...There Will Be Nothing...[To Fear]
Sep. 27th, 2011 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
No feeling takes over our lives more suddenly or more completely than fear.
I act and speak (or don't speak) out of fear far too often... and don't even get me started on my 'fear' of authority. I'm 43 years old, and put an authority figure in front of me, and I become a gibbering three year old. What bugs me is that I can't figure where that fear came from. The others, yeah... but that one..?
My dad was often forceful, but... I wouldn't say that he was overly so. I was never slapped or spanked as a child, except for one single time – and I can remember that vividly – and that was my mother that slapped me around the face.
There was one short period in time where my mother and father had a wobble in the marriage. Dad left for not very long... (I can't clearly recall for how long, but I don't think it was more than a week)... but during that time, being the daddy's girl that I am, I missed him terribly. I was having a 'grown up child's' tantrum in front of mum, saying that I wanted daddy – I suppose, in hindsight, it could have seemed like I was blaming her for his not being there. We were in the kitchen and she slapped my face to shut me up. It's the only time I can recall that either of my parents ever slapped me... and for that reason it was very effective... but it is certainly not cause enough for me to be as afraid of authority figures as I am.
My fear of authority even goes so deep as to have hampered my own exerting of authority at one time or another... certainly in my adult life anyway. Sure I can be 'bossy' from time to time – but that's different to having, and exercising authority over others. I'm uncomfortable doing it – though I have in both my personal and professional lives, been in positions of authority – so I try to temper it with a mandate of 'shared responsibility.' Works to a degree, but sometimes you just have to put your foot down.
I remember very clearly, when I was running my first Wiccan Circle, having some problems with discipline among the members, and I remember writing Alawn (my mentor/initiator) at the time, only to receive a letter back that was as much a slap on the wrist as it was encouragement. He simply asked, "Are you the High Priestess of this Circle or not?" I knew by the question that it was time to take up the rod of authority and use it.
My other big fear is a fear of failure – which let's face it, is a fear that most of us have at some point or another, to varying degrees. It's a fear that stops a lot of us from trying to do something... or makes us feel like our efforts are inadequate even before we have begun... I think I sometimes flicker between both. Couple that with my bloody minded independence and inability to ask for help and it's a wonder I'm not a useless mess all the time. Afraid to fail, too independent to ask for help that might help me succeed... LOL... but somehow I manage... not always gracefully, to deal with my fears or at least find a way around them.
Other fears... bugs, ticks, (yeah I know ticks are bugs, but they get their own category), and spiders... I deal because I have to. It's a different kind of dealing – a different kind of courage, (mostly based on common sense – some of those things could hurt me if I'm not careful, and I don't always know which ones).
One fear I don't deal with at all well... and that's my fear of hurting the ones I love, (my guy, my friends, family), of pushing them away, of them leaving me alone... this is the most self destructive of the fears, because in trying to avoid the hurting – I often do or say things that hurt more. In trying to protect them from 'imagined' hurts, I'm clumsy and end up conjuring hurts that were not there in the first place. This is the fear that I need to address the most... that I need to banish the most... and honestly the answer is in the trust I have for these people and their love for me. In trusting them to understand me when I am honest and straightforward, to know where I'm coming from with what I say and do, I'm sure we could, together, eliminate that fear from me and from them.
I will always have fears, but I need not be my
Fears, for I have other places within myself
from which to speak and act.
--Parker J Palmer
No feeling takes over our lives more suddenly or more completely than fear.
I act and speak (or don't speak) out of fear far too often... and don't even get me started on my 'fear' of authority. I'm 43 years old, and put an authority figure in front of me, and I become a gibbering three year old. What bugs me is that I can't figure where that fear came from. The others, yeah... but that one..?
My dad was often forceful, but... I wouldn't say that he was overly so. I was never slapped or spanked as a child, except for one single time – and I can remember that vividly – and that was my mother that slapped me around the face.
There was one short period in time where my mother and father had a wobble in the marriage. Dad left for not very long... (I can't clearly recall for how long, but I don't think it was more than a week)... but during that time, being the daddy's girl that I am, I missed him terribly. I was having a 'grown up child's' tantrum in front of mum, saying that I wanted daddy – I suppose, in hindsight, it could have seemed like I was blaming her for his not being there. We were in the kitchen and she slapped my face to shut me up. It's the only time I can recall that either of my parents ever slapped me... and for that reason it was very effective... but it is certainly not cause enough for me to be as afraid of authority figures as I am.
My fear of authority even goes so deep as to have hampered my own exerting of authority at one time or another... certainly in my adult life anyway. Sure I can be 'bossy' from time to time – but that's different to having, and exercising authority over others. I'm uncomfortable doing it – though I have in both my personal and professional lives, been in positions of authority – so I try to temper it with a mandate of 'shared responsibility.' Works to a degree, but sometimes you just have to put your foot down.
I remember very clearly, when I was running my first Wiccan Circle, having some problems with discipline among the members, and I remember writing Alawn (my mentor/initiator) at the time, only to receive a letter back that was as much a slap on the wrist as it was encouragement. He simply asked, "Are you the High Priestess of this Circle or not?" I knew by the question that it was time to take up the rod of authority and use it.
My other big fear is a fear of failure – which let's face it, is a fear that most of us have at some point or another, to varying degrees. It's a fear that stops a lot of us from trying to do something... or makes us feel like our efforts are inadequate even before we have begun... I think I sometimes flicker between both. Couple that with my bloody minded independence and inability to ask for help and it's a wonder I'm not a useless mess all the time. Afraid to fail, too independent to ask for help that might help me succeed... LOL... but somehow I manage... not always gracefully, to deal with my fears or at least find a way around them.
Other fears... bugs, ticks, (yeah I know ticks are bugs, but they get their own category), and spiders... I deal because I have to. It's a different kind of dealing – a different kind of courage, (mostly based on common sense – some of those things could hurt me if I'm not careful, and I don't always know which ones).
One fear I don't deal with at all well... and that's my fear of hurting the ones I love, (my guy, my friends, family), of pushing them away, of them leaving me alone... this is the most self destructive of the fears, because in trying to avoid the hurting – I often do or say things that hurt more. In trying to protect them from 'imagined' hurts, I'm clumsy and end up conjuring hurts that were not there in the first place. This is the fear that I need to address the most... that I need to banish the most... and honestly the answer is in the trust I have for these people and their love for me. In trusting them to understand me when I am honest and straightforward, to know where I'm coming from with what I say and do, I'm sure we could, together, eliminate that fear from me and from them.
