Fear
Nov 20, 09- (by Mama MPJ)
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I’ve been working through the 12 Steps again, more slowly this time than my last time through. This week, I worked through an exercise where I looked at patterns of compulsive behavior in my life and I was struck (again) by how powerfully my life is dominated by fear and by how much I react from a place of fear.
I’ve engaged in everything from shoplifting to underage drinking to unprotected sex out of fear that I wouldn’t fit in, that I wouldn’t be liked, that I would be rejected. I overeat out of fear. I stay in relationships and run from relationships out of fear. I don’t exercise out of fear. I deprive myself of sleep out of fear. I spend money out of fear. I even read novels out of fear.
Sometimes I don’t know the fear is there unless I look for it; it’s just a dark guiding hand behind my actions. Sometimes, the fear grips me, so tightly and unreasonably that it’s impossible to see anything else. But it is the first type of fear — the one I don’t recognize, yet allow to direct me — that I find is most dangerous for me.
Through my recovery work, I’ve begun to recognize fear more readily and to start replacing it with faith. Working this Step again has reminded me that this is a journey and a process during which I need to remain vigilant. Fear is constantly by my side, taking the wheel whenever it has the chance.
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Unavoidable; must be seen. Fear is always the face of ego. Keep going!
I’ve often called fear my “default HP”, because so often it is where I turn over my will and my life. I like the idea of thinking of fear as this lurking presence that is always there waiting for the chance to take the wheel; it reminds me that I cannot be complacent in working the steps, because that’s when fear has the advantage.
Yep!!!!!!! I started a post last week that I never finished, called “Fears and Resentments.” Muah!
“(Fear is) just a dark guiding hand behind my actions.” Mama MPJ–what an acute observation re FEAR! As a kid (age 25–grin) I used to brag to one-and-all how I feared NOTHING, even death…or God. (Whew!) And those words I now understand were born from the very feeling I was denying!
Oh God, save me (us) from our fear, relieve us from all unnecessary anxiety. “…and the Angel said, “FEAR NOT!
Thank you Mama mpj for this fine review lesson on fear!