, breakup, and then make up all within the same day and call it “passion”)

And when you finally arrive where you’ve been trying to get to this whole time — often by surprise — does anyone else expect the man of your dreams to just suddenly catch on fire?

That’s the thought that sat with me Sunday morning. The quiet fear that maybe happiness is temporary, that maybe contentment means the fall is coming.

But then I took a breath.

Cause this is yoga too right?

The realisation that nothing is guaranteed to stay (and that thats ok).
That every inhale is followed by an exhale.
That the only constant is change.

Yoga teaches us to sit in the now, not in the “what if.”
To witness the fear, the joy, the gratitude — and let them all move through.

Because the practice isn’t about holding on tighter, it’s about softening.

So yes, maybe everything I’ve built could disappear one day.
Maybe life will change again and again.
But today — in this exact breath — it’s here.

And that’s enough.

That’s the work.
That’s life.

Annika xx