A Dream Swish, A Fresh Start: What if We Lived A Fear-Free Life? What if We Lived a Love-Centered Life?

To launch our 2026 blog series, we are going to focus on liberation, self-care and love, give ourselves permission to rest, live a fear-free life, and celebrate the wisdom of global poets, deep thinkers, and inspiring activists. Today we learn from bell hooks.

A few days before the new year, as I woke up in a half-dream state, I felt this phrase float into my bedroom and seep into my synapses: 

“What would happen if I lived a fear-free life?” 

As someone who has lived her life with a lot of shoulds, judgment, and external pressure to conform to someone else’s will, I found this dream-swish to be such a liberating thought. What if I dared to love myself enough to stay away from relationships that deplete me? What if I dared to love myself enough to prioritize rest? What if I quit trying to meet everyone else’s needs at my own expense, and instead, focused on the work that I know I’m meant to do? What if I gave up financial anxiety, and leaned into trusting myself and the universe to provide care and abundance so that I can thrive? What if I dared to love myself enough to claim and celebrate myself for who I truly am, and go forward into 2026 with purpose and confidence?

These questions spell liberation. 

And they brought me to bell hooks (1952–2021), a prolific author who incisively probed and exposed fear-invoking dominating and oppressive intersectionalities in race, gender, capitalism, and social class, and then wrote multiple books modeling love-centered attitudes and behavior. bell hooks addressed these questions I asked on the cusp of 2026. I share her wisdom here in a series of quotes that move from childhood into life experiences of domination and fear to self-love and a supportive community.

bell hooks talking at the New School, 2014. Photo: Alex Lozupone (Tduk), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Quotes from bell hooks

"In an ideal world we would all learn in childhood to love ourselves. We would grow, being secure in our worth and value, spreading love wherever we went, letting our light shine. If we did not learn self-love in our youth, there is still hope. The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born–waiting to see the light."

"Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community."

"The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others."

"Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else."

"When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other."

"[O]ne of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone."

bell hooks with microphone, 2009.  Photo: Cmongirl, Public Domain.

“What would happen if you lived a fear-free life?” 

“What would happen if you lived a love-centered life?”

FAQs

1. What role does fear play in our lives?

Certain types of fear are protective mechanisms for our safety, such as not touching a hot stove or not running into traffic. In other situations, our fears can cause physical, mental, and social consequences that play out in our work and relationships.

• Physical. When experiencing perpetual anxiety and stress, people can develop debilitating health issues such as digestive and cardiac problems, high blood pressure, fatigue, depression; sleep, memory, and focus issues; and decreased immune functions. 

• Mental. Both fear of failure and fear of success can prevent us from realizing our potential. We might fight opportunities or avoid people that would be helpful to us. Whether we believe we can or can’t achieve something, we’re usually right. Mental attitude is a strong predictor of outcome. 

• Social. Social anxiety can cause us to feel pressure to do things against our better judgment, or to avoid contact with humans, which can cause loneliness and isolation. Taken to an extreme, social fear (often combined with social privilege, hierarchy, or entitlement) can cause certain people to dehumanize other people, which in worst case situations can result in dominating and oppressive treatment, as we see with many anti-immigration practices; domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence and authoritarianism today; and even murder, as occurred against George Floyd, Aura Rosser, Ahmaud Arbery, Laveta Jackson, Fricie Griffin, Tarika Williams, and so many more Black and Brown people.

2. What are some examples of living a fear-free life?

   
   

   • For members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, it means coming out, celebrating who they are, and developing a supportive community.

   • For people who are trapped in physically, sexually, emotionally, or verbally abusive relationships, it means finding a way out of the situation, claiming the beautiful people they are, and rebuilding their lives.

   • For people who are unhappy in their work, it means daring to return to school or take on-the-job training for a career they would enjoy.

   • It means reaching out to form a friendship, asking for help when you need it, trying out new events, daring to trust yourself, daring to love yourself. 

3. How does our mindset shift when we live a love-centered life?

Living a love-centered life means paying attention.

Paying attention to your own needs and self-care.

Paying attention to the needs of people around you.

Listening deeply and openheartedly.

Developing confidence in who you are.

Standing up against injustices.

Offering random acts of kindness to strangers.

Choosing issues you care about, and training to become impactful advocates and activists to implement the change you want to see in the world. (Check out our Compose for Change: Healing Arts class!)

As bell hooks says, “The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.”