What are your fears? Where do these fears come from? Which ones follow you around each day lingering in the background waiting to pounce as soon as you’re ready to make a leap?
Just like happiness, I’m working on recognizing my feelings and understanding them when it comes to fears. Fear is a feeling that I’ve always struggled with, even as a small child. I’ve been afraid of my own feelings, my own thoughts and my own needs, along with unrealistic scenarios. I would fall into pits of fear and become frozen in that moment making it impossible to do what I really wanted or even speak the words I longed to hear slip from my tongue.
Recently, I’ve been able to look at my fears and see them for what they are. It’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever done but it’s also one of the best experience I’ve ever had, too. I’m not saying that I’ve conquered all my fears because that’s FAR from the truth. I still have many fears that I’ve struggled with my entire life but I do my best to work through them each day and not just dismiss them until they creep up again and overwhelm all my senses.
One of my major fears is speaking my truth about my feelings and needs. May times my empathy can take over and I’m afraid that what I want or need will ultimately take away from what the other person wants or needs. I’m starting to understand that speaking my truth doesn’t take anything away from someone else. It simply releases my needs and allows someone else to know what I’m feeling. Sharing my feelings isn’t dismissing theirs but intertwining our truths. But it’s so much easier to write that out than to actually do when it comes to that time. When that fear to speak hits me it’s like my throat, tongue and lips have turned to cement. I’m literally trying everything in my power to move them and speak the words that are playing in my head but nothing comes out. I’m terror-stricken to the point of complete silence and my entire body is numb and feels like I’m wearing a weighted vest that’s suffocating me.
Most of my fears are emotional fears, yes, but I have a few that go along with my grief. A fear that I now hold since my brother Josh passed and I was made a lone sibling. I’m afraid I’m going to die before my parents. That fear follows me no matter where I go and it’s the heaviest of all my fears. I’m afraid that I’m going to make them into childrenless parents and that breaks my heart over and over again.
So what do we do with our fears and how do we handle them? Well, we have to make a game plan. We have to decide to take steps each day to recognized them and see them for what they really are. For me, writing them down, reading through them and breaking them down has helped me. I try to make a timeline of when I first felt that way and why. Was that fear founded in truth of the situation or was I just afraid to speak my truth, know the truth or accept the truth? Some fears have been there so long that we don’t know where they initially came from so you break it down from the last situation you felt that exact fear. Fears like to hide and manifest in many different ways. We have to do our best to stop ourselves in our tracks when we see our fears taking over. Even if you have to walk away from the situation for a few minutes to understand yourself, it’s worth it.
Fears are scary! They can do a lot of damage but they can also help us grow. Let your fears help you and take control of them.
My Daily Ransom 