Meet Roxana Popet of Step On Your Fears

Today we’d like to introduce you to Roxana Popet.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Step On Your Fears

Growing up in Eastern Europe, in Romania, with quite a lot of communist influence, I was told to keep quiet. To never say anything that would disrupt the people around me and the “order of the system”.

I was told that I need to nod, agree and smile, to be polite and pretty, and to not worry about anything else. I also understood that the world is a dangerous place and that I should be afraid of it all since I am “not allowed” to say what’s on my mind.

However, I noticed that while my parents and family did that in public and always pretended to be happy and well in front of other people, at home, they’d put on a different mask: they’d be extremely judgmental and critical, mainly just letting it all out, all that they couldn’t express in front of others. Only later did I understand that my family would only model what society would look like during those times.

As a consequence, I grew up extremely confused. As a little girl being raised by my grandparents in the village until the age of five and then taken by my parents to live in the city, I became extremely anxious and incapable of expressing myself of connecting with anyone. I always felt like an outsider. I felt that no one would ever accept me and I began letting my fearful thoughts take full control of my life.

Beyond afraid to look within me and know my values, what I liked and disliked, what are my boundaries in a relationship and what do I really want to accomplish in life, my system began failing me from all the anger, fear, despair and doubt that I never knew how to shake off.

With an ego bigger than the U.S., I would never ask for help, although I felt such torment and mental pain, as I thought I was completely empty on the inside. In the attempt to get me to connect with myself first, my body started to translate all these powerful emotions as disease:

At 26 years old, I was at my lowest with my health: I had a heart condition, lump in my breasts, a lump in my throat, severe skin problems and more than anything, my emotional and mental health were beyond wrecks.

At one point when I was going to the pharmacy to get the same pills that my grandmother would take as well for her heart condition (!)… I thought to myself: “If I don’t do something fast, I won’t make it to my thirties!!” Not to mention that because of fear and a distorted mindset on making decisions, I could not leave the job that I began to loathe for a long time, thus adding more pressure on my shoulders and mostly, on my heart.

You’d think that by this point, I’d be doing something, right? I did nothing! I was too afraid to even consider an alternative solution to medication until one blessed day when a friend from work told me that she finally managed to cure her breast cancer with the help of NLP – Neurolinguistic Programming.

It really sounded like nonsense to me! But my God, did she insist! I finally began to attend some workshops and I discovered that NLP is a science of the brain in which you learn how to use your thoughts to your advantage and to reach excellence through your mindset.

This is how my path as a NLP Trainer and Fear Specialist began, as once I managed to build myself up, to conquer my fears and to have a more fulfilling life overall, I deeply wanted everyone around me to experience this as well. I also decided that I would not let anyone go through what I did, so I began coaching, training individuals and groups, as I specialized in business training on fear and stress. Needless to say, my health has improved completely!

Step On Your Fears began as my journey in conquering fears and stress, my anxiety and panic attacks, and is now building a powerful, fear-free community all around the globe, as I thankfully work internationally and get the chance to impact people’s lives all over the world.

Now, the most interesting part of the story is just starting… Because the ego story didn’t stop with having my own business and breaking free from so many unsupportive habits and patterns, luckily. And I say ‘luckily’ with so much excitement and happiness, as one of my biggest lessons from my amazing spiritual mentor, Glenn Marsden from the Imperfectly Perfect Campaign, was that “you don’t know what you don’t know”.

And the most impactful lesson yet was the lesson of humility that I received by being divinely mentored by Glenn. Where you go back to your core and you viscerally realize what’s really important to you.

I honestly thought that I had my ego under control. I was still hurting inside, not like before, but something was still eating me up. The resistance. The fear of the unknown. The judgmental behavior towards other people. Call it however you may please, but I know it’s the ego. The thing is that nothing really hurts except the expectations, the limits and the boundaries that we put on the things that are happening in our lives. Glenn’s insight on looking at circumstances from a different perspective, bearing in mind one very important aspect that the ego makes you disconsider – everyone has their own story that you simply don’t know about behind the scenes – changed my life completely, my relationship with my husband and my daughter, and the way I take on life and business.

After that powerful and insightful humility episode, I truly rebirthed. I was a whole new me. A better me and a more conscious side of me arose.

The cherry on top, the epitome of the story and the most meaningful and powerful divine project that I ever had the honor to be a part of is being a co-author in Glenn’s Volume 1 book of the Imperfectly Perfect Campaign Book Series. This is a project of the soul, written with the hearts of 15 co-authors, among which I’m truly blessed and privileged to be a part of, as well as celebrities, that emphasize the importance of mental health and speaking your truth.

The three weeks that I have been a part of this book have already been the most revelatory and the most inspiring, full of breakthroughs and a-ha moments of my life! The wisdom that I received so far has propelled me towards the deepest level of my consciousness, unlocking layer after layer of ego, fear and frustration, allowing me the luxury to be my very best, courageous self, serving my international community and being congruent with who I really am deep down. My mission in life has never been more clear: to remove the stigma and burden that our emotions are not worthy.

The deep and complete healing that I have experienced by writing my story in this book is incomprehensible! The very big difference in this process is that it is public! My story is out there to inspire and to give hope to the people that most need to hear it. As opposed to coaching and mentoring which are confidential and public, having my story out there in the world is making me embrace my entire being fully, for the first time ever.

I am continually processing parts of my story, sharing it with everyone that needs a nudge in their lives, motivation, inspiration and the need to feel seen, accepted and loved for who they really are: imperfectly perfect. Beyond excited to share with you that this work of art of a book will be launched in January, but pre-releases start in August!

Be a part of our story and share this wonder of a book to anyone that you feel and think needs to reevaluate their life and needs to embrace their beautiful, flawed selves.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It was far from being smooth. Quite a challenge, in all ways, and mostly because I was not at all coachable. My ego would stand in my way to even consider asking for help, thus suicidal thoughts had risen.

I would always need to pretend being happy, as in my mind, God forbid I would ever upset anyone and express how I really felt. As I saw it then, if I disagreed with someone, it would mean that I’m a bad person that does not deserve to be loved or considered. However, I would feel invisible even with all the pretending and with all the people pleasing.

At one point, since it hurt so much to people please and to pretend and to put on so many masks every day, I developed addictions that I struggled with during many years: sex, porn, eating a lot and more. Narcissism would be at its finest in my relationships, as I began seeing men as mere toys, dehumanized, the perfect “victims” where I could have all my revenge and anger on.

I became a toxic person that believed that the reality and the mindset in which I was in back then are my absolute truth, one that I could never ever change since it’s my “destiny” to always be in pain.

I honestly thought that this is how life is: an awful, continuous struggle and that everyone basically fakes it. I thought everyone had a hidden agenda and that if I’m not careful, they are coming to get me.

Health issues along the way that got me to truly be afraid for my life seem so distant now, as I found healthy coping mechanisms and easy-to-put-in-practice techniques and questions that allow myself the luxury to keep my fears and my emotions under control.

A great lesson and motto that I live by now is: “Make as many mistakes as possible”. It’s the only, real way to learn in life, to grow and to fulfill your existence completely.

The ego work is still a work in progress and as I look back to where I started, it’s incredible. I can’t believe how far I’ve come, as I got amazing people to support me along this journey, one of them being my spiritual mentor, Glenn Marsden.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Step On Your Fears?
Step On Your Fears, as well as the Stories About Fear Podcast, are the platforms that I wish I had handy as a young adult, learning how to navigate life, business and mostly, my emotions and feelings.

Step On Your Fears is offering easy-to-put-in-practice methods, coaching and training for the use of entrepreneurs and their teams, with the mission of removing the stigma that our emotions are not worthy and that it’s not OK to feel the way that we do, especially in business. Whereas it’s absolutely normal and natural to feel fear and all the emotions that come with it. A great priority needs to be in removing the need to place guilt and shame for feeling the way that we do on top of it all.

Especially in business: if we admit that we are fearful, we believe that we are weak, that being vulnerable does not equal to being professional and that our community will judge us for these emotions.

Fear is never going away, it’s part of our system, as a brilliant mechanism to keep us safe, and that’s why it’s important to use it as one of the best messengers in our lives: it literally tells us which is our next step in order to grow.

Once we acknowledge our fears, they are more than half solved, as through powerful questions, we get our rational mind seeing solutions instead. The best questions to always ask yourself when things are off, are:

“Why do I feel like this?”

“How can I do this, despite fear?”

“What’s really stressing me?”

As a Fear Specialist in Business, my goal is to offer entrepreneurs and companies enough trust within themselves, to embrace their mistakes and failures, meaning that whatever decision they make, it’s going to be the best one. No matter what happens on the outside, your inside will give you enough strength to take the best lessons from all your experiences.

Knowing that you either win or you learn the best lessons, which already means that you are a winner in life and in business since you can only control what’s happening inside you, get you to see life with so much optimism, hope and drive to always be more, do more and have more. The ultimate feeling and desire, in my opinion, is fulfillment. Can we have it all? 100%.

The decision to not let fear and stress stand in your way means that you are embracing mistakes and failures and that you see life as learning along the way, which in my opinion, is the healthiest way to live your life. You can’t ever know it all, and you don’t need to. This is not the purpose. You need to create your best life now, with the resources you have handy, knowing that things may not go the way that you want to. And that’s ideal, actually: you only grow when things are challenging.

I do one-on-one coaching sessions and training with entrepreneurs and their teams, giving them the best and most powerful tools for working on their biggest project they could ever be involved in: their mindset.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
The best memory from my childhood is going to my grandparents in the village called Jdioara during holidays and summer vacations. I would meet with my friends and we’d literally have the best summers ever.

Up until I went to college, the best part of summer would be going to swim and bathe in the river Nadragel that flows through the middle of the village. I remember one time in particular when it was extremely hot outside. As summers would sometimes have 95+ F temperatures, as I put my feet in the river, it felt all at once as: I had the best refreshing feeling in the world, the best ice cream, the best shower and the most amazing lemonade. These river baths were the best thirst quenchers you could ever have. 😀

It’s the sense of freedom too, of not having a care in the world and of fulfillment to be there, as that’s the place that I knew to be my refuge.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.roxanapopet.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roxanapopet/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roxana.popet
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxanapopet/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoxanaPopet
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCULVr_lnafUh-r1M1peSi1A
• Other: https://www.imperfectlyperfectcampaign.org/

Image Credits
Lucia Gaggero – for the first, main professional studio photo only.