What Are You Afraid Of?
What are you afraid of today? Notice I didn’t ask if you have ever been afraid or if fear has stopped you from accomplishing something very important to you. These things are a given.
Fear is a universal experience and stands between us and our desires and goals as surely as if there were a roaring lion in front of our faces. But learning to recognize fear in the present moment has a lot of advantages I hope to explain here.
The ‘roaring lion’ level of fear doesn’t happen often for most of us. Fortunately.
Perhaps your heart skips a beat when you hear an explosion in the basement or see a child about to run across a busy street. Such events trigger chemical and electrical changes that affect the entire body, including the stomach, heart, and brain.
This is a life-preserving response that makes us move quickly or freeze in one spot and is designed to keep us alive in extreme circumstances.
I am talking about a silent fear that is much harder to recognize. And can be equally as destructive in our lives. Here is an example from my life.
Some of My Fears
Since retirement, I have enjoyed writing. I have a blog, am working on a book, published a few essays, and even have a folder of poetry. Nothing particularly scary there.
Well, tell that to my quaking heart!
For the last few weeks, every time I sit down to write, I remember some important thing that I must attend to. It might be the laundry, checking email, or taking the dog out to pee.
Days can go by without my writing a word. When I write in my journal about this process, I never use the word ‘fear’ to explain why I got nothing written.
I may use ‘busyness,’ ‘lack of focus,’ or ‘different priorities.’
I can also be a rather harsh judge of myself: “I am lazy, I am unskilled, I am not creative.”
Notice that I don’t say, “I am afraid.”
One of the worst (to me) insults as a child was to be called a ’ scaredy-cat.’ I continually accepted challenges because I didn’t want my friends to think I was afraid.
Fear had no control over me—or so I thought. I frustrate others even today because I will look at an ominous weather report of a pending blizzard and shrug my shoulders.
Does it make me seem stronger not to fear a power outage or slippery roads? To be honest, I do stay off the roads in a storm, but I would never admit to being afraid.
It’s just common sense, I tell myself.
I am coming to see that common sense is actually an acknowledgment of something that could kill me if I didn’t use it.
And it makes sense to fear being killed.
But the truth is, fear is not an enemy or a character flaw.
If I were to personify fear, I might recognize it as a companion…or even a lover—if I acknowledged that fear only wants me to be safe and happy.
So, let’s get back to my resistance to putting words on the page while making excuses for not writing.
In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield explains that fear is the root of our resistance, even if we resist something valuable, like responding to our inner creativity with a poem, a painting, or a song.
He explains that the root of this resistance is probably one of many fears: failure, success, or hurting someone else or oneself.
This fear prevents us from proceeding with a creative project that has been calling to us. The tools of fear are resistance, procrastination, and fatigue.
I envy a person with a vision for a creative project who can follow it step by step and succeed in their mission without first doing the laundry or shining their shoes.
How have they managed to stay the course without finding excuses to delay a project? Do they not fear the shame of failure or the expectations that come with success?
Do they not care one way or the other?
Some of the most successful creative people in the world seem totally detached from the fears that are so common for the rest of us.
They create masterworks in every field, from medicine to business to fine arts.
Perhaps detached isn’t exactly the right word. We certainly have many examples of alcoholic writers, sculptors, and artists who have mental breakdowns and physicians who themselves are addicted to drugs.
It doesn’t seem to be about whether we have fear or not. Fear is a given.
The question is, what do we do about it?
First of all, we must acknowledge it. My persona in childhood did not show I was scared of anything. It was a protective mechanism but not the best for making friends. I am sure I came off as ‘superior’ and unapproachable.
As I got older, I used many common methods to deal with fear—avoidance, perfectionism, overcompensating (phew…that can be tiring!), or a glass of wine. And always, as an umbrella over everything, Denial!
Then I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert. She speaks eloquently about making a companion out of fear. It makes all the sense in the world.
Companions don’t have to be good friends. They may be assigned, like an army buddy, and sometimes it feels like they are chosen by lottery…like a seatmate on a bus.
Long ago, I started referring to MS as a companion instead of a disease. It changed my attitude immensely and I stopped fighting it. (You can read about that here). Wherever I go, it tags along, but I am still in charge. I am the one who chooses my itinerary.
I am not inclined to fight with a companion like I might an enemy. Nor do I especially have to like a companion.
I acknowledge its presence, and sometimes it takes some adjustment to accommodate it, but once I have shown hospitality to my sorrows, confusions, anger, and yes, even my fears, I still know who is in charge.
I’m the one holding the GPS!
It’s when I refuse to acknowledge these things that my life gets complicated, and I don’t know which way to turn.
Remembering that companionship isn’t a marriage, I can get off the bus at the next stop! But I am not always anxious to do so, for I’ve lived long enough to know that soon another traveling companion will take its place.
May you find yourself making peace with who or whatever is in the seat beside you on your journey in life, and be prepared to smile and say, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
May I send you more interesting topics to reflect on once a week?
