Evolution Series: The Four Letter F-Word
Fear.
According to Yoda, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Or maybe for me: Fear leads to silence. Silence leads to pain. Pain leads to resentment.
Fear. Four simple letters. One little word. A massive amount of weight.
Fear holds me back.
There’s the fear that if I confront an issue, that makes my experience too important, and she’ll internalize it and shame herself. Shame leads to her relapse. Or the fear that I’m not important enough, and I’ll be the one hurt by being ignored.
Fear that airing resentment will fall on wounds not yet healed and cut too deeply. Fear of letting those resentments go and being empty inside.
Fear of change. Fear of not changing.
Fear that no matter what I do, I can’t stop generational trauma.
Leonard Cohen wrote, “As for me, all I’ve ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.” I have a fear that he’s right. Fear of falling deeper into love with the very person who drove a truck into me before. Fear it will happen again.
Fear it won’t.
F-E-A-R
Frustration, Exhaustion, Anticipation, Regret – is this what fear is made of? Which one do I look to fight off next? If this is the guts of it, isn’t naming it one step closer to getting through it? I grew up being told, “Knowing is half the battle.”
Frustration in how things move too fast and too slow at the same time.
Exhaustion from feeling like I’ve put the time in, and now I have even more on my plate as we continue to work on reentry.
Anticipation that everything that’s been sacrificed will lead to something better.
Regret that we have all suffered so much.
“Fear comes from uncertainty. We can eliminate the fear within us when we know ourselves better,” explains Bruce Lee. Fear can be paralyzing. Fear can be debilitating. Fear can be motivating.
Above all, remember, this isn’t the time to put the fear in the box.
Because that’s really when we are held back. As we work on our boundaries and regrow to fill the places that were cut away, we know ourselves better.
Fear and all.
If you share the fear of some of it – maybe all of it – we hope you’ll consider joining our group for the loved ones of alcoholics called Echoes of Recovery.