A-Z of Emotions : B for Brave
I have been blessed with a good life. My 29 years of existence has had its share of adventures and overcoming difficulties. I have immigrated to a new country at age of 13 (India → Canada), had to learn a new second language in a school year (French), travelled Europe solo multiple times, taken up odd volunteer jobs on my own such as working at a music festival in Norway or English immersion camp in Poland where I didn’t know a single soul. Point is, I have put myself in daunting situations and come out of the other side alive. Hurray me right?
Wrong.
I do have one (among many) fear that is PARALYZING. I have had to compromise my values sometimes as a result of this. Succumbing to the fear has lowered my self-esteem. It is bad, really bad.
You gonna tell us already? What is it?
Fear of rejection and abandonment
Psychologically speaking, the fear stems from the belief that you won’t be accepted for who you are. This influences your daily decisions, and makes you do things differently than normal. This fear has impacted my friendship and relationship prospects. How? Well, I am glad you asked. Below are some examples.
In high school, I had to force myself to go to parties full of drugs and booze , so I didn’t get dumped by a ‘close’ friend. (I didn’t partake in the drugs). I tried to (unsuccessfully) grow emo hair to fit in with my high school band. In university, I took an elective class in Film Making because a girl I had a crush on asked me to, even though I had no interest in film making. I had to be in favour of the war in Afghanistan to keep a best friend. I worked three jobs through second year university to save up money and go see a girl in Poland in depressing winter because I wanted her to like me. An ex-girlfriend forced me to go to a Rascal Flatts concert with her. I hate country music.
All of this for what? Because I didn’t want to be rejected and abandoned.
The trouble with caving into this fear is I felt like shit after. A sense of guilt and self-dissatisfaction lingered around, as I did things to please others, even if I didn’t want to. The saddest thing is that the people that are mentioned above who I was trying to please are no longer in my life.
Your post is titled ‘brave’. Is that part coming up soon?
Experience is the best teacher. Over time, I realized that, those who I have to go out of my way to please, aren’t worth my time. I will not claim that I am completely over my fear. But, I do remember a critical moment where I showed my first signs of bravery in facing this fear. Let me set up the scene.
Summer 2014. I had finally graduated from university. My best friend at the time, let’s call her Tiffany, was supposed to be at the graduation. Tiffany was my only close friend from high school. After high school, our lives had gone separate ways. She was busy with university, while I had taken a gap year instead (which ended up being 3 years). Even though we lived in the same city, we would only meet up once a month or less. Though, when we did, it was as if no time had passed. It was life as usual.
However, in recent years, our lives had drifted further apart. She had moved to Alberta for law school. There would be months where I wouldn’t hear from her. I would send weekly text messages, but wouldn’t get a response until a week later. I kept giving a lot into this friendship, without any reciprocation. I never brought up to her how I felt, fearing that confronting her would make her mad and I would lose a best friend.
It was graduation day, and I didn’t see Tiffany. She had promised to be there. We were supposed to meet outside the Convocation Hall (University of Toronto) for pictures. While this day wasn’t monumental for me, but I wanted to celebrate it with her. Maybe after, we could go for a coffee, and get caught up. I hadn’t seen her in a year, and barely talked. This could have mended it all.
Tiffany wasn’t there. She wasn’t responding to my messages. I wondered if something urgent had come up. What if it had slipped her mind? But, a promise is promise. For once, I wished she could have prioritized me in her life. I did that for her many times. Sending her birthday cards in the mail, reaching out to her weekly, cancelling my plans whenever she was in the city and had time for me, and so on. That is what best friends do, right?
She responded later in the day with ‘sorry Nilabjo, I couldn’t come. Something came up. I had to …’. It wasn’t an emergency. I was again number two in her life . Gathering strength from every fibre in my body, I called her, and unleashed a rant. This was a first in our friendship. But, the graduation absence was my breaking point. I was tired of trying to please her, without any returns. My final words were:
“I am sorry Tiff, I can’t do this anymore. Our friendship is over”, and I hung up.
I had this sudden rush of emotions I had never felt before.There were tears from sadness of losing a best friend. Yet, there was huge sigh of relief and joy from confronting her. And I was embarrassed because this was all going down in a busy Starbucks line. But, I did it. I faced a fear and went through with it. Would you call that bravery? I would.
Like I said before, I am not totally over this fear. I still do questionable things at times to please people. But, I have gotten a lot more comfortable with being alone. I am more comfortable to cut ties with people who don’t add value to my life. I don’t chase relationships that are not fulfilling. I have rediscovered my self-identity. All of that is a result of that pivotal moment.
I thought bravery meant doing superhero things
Bravery does come with an inherent nuance of of achieving something monumental. But, to me, being brave, as the definition above suggest, is having the courage to go through difficult situations. It could be something larger than life like surviving war as a soldier or could be something trivial like saying no to an unhappy relationship. It comes in all different sizes.
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