F.E.A.R : False Evidence Appears Real

If there is one “aspect” circling around my life that I would like to part company with this year, it is the constant “arrive too early, leave too late/never leave” entity named FEAR who hangs around close enough for me to feel her breath. She is a loyal companion and was introduced to me since my childhood fulfilling her role as both my constant “playmate” and an early childhood educator. I have accepted her as a part of my life, for better or worse though I cannot remember signing a contract to cohabit with her. We have grown so familiar that we often complete each other’s sentences and at times it is difficult to tell where I begin and she ends. We have enjoyed our codependent relationship, so I thought!

Not quite - for a while now I have experienced an uneasiness/dissatisfaction about my relationship with FEAR;  it is a bit like falling out of love - you want to ignore it but you can’t. If I stay too long in close proximity with Fear, I would suffer a case of indigestion and have an adverse reaction soon after ingesting her energy.  I have since realised that generally fearful molecules can come to me in two ways. Firstly, I am aware that I am capable to scare myself even without any apparent triggers as if I am on some sort of “default” setting. Secondly I can call upon outside assistance by switching on the nightly news or to go on a shopping spree looking for “negative geared” people. What a revelation/insult to find out that close to 97% of my fears I have imagined them into being. 

As I step onto this new 2020 page, I want a clean canvas to paint on so I am in the process of evicting Fear though she has been wearing my slippers for so long. I have also introduced some guidelines into my “new” life; I would not watch news or upsetting movies and I would be more “selective” with interactions in order to calm my nervous system and improve my immune response. On the mental level, I don’t think we can feel calm and happy while being fearful.  Since there are only two emotions we can experience at one time (i.e. “Love” or “Fear”) so to choose one is to let the other one go.  

I think I might be in a worse off situation than you; remember how I boasted about being a great storyteller, that I can construct a storyline at the drop of a hat. Since my other half (i.e. “FEAR”) is very creative and quick so she can scare me sh*tless with my own thoughts. She helps me to write and then live out a narrative of fear and despair and at times we even touch on insanity. These are occasions when I allowed her to Google on my diagnosis or to plan so much ahead of time on anything that I have no control over.  Whenever I give my power to these imagined fears (my self-energised distorted creation/thought), my diagnosis would feel like a life or death condition and as the tsunami of anxiety tips me over, the torture of living with such immense fear is often worse than the actual condition or happening.

Fortunately, there is a way out as while we cannot control how we feel but we do have the power to choose how we think… and 

Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly re-experience failure in advance, what a waste - Seth Godin.

I penned this prose titled FEAR in 1996 as an effort to give it to my lifelong companion FEAR as a parting gift, but it did not work. I soon begged her to return as I felt lost without her constant reminders that I live in an unsafe world and that I MUST find ways to make myself safe, like erecting an underground bunker so to keep all the fearful stories by my side. It was a bad habit stemmed from my over-active mind that needs the constant feed of problems, issues and what have you in order to stay stimulated or to feel alive!  

At almost the same time I also had a light bulb moment as to why I chose to become a talk therapist.  A talk therapist friend of mine shared this “grain of truth” with me, it says;

“Being a (talk) therapist is like borrowing your watch to tell you the time”.  

Here is my prose:     

There is this silent ache

deep within my Soul,

A nameless fear

Intruding, threatening my safety.

Lurking in forms of disguises

Among the maze of a dreamer,

Fretting ceaselessly in my slumber.

Looking through frustrated eyes, 

A mind wild with insanity,

Wishing things for what they are not,

Bending, twisting, insisting.

Shaping illusions into reality,

A task only fools take,

Panic arise from confusion.

Something snaps back into place,

Willing to relinquish distorted beliefs,

COME WHAT MAY, 

THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY.

No more struggles, no power plays,

Peace in quiet acceptance,

Embrace the fear and melt it away.

Bonnie Hoo - 1996

I know that I cannot ignore or push away any fear because I would become its prisoner and lose my feelings of happiness, peace and spontaneity. Now I stare them in the eye and if possible I share my fear with another understanding person.It often happens that when I started to verbalise, I could hear my own “gibberish” (just googled definition: unintelligible or meaningless language) so I would yell out “cancel” in order to save the friendship with my long suffering listener.

I have also found out that if I get to know myself more honestly, I do not fall into this knee jerk fearful reaction so readily. “Know thyself thus set yourself free” is making more sense to me. 

Thanks for touching base with me, have a great month and I send you love.