My sister and I have decided to collaborate on this next blog. Pam (she) brought up a few interesting things that we continue to struggle with. I am enjoying my time with my sister again. We are having interesting conversations now. I think the 20 years apart has done us a world of good. She mentioned a few interesting questions in one of our many talks regarding our blog. Fear was one question, laziness was another question, emotional exhaustion, persistence, and resilience is the last thing we talked about. She also said why don’t we collaborate on a blog with each of these things. I thought, what an amazing idea. It will be interesting to see what our perspectives are when she works her magic in blending our words. Fear is the first collaboration…
The definition of fear in a noun sense; “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. The definition of fear in a verb sense; “be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening.
“Don’t be afraid of fear. Don’t let fear rule you. For the moments when you’re challenged by fears like: Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Will I fail? Look fear straight in its ugly face and barge forward. When you get past it, turn around and give it a good swift kick in the ass.” ~ Helen Mirren
We are faced with these words daily, fear, laziness, emotional exhaustion, and resilience. We all have our own experiences and stories that may or may not contribute to these four words. Fear is the first thing I would like to expound on.
I know my number one fear is disappointing others that mean a lot to me, with things that I should have or should not have done for them, because that has happened growing up. I am not a parent, and I don’t presume to know what a parent is thinking, but here is what I do know. Words have a powerful impact on a child. I was often told; “you are no good and you are lazy.” It takes time to heal from that when you hear it every day. I have been working on my emotional well-being now. Retraining my thought pattern and my emotions. “Emotions last longer than 90 seconds because we continue to fuel them with our thoughts. We do this by telling ourselves the same stories about the triggering situation over and over. This is when they stop being emotions and start becoming moods.” Unf*** Your Brain, Faith G Harper PH.D. This is one of the best books I have ever read and will always recommend anyone to read this book.
Another fear that I have is with my professional career. I have fought hard to get where I am today and continue to fight to achieve my goals. The fact that nags me daily is that I am a hard-of-hearing individual, and that people can’t look beyond my impairment when it comes to my job.
There are a lot of things that I am fearful of, but I will continue to push forward like I am on a softball field. Because when I have a softball glove on my hand, nothing phases me even getting hit with a ball when I am batting or fielding as that is the one thing that I am most confident in with myself. I will always push forward with anything regardless of my fears.
Fear can be healthy and unhealthy. We teach ourselves to be survivors, sometimes at an early age to be safe from many things that happen in life. Self-care in terms of medical, wellbeing, mental health, are some examples. Surviving fear is built in our nervous system “the fight and flight instincts” and gives us the survival instincts we often need from bullies, gaslighting and narcissistic people, surviving daily abuse from medical, government, legal issues for those who have and are on disability, culture abuse, family and friends abuse, the government and medical individuals constantly putting us in danger and often lying about everything and more. Fear can be unhealthy when it makes us more cautious than we want to really be safe and when it prevents you from doing things you would normally need to do or enjoy. Sometimes our fear is so severe that we respond to the appearance of something instead of what it really is.
Some of us have vivid thoughts and there is a lot of power in the thoughts we create. It can be unhealthy to the point where we create a fear like, “there’s something wrong with me, I think it is probably cancer”. The fear is so intense we become paralyzed and cannot go to the doctor to get the issues checked out. A problem often seen in human behavior is that we tend to “fill in the blanks”. What ideas or reasons we fill it in with is usually an assumption. The power of our thoughts can be incredibly healthy or unhealthy. For instance, when we face our fear, “conquer it” we change our thought mentality in our mental wellbeing. We become superheroes in our head because we overcame something that was so fearful to us.
Fear can be emotionally exhausting and paralyzing. I can speak about this because I struggle with fear every day. I have a disease that has robbed me of my independence and the ability to work full-time. I am dependent on others to help me with things I cannot do anymore. I am fearful every day that I will lose someone or something that helps me stay independent. Karen and I are all we have left of our immediate family. What happens to us if Karen becomes sick and I cannot take care of her, or she cannot help me? This is a constant fear. The fear of having to be put in a nursing home at an early age and declining because nursing homes are often documented with abuse stories. I have had stories told about being diabetic and in nursing homes the food is so bad, the A1c readings are always very high around the 200-300 levels. This is a slow excruciating death for someone who is diabetic.
A friend said to me recently, we cannot live in fear every day, it is not a life. I took that to heart because it is something I live with every day. I live in fear of falling. I have fallen many times in the last few years, it is extremely painful and nerve wracking. Laying on the floor with my body distorted painfully as I wait for help from emergency people and friends. Being left in the bathroom naked for a period is another fear. It has happened a few times being left in the shower because the person was not finished with her daily routine or being left on the toilet waiting for clean clothes because I had an accident because the person was busy. My body becomes so stiff from being in this position I cannot move and then when I do get help, the transfer from something to my chair is excruciating.
I have another fear and it is a good one. The rest of my life. I still have dreams and goals I want to achieve. I still dream of having my own accessible place, writing my book, becoming independently financially secure, a well know artist and cook, and being healthy. I need to learn to focus on this type of fear because it is exciting and positive and not the fear that paralyzes me to the point where I cannot function daily.
I read a book a long time ago written by a man who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The main message in the book The Last Lecture is to live life to the fullest, cherish relationships, and pursue your dreams despite obstacles. One of the most profound quotes for me in his book, The Last Lecture, I think it helped me live with the disease Multiple Sclerosis all these years. What my thoughts and fears I still struggle every day, but I try to remember this: “We can’t change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” — Randy Pausch