Wide open claustrophobic spaces

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There are places where the sky stretches forever, where the walls are gone, and every direction is yours to choose. And yet, you can’t breathe. This is the paradox of wide open claustrophobic spaces: when life gives you all the room to move, but something inside you refuses to take a single step. Freedom that feels like a cage.

Possibility that feels like pressure.

The prison of potential:

We dream of freedom. Of options. Of time. Of space. But no one tells you that the more space you have, the more lost you can feel. When everything is possible, nothing feels solid.
 When every road is open, none feel right. And so you freeze, not for lack of direction, but from too many. You were waiting to be unshackled. Now you are, and it terrifies you.

Internal confinement:

Claustrophobia isn’t just about small rooms. It’s about compression, emotional, mental, existential. And sometimes the tightest squeeze comes not from outside, but from within.

Old fears follow us into wide spaces. Old stories whisper: You’re not ready. You don’t deserve this. You’ll mess it up. So even in the most expansive landscape, new cities, blank slates, second chances we shrink. We self-contain. We panic inside our own minds.

Choice becomes burden:

Too many options can feel like none. Too much possibility feels paralyzing. Because with freedom comes responsibility. You can no longer blame the walls. You can no longer say you’re stuck. Now it’s you. Just you. And that realization can suffocate even the strongest of us. It’s not always easier to be free.

Sometimes, it’s easier to be told where to go.

When space isn’t safety:

You moved out. You quit the job. You left the relationship. You did everything they said would bring peace. And now there’s silence, but it’s loud. There’s space, but it presses in.

This is what it means to carry the walls inside you. To find that even in a vast, open field,
you’re crouched in a corner of your own fear. 

Conclusion: 

Wide open claustrophobic spaces teach us something profound: Freedom alone isn’t healing.
 You still have to face the self you brought into the freedom. But there’s hope in this discomfort.
 Because eventually, after the fear, the overwhelm, the paralysis, you learn to exhale again.
You take one step. Then another. You begin to fill the space not with panic, but with presence.

And slowly, the vastness becomes less terrifying. Not because it got smaller, but because you grew bigger within it.

If this resonated with you, you might love a free short course worksheet, please email me for a list of topics to choose from, thank you.

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