What I Have Learned About Fear
I’ve always thought of myself as fearless in so many ways. Attached what made me feel afraid to what came from the outside as an attack. Things or people that could hurt me or kill me. To fantasies of things that I’ve seen play in movies or on crime TV shows.
I hosted a Dinner Confidential virtual gathering a couple weeks ago with the topic of Discussing Fear, where we gathered to chat about the things that made us feel afraid. I joined knowing that I was pretty fearless and left understanding that, in fact, in some way, I am actually afraid most of the time.
Through shared stories of what we related to as our own fear, I found reflections of myself in the words of everyone else. I began digesting their experiences in a way that challenged me to question my own. There were several things that I related to in a bigger way than I original imagined I would, but the thing that stuck out to me most was the depth of fear I’d been living with blindly.
I’ve never once called it fear, I’ve always called it anxiety.
It feels less scary when I phrase it that way. To think about the things that have made me feel weak in the knees with discomfort or put my stomach in knots with this worry being connected to fear seemed unfathomable. Dramatic. Over the top.
