Old fears, New feelings

[fibiray]

catherine: Over a decade ago, I faced a thoroughly terrifying scandal and relationship breakdown. Both were caused by my own lack of responsibility and a series of small wrong choies, each leading surrptitously to what became a grand public failure.
As a result, there have been times when I was afraid to open my mail in case of what I might find there. There were days when pressing 'play' on my answering machine took incredible courage. There was a whole year when walking onto work made my stomach turn. Even now I remember and feel those fears.
Their relentlessness reminds me of the nesting blackbirds that would dive at me when I ran down the lane way towards home after school. Shrill. Dangerous. And always ready to attack anyone in their territory.
Whenever they surface now, my old fears feel the same. I look back on my life and wish I had done more to confront them: to talk back to the bully at school who teased me mercilessly, to put a stop to other people's intimidation, to find the courage to speak up for myself. I know now that I didn't have the tools I needed. And I'm not sure if I have them yet.
Sometimes when I'm afraid and want to move forward, I ask myself the useful question, What would I do if I were'nt afraid? And I try to take my own advice.
Still I wonder - do our fears ever really leave us, or do we have to live around them forever? And how can we move through our fears from the past into a more courageous, open approach to life?

Stephanie: In the context of self respect, and in the light of her own values, I would like to see catherine experiement with looking at fear itself more compassionately.
The fears that she felt during that tough time in her life were a legitimate response to a very difficult situation. What else should she have been feeling?
She was making at the time, a significant break not only with a relationship that wasn't working for her but also with an image that she had of herself that was pretty dear to her. Knowing catherine now, I suspect that she entered the relationship with the best intention in the world, including the intention to make it work.
But life is not always available to be managed (or ordered around) in the ways that we most want. We make all kinds of decisions and choices. We make them to the best of our ability. And some of them then turn out to be disasterous. Or are they?
One of the exercises I sometimes use in my spiritual development workshops invites people to reflect on seven key situations that have supported their spiritual growth. participants take a long time to draw and write on seperate sheets about these situations. Then i invite them to reflect on seven situations that were unwelcomed, tough even shaming and to write and draw about each of those. Each person ends up with fourteen sheets of paper on whih there are clear images of those sets of events. And that's when notions of 'good' and 'bad' begin to break open. 'Welcome' and 'unwelcome' may still be reasonable distinctions, but there has never been any person in any workshop who did not express deep gratitude for what the accumulation of experiences has given them. Many say how much they have gained from the second group of experiences also - and that one set of experiences could not exist without the other.
When we are deep inside a difficult situation, it's quite natural that we would wish it away. And after it's over, we probably still wish that it never happened. But our mistakes are also part of who we are, they are also out teachers - if we let them.
The person who has not been humbled and bewildered cannot know compassion. The person who has not been afraid has no reason to seek and find courage.
Catherine asks: Do our fears ever really leave us, or do we have to live around them forever?
And I would answer: we can learn to be less afraid of fear - especially by meeting it with love. Sometimes fear is an ally; warning us of dangerous situations. Even when it's not the case, and what we are fearing lies more within us that outside us, we can learn to ask: what is fear teaching me here? where is it taking me? If I look deeply into the heart of fear - if I look at fear fearlessly -what will it become? I like catherine's question, what would I do if I were'nt afraid? Yet I would like to add another: what does this situation need, whether I am afraid or not?


Life and soul essentials - stephanie dorwick

[fibiray]

I found this reading had instigated memories of an event that happened to me a number of years ago. I was living in public housing at the time on the south coast and had been sober 8 yrs. I had had a difficult time down there because many of the neighbours in the close knit complex had drug or alcohol problems, there were neglected kids and the straight out deviats living as neighbours. We were like the addams family because we did these bizaar things like have our child inside at 5pm, sat him down to a family dinner, did homework with him and so forth while the other kids were simply left in the streets to run amok. Several months before we moved out of the complex I had been subjected to some rather cruel, savage and vicious gossip that was based upon some incorrect assumptions made by a few of the people who felt threatened by my sobriety and home life. (I don't say this with any ego attached). Before I knew it the whole district had heard this rumour and had drawn a conclusion that it was true because there were certain persons that wanted to believe the worst in me. Under the belief that I was "allegedly" having an affair on my husband with an unsavoury character that lived next door I was overwhlemed on how to deal with the situation. At the time I was at the most vulnerablest time of my life having not long undergone a hysterectomy, a gall bladder operation, numerous minor surgeries, a liver biopsy and was at the time undergoing treatment for hep c I simply had not defense against this gossip, innuendo and hearsay. In hindsight there possibly and indication that something like this was going to happened and I could have put up some boundaries but because I was in no state i didn't see. I was under the care of a psychologist at the time and had mentioned the situation to her. So peeved about the situation and having no skills to be able to deal with it I had resorted to old behaviour to deal with it. It was at this point that hubby and I had decided to move out of the complex and return to the central coast. At the time we simply allowed the gossip to continue without repsonding to it. We didn't confirm or deny they rumours which seemed to fuel this situation further. People began to knowck on our front door for information. i was followed to the shopping center in the hope of running into me andfinding out more. It was pathetic the extremes that some of these women would go just to find out what was going on when there was nothing going on but in their own heads. In the end we (hubby and I) started generating gossip around that was completely untrue as a means of playing them and deflecting their attention away from the fact that we were actually moving. We told everyone that we were splitting up and that hubby was to move out on the 10th. The atmosphere you could cut like a knife. What they didn't know was that I was moving out also and that had done so several days before hand. Hubby was so angry at the ones that had annihilated me with this sort of gossip. We sol everything off and managed and didn't pay our rent for a month before hand so that we could afford to move. After we had left most of the gossipers who had partaken in the spreading of these rumours had egg on their face to find that they were wrong and that there was no affair at all just their grubby little minds. I know a few of them felt quite guilty over the situation, while others remain completely arrogant by still believing the rumours that went around about me.
The odl survival skills came out for me and I survived the best way I knew how at the time. I guess the biggest fear I had at the time is other people's opinions of me. If people want to believe the wrost about me then that is their stuff. Might I add that I did nothing to attract this sort of talk as I for the most part been bed ridden after the numerous surgical procedure that I had been through, I simply was just another one of their victims. It would have happened to another person. I have come to the conclusion that I am powerless over what anyone thinks of me and their belief of the worst in me is their reflection of themselves. My real friends know me intimately and are supportive of me and know what sort of character I am. For sometime afterwards I had suffered terribly from resentment, anger and trying to convince many that the rumours were not true. In the end I let people believe what they want to believe as they are going to do so anyway. In hindsight even if I had the skills to set up boundaries and diffuse situations by standing up for myself I am not sure whether I would have done anything differently. Ironically I had to be dishonest for the sake of my sanity and sobriety as there is now real right way of dealing with people that have distorted perceptions and thinking. thats me

[flickchic]

I have come to the conclusion that I am powerless over what anyone thinks of me and their belief of the worst in me is their reflection of themselves. My real friends know me intimately and are supportive of me and know what sort of character I am. For sometime afterwards I had suffered terribly from resentment, anger and trying to convince many that the rumours were not true. In the end I let people believe what they want to believe as they are going to do so anyway:117: :121:

Something that Jan shared with me a couple of days ago that I thought was appropriate for this Fi;
Everything in life is a paradox. The less you care whether you get approval, the more you get. From Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
:1: :D




Sometimes when I'm afraid and want to move forward, I ask myself the useful question, What would I do if I were'nt afraid? And I try to take my own advice.
:120: this is very good advice I feel and something I will place in "my toolbox", AND: try and remember to USE it next I feel afraid to move forward.:wink:

[fibiray]

everything in life is a paradox, the less you care about getting approval the more you get. How profound thanks for sharing that flick.

Fi
xxx