The Guarded Dreamer
Theme: Acting like you don’t want things so you don’t get dissappointed
You are the Guarded Dreamer, someone who senses they’re meant for more, but struggles to fully admit what they want. You dream in flashes. You feel potential stir in your bones. But letting yourself want it? Speak it? Move toward it?
That feels… risky. Your dreams are real, but they feel buried. You’re holding back, not because you lack vision, but because having a vision feels dangerous!
Your Nervous System Pattern
You live in a protective form of shutdown — a mix of freeze + dissociation.
Your body says: “Don’t want it too much. Don’t try too hard. If you fail, you’ll break.”
It’s really hard to feel motivated when you can’t see the big picture or really express what your heart truly wants. You’re kinda skirting around your own dreams. But it’s not because your dreams are gone; you learned numb desire to avoid disappointment.
You might say:
“I don’t know what I want.”
“Nothing really excites me right now.”
“I used to be passionate, but now I just feel tired.”
When dreaming feels too risky, your system chooses numbness over hope.
This is a protective response, not a lack of ambition.
Perfectionism Type
You do things because you think it’s expected from you, or you were pressured into making decisions in your life because you thought it would impress someone (parents, friends, co-workers, that dummy ex…).
But now, it’s just not working. Your fear of failure keeps you from pursuing what your heart really wants to do, and often you find yourself in relationships you don’t want to be in anymore, but you won’t leave because that means that you failed. You stay in jobs and projects longer than you need to, because otherwise you think that you failed. You do many things in life for too long, because quitting something makes you think you failed.
You tip toe around everything and have MAJOR commitment issues to things that you ACTUALLY care about. You probably believe that playing it safe is helping you, but it's hurt you in SO many ways, and it's time to change that. Even though you want to make calculated decisions, you're likely to overthink it to the point where you're paralyzed in making ANY kind of choices. You're so afraid of being wrong, that you rather stay in the same place year after year (and complain about it...) than make a choice!
This fear of failure is your main motivation. And that’s not really healthy.
This type of perfectionism makes you afraid of things you enjoy because you can’t really rationalize doing those things when there is so much to be achieved. This has made you learn how to seek love and acceptance from others, more than from yourself.
Your Drive Your main driver is fear of abandonment
Your Loop Procrastination that eventually leads to Shame
Your Emotional Patterns
You navigate a lot of shame. You really want something but you just can’t say it! You have:
Fear of failure or embarrassment
Fear of admitting what you want and not getting it
A tendency to talk others into their dreams but stay quiet about your own
Shame around “not living up to your potential”
You may have stopped dreaming because it started to hurt. You’re afraid to ask for more, because last time you tried and it didn’t go as planned. And your nervous system remembers.
Energy Gates + Strengths
This is a conundrum because your strengths are also where your challenges are. You have a strong solar plexus energy center, which helps you maintain tight control over your world to avoid emotional risk. You can be highly capable, strong, and composed, but usually this comes from having to survive. You lead with “I’ve got this,” but underneath is fear of collapse.
Shadows
You’re so capable, but the shadow of this is being hyper-independent, emotionally dysregulated, and guarded.
Underactive: Heart and Throat
Your most under-active energy centers are your heart and your throat. You don’t speak your truth, or from your heart. The disconnect means that you’re usually skirting around your true desires, evading what your heart really wants. And when you say things you don’t really mean, your expression becomes more inauthentic. That further puts you into procrastination and shame.
Elements Earth
Again, this is a conundrum. Your strongest elemental factor is also what’s working against you. Earth says: stability, truth, connection. But when imbalanced, it’s giving RIDGID and UNROOTED.