Recovery Meditations: October 24th

FEAR

"Fear is not created by the world around us,
but in the mind, by what we think is going to happen."
Elizabeth Gawain



There are different kinds of fear. Certain fears are good, because they help preserve our lives. Babies, for example, have a fear of falling. It just seems to be a natural instinct. Any fear that protects us from harming ourselves is a good fear.

However, when fear becomes an obsession, it is getting out of hand. Why do we go looking for trouble? There is a saying, "Don't let clouds of fear of the morrow hide today's sunshine." We can get so anxious about what's going to happen in the future that we don't enjoy living today.

Life is a precious gift to be lived one day at a time, and is to be shared with others.

One Day at a Time . . .
This is how I will live my life: One day at a time, one moment at a time, sharing my precious gift with another through Twelve Step giving.

Lizzie

My Certified Health Coach Website

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I was tutored in Fear as a child, by a mother who was tutored in Fear by her mother.  When it rained, they were herded into the cellar to hide out in fear while they waited for the storm to pass. Such a cycle of dysfunction is passed on through the generations until one day, someone says ENOUGH.

I said ENOUGH when I was old enough to form my own thought patterns. I was able to SEE, thank God, the dysfunction of fear, and to avoid buying into it. I couldn't open my bedroom window at night to let some air in, because 'someone would sneak in and kill me' during the night. We had no a/c, so every night I would sweat bullets rather than take the 'risk' of opening my window a crack. I knew darn well no boogie man was going to kill me, but I had to obey the rules, no matter how ridiculous they were.

Everyone was 'jealous' of me and out to 'get me'.  There were no such thing as 'friends'............ONLY family cared about me and loved me, everyone else had ulterior motives.  I was tutored to distrust everyone, and to be suspicious of them, no matter HOW 'nice' they were to me.

I remember my mother hiding in the closet when she was stressed out, which was often.  Fear prevented her from functioning, and that was a sad thing, for HER and for me.  As an only child, I felt the need to make her happy, which was an exercise in futility.

It's taken me 5 decades to break the cycle within myself, and 3 decades to break the Fear cycle with my kids. When my kids were born, I vowed to never make them afraid.  I allowed them to grow up in an environment of peace, instead. Not that I was the perfect mother..........I wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, since I was dealing with addictions & demons of my own the entire time.  But what I DID give my kids was the gift of independence and the faith that they COULD rely on themselves, no matter what. They are both thriving young adults today, living on their own, and functioning beautifully, thank God.

For today, I will life my life one day at a time, one moment at a time, sharing my precious gift with others through 12-Step giving.